The two men listened.  The new-comers had crowded densely about the machine.  Three Ward Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles and badges, clambered into the body and appeared above it.  The rank and file flung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until the entire outline of the thing was manned, in some places three deep.  One of the marksmen knelt up.  “They’re putting it on the carrier—­that’s what they’re after.”

He rose to his feet, his friend rose also.  “What’s the good?” said his friend.  “We’ve got no aeronauts.”

“That’s what they’re doing anyhow.”  He looked at his rifle, looked at the struggling crowd, and suddenly turned to the wounded man.  “Mind these, mate,” he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a moment he was running towards the monoplane.  For a quarter of an hour he was lugging, thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing was done, and he stood with a multitude of others cheering their own achievement.  By this time he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew, that the Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machine himself, was coming even now to take control of it, would let no other man attempt it.

“He who takes the greatest danger, he who bears the heaviest burden, that man is King,” so the Master was reported to have spoken.  And even as this man cheered, and while the beads of sweat still chased one another from the disorder of his hair, he heard the thunder of a greater tumult, and in fitful snatches the beat and impulse of the revolutionary song.  He saw through a gap in the people that a thick stream of heads still poured up the stairway.  “The Master is coming,” shouted voices, “the Master is coming,” and the crowd about him grew denser and denser.  He began to thrust himself towards the central groove.  “The Master is coming!” “The Sleeper, the Master!” “God and the Master!” roared the voices.

And suddenly quite close to him were the black uniforms of the revolutionary guard, and for the first and last time in his life he saw Graham, saw him quite nearly.  A tall, dark man in a flowing black robe he was, with a white, resolute face and eyes fixed steadfastly before him; a man who for all the little things about him had neither ears nor eyes nor thoughts....

For all his days that man remembered the passing of Graham’s bloodless face.  In a moment it had gone and he was fighting in the swaying crowd.  A lad weeping with terror thrust against him, pressing towards the stairways, yelling “Clear for the start, you fools!” The bell that cleared the flying stage became a loud unmelodious clanging.