y off along the gallery, making his way through
the press towards them. She saw him and turned to Graham strangely
eager, with a swift change to confidence and intimacy. "Sire," she said
quickly, "I cannot tell you now and here. But the common people are very
unhappy; they are oppressed--they are misgoverned. Do not forget the
people, who faced death--death that you might live."

"I know nothing--" began Graham.

"I cannot tell you now."

Lincoln's face appeared close to them. He bowed an apology to the girl.

"You find the new world pleasant, Sire?" asked Lincoln, with smiling
deference, and indicating the space and splendour of the gathering by
one comprehensive gesture. "At any rate, you find it changed."

"Yes," said Graham, "changed. And yet, after all, not so greatly
changed."

"Wait till you are in the air," said Lincoln. "The wind has fallen; even
now an aeropile awaits you."

The girl's attitude awaited dismissal.

Graham glanced at her face, was on the verge of a question, found a
warning in her expression, bowed to her and turned to accompany Lincoln.

CHAPTER XVI. THE AEROPHILE

For a while, as Graham went through the passages of the Wind-Vane
offices with Lincoln, he was preoccupied. But, by an effort, he attended
to the things which Lincoln was saying. Soon his preoccupation vanished.
Lincoln was talking of flying. Graham had a strong desire to know more
of this new human attainment. He began to ply Lincoln with questions.
He had followed the crude beginnings of aerial navigation very keenly in
his previous life; he was delighted to find the familiar names of
Maxim and Pilcher, Langley and Chanute, and, above all, of the aerial
proto-martyr Lillienthal, still honoured by men.

Even during his previous life two lines of investigation had pointed
clearly to two distinct types of contrivance as possible, and both of
these had been realised. On the one hand was the great engine-driven
aeroplane, a double row of horizontal floats with a big aerial screw
behind, and on the other the nimbler aeropile. The aeroplanes flew
safely only in a calm or moderate wind, and sudden storms, occurrences
that were now accurately predictable, rendered them for all practical
purposes useless. They were built of enormous size--the usual stretch
of wing being six hundred feet or more, and the length of the fabric a
thousand feet. They were for passenger traffic alone. The lightly swung
car they carried was from