it has to do with me. Why, I don't know. Drugs?
It seems to me that while I have slept the world has gone mad. I have
gone mad."

"Who are those Councillors under the Atlas? Why should they try to drug
me?"

"To keep you insensible," said the man in yellow.

"To prevent your interference."

"But _why?_"

"Because _you_ are the Atlas, Sire," said the man in yellow. "The world
is on your shoulders. They rule it in your name."

The sounds from the hall had died into a silence threaded by one
monotonous voice. Now suddenly, trampling on these last words, came
a deafening tumult, a roaring and thundering, cheer crowded on cheer,
voices hoarse and shrill, beating, overlapping, and while it lasted the
people in the little room could not hear each other shout.

Graham stood, his intelligence clinging helplessly to the thing he had
just heard. "The Council," he repeated blankly, and then snatched at a
name that had struck him. "But who is Ostrog?" he said.

"He is the organiser--the organiser of the revolt. Our Leader--in your
name."

"In my name?--And you? Why is he not here?"

"He--has deputed us. I am his brother--his half-brother, Lincoln. He
wants you to show yourself to these people and then come on to him. That
is why he has sent. He is at the wind-vane offices directing. The people
are marching."

"In your name," shouted the younger man. "They have ruled, crushed,
tyrannised. At last even--"

"In my name! My name! Master?"

The younger man suddenly became audible in a pause of the outer thunder,
indignant and vociferous, a high penetrating voice under his red
aquiline nose and bushy moustache. "No one expected you to wake. No one
expected you to wake. They were cunning. Damned tyrants! But they were
taken by surprise. They did not know whether to drug you, hypnotise you,
kill you."

Again the hall dominated everything.

"Ostrog is at the wind-vane offices ready--. Even now there is a rumour
of fighting beginning."

The man who had called himself Lincoln came close to him. "Ostrog has it
planned. Trust him. We have our organisations ready. We shall seize the
flying stages--. Even now he may be doing that. Then--"

"This public theatre," bawled the man in yellow, "is only a contingent.
We have five myriads of drilled men--"

"We have arms," cried Lincoln. "We have plans. A leader. Their police
have gone from the streets and are massed in the--" (inaudible). "It
is now or never. The Council is ro