ctive prospect.
There's no chance for the Council that way. Its days are done."

He laughed and turned to the oval reflection again to show Graham what
he meant by flying stages. Even the four nearer ones were remote and
obscured by a thin morning haze. But Graham could perceive they were
very vast structures, judged even by the standard of the things about
them.

And then as these dim shapes passed to the left there came again the
sight of the expanse across which the disarmed men in red had been
marching. And then the black ruins, and then again the beleaguered
white fastness of the Council. It appeared no longer a ghostly pile, but
glowing amber in the sunlight, for a cloud shadow had passed. About it
the pigmy struggle still hung in suspense, but now the red defenders
were no longer firing.

So, in a dusky stillness, the man from the nineteenth century saw the
closing scene of the great revolt, the forcible establishment of his
rule. With a quality of startling discovery it came to him that this
was his world, and not that other he had left behind; that this was no
spectacle to culminate and cease; that in this world lay whatever
life was still before him, lay all his duties and dangers and
responsibilities. He turned with fresh questions. Ostrog began to answer
them, and then broke off abruptly. "But these things I must explain more
fully later. At present there are--duties. The people are coming by the
moving ways towards this ward from every part of the city--the markets
and theatres are densely crowded. You are just in time for them. They
are clamouring to see you. And abroad they want to see you. Paris,
New York, Chicago, Denver, Capri--thousands of cities are up and in a
tumult, undecided, and clamouring to see you. They have clamoured that
you should be awakened for years, and now it is done they will scarcely
believe--"

"But surely--I can't go..."

Ostrog answered from the other side of the room, and the picture
on the oval disc paled and vanished as the light jerked back again.
"There are kinetotele-photographs," he said. "As you bow to the people
here--all over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still
in darkened halls, will see you also. In black and white, of course--not
like this. And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouting in
the hall.

"And there is an optical contrivance we shall use," said Ostrog, "used
by some of the posturers and women dancers. It may be novel