plane.

"I can't see him _now_," said the second man in a tone of provocation.

The marksman became foul-mouthed and high-voiced in his earnest
endeavour to make things plain. And suddenly, interrupting him, came a
noisy shouting from the substage.

"What's going on now?" he said, and raised himself on one arm to survey
the stairheads in the central groove of the stage. A number of blue
figures were coming up these, and swarming across the stage.

"We don't want all these fools," said his friend. "They only crowd up and
spoil shots. What are they after?"

"Ssh!--they're shouting something."

The two men listened. The new-comers had crowded densely about the
machine. Three Ward Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles and
badges, clambered into the body and appeared above it. The rank and file
flung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until the
entire outline of the thing was manned, in some places three deep. One of
the marksmen knelt up. "They're putting it on the carrier--that's what
they're after."

He rose to his feet, his friend rose also. "What's the good?" said his
friend. "We've got no aeronauts."

"That's what they're doing anyhow." He looked at his rifle, looked at the
struggling crowd, and suddenly turned to the wounded man. "Mind these,
mate," he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a moment
he was running towards the monoplane. For a quarter of an hour he was
lugging, thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing was
done, and he stood with a multitude of others cheering their own
achievement. By this time he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew,
that the Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machine
himself, was coming even now to take control of it, would let no other
man attempt it.

"He who takes the greatest danger, he who bears the heaviest burden,
that man is King," so the Master was reported to have spoken. And even as
this man cheered, and while the beads of sweat still chased one another
from the disorder of his hair, he heard the thunder of a greater tumult,
and in fitful snatches the beat and impulse of the revolutionary song. He
saw through a gap in the people that a thick stream of heads still poured
up the stairway. "The Master is coming," shouted voices, "the Master is
coming," and the crowd about him grew denser and denser. He began to
thrust himself towards the central groove. "The Master is coming!" "The