tly. "For that matter, men are dying in London," he
said.

There was a moment's silence.

"Where do these sleep?" asked Graham.

"Above and below--an intricate warren."

"And where do they work? This is--the domestic life."

"You will see little work to-night. Half the workers are out or under
arms. Half these people are keeping holiday. But we will go to the work
places if you wish it."

For a time Graham watched the dancers, then suddenly turned away. "I want
to see the workers. I have seen enough of these," he said.

Asano led the way along the gallery across the dancing hall. Presently
they came to a transverse passage that brought a breath of fresher,
colder air.

Asano glanced at this passage as they went past, stopped, went back to
it, and turned to Graham with a smile. "Here, Sire," he said, "is
something--will be familiar to you at least--and yet--. But I will not
tell you. Come!"

He led the way along a closed passage that presently became cold. The
reverberation of their feet told that this passage was a bridge. They
came into a circular gallery that was glazed in from the outer weather,
and so reached a circular chamber which seemed familiar, though Graham
could not recall distinctly when he had entered it before. In this was a
ladder--the first ladder he had seen since his awakening--up which they
went, and came into a high, dark, cold place in which was another almost
vertical ladder. This they ascended, Graham still perplexed.

But at the top he understood, and recognised the metallic bars to which
he clung. He was in the cage under the ball of St. Paul's. The dome rose
but a little way above the general contour of the city, into the still
twilight, and sloped away, shining greasily under a few distant lights,
into a circumambient ditch of darkness.

Out between the bars he looked upon the wind-clear northern sky and saw
the starry constellations all unchanged. Capella hung in the west, Vega
was rising, and the seven glittering points of the Great Bear swept
overhead in their stately circle about the Pole.

He saw these stars in a clear gap of sky. To the east and south the great
circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens, so
that the glare about the Council House was hidden. To the southwest hung
Orion, showing like a pallid ghost through a tracery of iron-work and
interlacing shapes above a dazzling coruscation of lights. A bellowing
and siren screaming that came f