this
place. He made his way slowly into the midst of this mass of people,
until he realised that the descending staircase of the central Way led
to the interior of the buildings. This gave him a goal, but the crowding
in the central path was so dense that it was long before he could reach
it. And even then he encountered intricate obstruction, and had an hour
of vivid argument first in this guard room and then in that before he
could get a note taken to the one man of all men who was most eager
to see him. His story was laughed to scorn at one place, and wiser for
that, when at last he reached a second stairway he professed simply to
have news of extraordinary importance for Ostrog. What it was he would
not say. They sent his note reluctantly. For a long time he waited in
a little room at the foot of the lift shaft, and thither at last came
Lincoln, eager, apologetic, astonished. He stopped in the doorway
scrutinising Graham, then rushed forward effusively.

"Yes," he cried. "It is you. And you are not dead!"

Graham made a brief explanation.

"My brother is waiting," explained Lincoln. "He is alone in the
wind-vane offices. We feared you had been killed in the theatre. He
doubted--and things are very urgent still in spite of what we are
telling them _there_--or he would have come to you."

They ascended a lift, passed along a narrow passage, crossed a
great hall, empty save for two hurrying messengers, and entered a
comparatively little room, whose only furniture was a long settee and a
large oval disc of cloudy, shifting grey, hung by cables from the wall.
There Lincoln left Graham for a space, and he remained alone without
understanding the shifting smoky shapes that drove slowly across this
disc.

His attention was arrested by a sound that began abruptly. It was
cheering, the frantic cheering of a vast but very remote crowd, a
roaring exultation. This ended as sharply as it had begun, like a sound
heard between the opening and shutting of a door. In the outer room was
a noise of hurrying steps and a melodious clinking as if a loose chain
was running over the teeth of a wheel.

Then he heard the voice of a woman, the rustle of unseen garments. "It
is Ostrog!" he heard her say. A little bell rang fitfully, and then
everything was still again.

Presently came voices, footsteps and movement without. The footsteps
of some one person detached itself from the other sounds and drew
near, firm, evenly measured steps