Graham perceived that he was no longer encompassed by people, that he was standing upon a little temporary platform of white metal, part of a flimsy seeming scaffolding that laced about the great mass of the Council House.  Over all the huge expanse of the ruins swayed and eddied the shouting people; and here and there the black banners of the revolutionary societies ducked and swayed and formed rare nuclei of organisation in the chaos.  Up the steep stairs of wall and scaffolding by which his rescuers had reached the opening in the Atlas Chamber clung a solid crowd, and little energetic black figures clinging to pillars and projections were strenuous to induce these congested, masses to stir.  Behind him, at a higher point on the scaffolding, a number of men struggled upwards with the flapping folds of a huge black standard.  Through the yawning gap in the walls below him he could look down upon the packed attentive multitudes in the Hall of the Atlas.  The distant flying stages to the south came out bright and vivid, brought nearer as it seemed by an unusual translucency of the air.  A solitary monoplane beat up from the central stage as if to meet the coming aeroplanes.

“What has become of Ostrog?” asked Graham, and even as he spoke he saw that all eyes were turned from him towards the crest of the Council House building.  He looked also in this direction of universal attention.  For a moment he saw nothing but the jagged corner of a wall, hard and clear against the sky.  Then in the shadow he perceived the interior of a room and recognised with a start the green and white decorations of his former prison.  And coming quickly across this opened room and up to the very verge of the cliff of the ruins came a little white clad figure followed by two other smaller seeming figures in black and yellow.  He heard the man beside him exclaim “Ostrog,” and turned to ask a question.  But he never did, because of the startled exclamation of another of those who were with him and a lank finger suddenly pointing.  He looked, and behold! the monoplane that had been rising from the flying stage when last he had looked in that direction, was driving towards them.  The swift steady flight was still novel enough to hold his attention.

Nearer it came, growing rapidly larger and larger, until it had swept over the further edge of the ruins and into view of the dense multitudes below.  It drooped across the space and rose and passed overhead, rising to clear the mass of the Council House, a filmy translucent shape with the solitary aeronaut peering down through its ribs.  It vanished beyond the skyline of the ruins.

Graham transferred his attention to Ostrog.  He was signalling with his hands, and his attendants were busy breaking down the wall beside him.  In another moment the monoplane came into view again, a little thing far away, coming round in a wide curve and going slower.

Then suddenly the man in yellow shouted:  “What are they doing?  What are the people doing?  Why is Ostrog left there?  Why is he not captured?  They will lift him—­the monoplane will lift him!  Ah!”