ate a fearful tumult. Still this wish of yours to go
into this city--this idea of yours--. Yes, now I think the thing over, it
seems to me not altogether--. It can be contrived. If you would really
find an interest in that! You are, of course, Master. You can go soon if
you like. A disguise Asano will be able to manage. He would go with you.
After all it is not a bad idea of yours."

"You will not want to consult me in any matter?" asked Graham suddenly,
struck by an odd suspicion.

"Oh, dear no! No! I think you may trust affairs to me for a time, at any
rate," said Ostrog, smiling. "Even if we differ--"

Graham glanced at him sharply.

"There is no fighting likely to happen soon?" he asked abruptly.

"Certainly not."

"I have been thinking about these negroes. I don't believe the people
intend any hostility to me, and, after all, I am the Master. I do not
want any negroes brought to London. It is an archaic prejudice perhaps,
but I have peculiar feelings about Europeans and the subject races. Even
about Paris--"

Ostrog stood watching him from under his drooping brows. "I am not
bringing negroes to London," he said slowly. "But if--"

"You are not to bring armed negroes to London, whatever happens," said
Graham. "In that matter I am quite decided."

Ostrog resolved not to speak, and bowed deferentially.

CHAPTER XX

IN THE CITY WAYS

And that night, unknown and unsuspected, Graham, dressed in the costume
of an inferior wind-vane official keeping holiday, and accompanied by
Asano in Labour Department canvas, surveyed the city through which he had
wandered when it was veiled in darkness. But now he saw it lit and
waking, a whirlpool of life. In spite of the surging and swaying of the
forces of revolution, in spite of the unusual discontent, the mutterings
of the greater struggle of which the first revolt was but the prelude,
the myriad streams of commerce still flowed wide and strong. He knew now
something of the dimensions and quality of the new age, but he was not
prepared for the infinite surprise of the detailed view, for the torrent
of colour and vivid impressions that poured past him.

This was his first real contact with the people of these latter days. He
realised that all that had gone before, saving his glimpses of the public
theatres and markets, had had its element of seclusion, had been a
movement within the comparatively narrow political quarter, that all his
previous experiences had