nner jerked its way to the right. He perceived
a blue-clad negro, a shrivelled woman in yellow, then a group of tall
fair-haired, white-faced, blue-clad men pushed theatrically past him.
He noted two Chinamen. A tall, sallow, dark-haired, shining-eyed youth,
white clad from top to toe, clambered up towards the platform shouting
loyally, and sprang down again and receded, looking backward. Heads,
shoulders, hands clutching weapons, all were swinging with those
marching cadences.

Faces came out of the confusion to him as he stood there, eyes met his
and passed and vanished. Men gesticulated to him, shouted inaudible
personal things. Most of the faces were flushed, but many were ghastly
white. And disease was there, and many a hand that waved to him was
gaunt and lean. Men and women of the new age! Strange and incredible
meeting! As the broad stream passed before him to the right, tributary
gangways from the remote uplands of the hall thrust downward in an
incessant replacement of people; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The unison
of the song was enriched and complicated by the massive echoes of arches
and passages. Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp,
tramp. The whole world seemed marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his
brain was tramping. The garments waved onward, the faces poured by more
abundantly.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; at Lincoln's pressure he turned towards the
archway, walking unconsciously in that rhythm, scarcely noticing his
movement for the melody and stir of it. The multitude, the gesture and
song, all moved in that direction, the flow of people smote downward
until the upturned faces were below the level of his feet. He was aware
of a path before him, of a suite about him, of guards and dignities, and
Lincoln on his right hand. Attendants intervened, and ever and again
blotted out the sight of the multitude to the left. Before him went the
backs of the guards in black--three and three and three. He was marched
along a little railed way, and crossed above the archway, with the
torrent dipping to flow beneath, and shouting up to him. He did not
know whither he went; he did not want to know. He glanced back across a
flaming spaciousness of hall. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

CHAPTER X. THE BATTLE OF THE DARKNESS

He was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery
overhanging one of the great streets of the moving platforms that
traversed the city. Before him and behi