, mingled with hoots and chords; it grew louder. The talking in the
carriage stopped. He heard a window thrown up, and the next instant a
car tore past, going back to the station although on the down line. This
must be looked into, thought Percy: something certainly was happening;
so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further
window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once
more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There
was a jerk--a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as
the carriage in which he was seated itself began to move backwards.

There was a clamour now in the next compartment, and Percy made his way
there through the door, only to find half-a-dozen men with their heads
thrust from the windows, who paid absolutely no attention to his
inquiries. So he stood there, aware that they knew no more than himself,
waiting for an explanation from some one. It was disgraceful, he told
himself, that any misadventure should so disorganise the line.

Twice the car stopped; each time it moved on again after a hoot or two,
and at last drew up at the platform whence it had started, although a
hundred yards further out.

Ah! there was no doubt that something had happened! The instant he
opened the door a great roar met his ears, and as he sprang on to the
platform and looked up at the end of the station, he began to
understand.

* * * * *

From right to left of the huge interior, across the platforms, swelling
every instant, surged an enormous swaying, roaring crowd. The flight of
steps, twenty yards broad, used only in cases of emergency, resembled a
gigantic black cataract nearly two hundred feet in height. Each car as
it drew up discharged more and more men and women, who ran like ants
towards the assembly of their fellows. The noise was indescribable, the
shouting of men, the screaming of women, the clang and hoot of the huge
machines, and three or four times the brazen cry of a trumpet, as an
emergency door was flung open overhead, and a small swirl of crowd
poured through it towards the streets beyond. But after one look Percy
looked no more at the people; for there, high up beneath the clock, on
the Government signal board, flared out monstrous letters of fire,
telling in Esperanto and English, the message for which England had
grown sick. He read it a dozen times before he moved, staring, as at a
supernatural sight which might denote