He perceived that the cries of “The Sleeper!” grew in volume, and that the people on the nearer platform were standing up.  The nearer platform he perceived was empty to the right of him, and far across the space the platform running in the opposite direction was coming crowded and passing away bare.  With incredible swiftness a vast crowd had gathered in the central space before his eyes; a dense swaying mass of people, and the shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminous incessant clamour:  “The Sleeper!  The Sleeper!” and yells and cheers, a waving of garments and cries of “Stop the Ways!” They were also crying another name strange to Graham.  It sounded like “Ostrog.”  The slower platforms were soon thick with active people, running against the movement so as to keep themselves opposite to him.

“Stop the Ways,” they cried.  Agile figures ran up from the centre to the swift road nearest to him, were borne rapidly past him, shouting strange, unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to the central way.  One thing he distinguished:  “It is indeed the Sleeper.  It is indeed the Sleeper,” they testified.

For a space Graham stood motionless.  Then he became vividly aware that all this concerned him.  He was pleased at his wonderful popularity, he bowed, and, seeking a gesture of longer range, waved his arm.  He was astonished at the violence of uproar that this provoked.  The tumult about the descending stairway rose to furious violence.  He became aware of crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of men in trapeze-like seats hurling athwart the space.  He heard voices behind him, a number of people descending the steps through the archway; he suddenly perceived that his guardian Howard was back again and gripping his arm painfully, and shouting inaudibly in his ear.

He turned, and Howard’s face was white.  “Come back,” he heard.  “They will stop the ways.  The whole city will be in confusion.”

He perceived a number of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillars behind Howard, the red-haired man, the man with the flaxen beard, a tall man in vivid vermilion, a crowd of others in red carrying staves, and all these people had anxious eager faces.

“Get him away,” cried Howard.

“But why?” said Graham.  “I don’t see—­”

“You must come away!” said the man in red in a resolute voice.  His face and eyes were resolute, too.  Graham’s glances went from face to face, and he was suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavour in life, compulsion.  Someone gripped his arm....

He was being dragged away.  It seemed as though the tumult suddenly became two, as if half the shouts that had come in from this wonderful roadway had sprung into the passages of the great building behind him.  Marvelling and confused, feeling an impotent desire to resist, Graham was half led, half thrust, along the passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he found himself alone with Howard in a lift and moving swiftly upward.