ced them, the little flashes from
the green weapons became little jets of smoky grey while the light
lasted.

Abruptly the flare was extinguished and the ways were an inky darkness
once more, a tumultuous mystery.

He felt something thrusting against him. He was being pushed along the
gallery. Someone was shouting--it might be at him. He was too confused
to hear. He was thrust against the wall, and a number of people
blundered past him. It seemed to him that his guards were struggling
with one another.

Suddenly the cable-hung star-holder appeared again, and the whole scene
was white and dazzling. The band of red-coats seemed broader and nearer;
its apex was half-way down the ways towards the central aisle. And
raising his eyes Graham saw that a number of these men had also appeared
now in the darkened lower galleries of the opposite building, and were
firing over the heads of their fellows below at the boiling confusion of
people on the lower ways. The meaning of these things dawned upon him.
The march of the people had come upon an ambush at the very outset.
Thrown into confusion by the extinction of the lights they were now
being attacked by the red police. Then he became aware that he was
standing alone, that his guards and Lincoln were along the gallery in
the direction along which he had come before the darkness fell. He saw
they were gesticulating to him wildly, running back towards him. A great
shouting came from across the ways. Then it seemed as though the whole
face of the darkened building opposite was lined and speckled with
red-clad men. And they were pointing over to him and shouting. "The
Sleeper! Save the Sleeper!" shouted a multitude of throats.

Something struck the wall above his head. He looked up at the impact and
saw a star-shaped splash of silvery metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt
his arm gripped. Then, pat, pat; he had been missed twice.

For a moment he did not understand this. The street was hidden,
everything was hidden, as he looked. The second flare had burned out.

Lincoln had gripped Graham by the arm, was lugging him along the
gallery. "Before the next light!" he cried. His haste was contagious.
Graham's instinct of self-preservation overcame the paralysis of his
incredulous astonishment. He became for a time the blind creature of
the fear of death. He ran, stumbling because of the uncertainty of the
darkness, blundered into his guards as they turned to run with him.
Haste was