“Why?”

“Orders, Sire.”

“Whose orders?”

“Our orders, Sire.”

Graham looked his exasperation.

“What place is this?” he said presently.  “Who are those men?”

“They are the lords of the Council, Sire.”

“What Council?”

“The Council.”

“Oh!” said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other man, went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white, who stood watching him and whispering together.

The Council?  He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomer had arrived he had not observed.  They made no gestures of greeting; they stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men might have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly floated into view.  What council could it be that gathered there, that little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded from every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness?  And why should he be brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly?  Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished floor towards them.  As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar movements, apparently of a ceremonious nature.  Then he ascended the steps of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table.

Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation.  Occasionally, one of the white-robed men would glance towards him.  He strained his ears in vain.  The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated.  He glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants....  When he looked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head like a man who protests.  He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of the white-robed men rapping the table.

The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham’s sense.  His eyes rose to the still giant at whose feet the Council sat.  Thence they wandered to the walls of the hall.  It was decorated in long painted panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of them very beautiful.  These panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark metal, which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and the great structural lines of the interior.  The facile grace of these panels enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre of the scheme.  Graham’s eyes came back to the Council, and Howard was descending the steps.  As he drew nearer his features could be distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his cheeks.  His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared along the gallery.

“This way,” he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a little door that opened at their approach.  The two men in red stopped on either side of this door.  Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and looking at him.  Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and for the first time since his awakening he was in silence.  The floor, even, was noiseless to his feet.