Graham tottered convulsively, gave a sobbing cry, a cry in spite of himself, and then, as the flying machine swept over them, fell forward into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the ropes with the clutch of death.  Something cracked, something rapped smartly against a wall.  He heard the pulley of the cradle hum on its rope.  He heard the aeronauts shout.  He felt a pair of knees digging into his back....  He was sweeping headlong through the air, falling through the air.  All his strength was in his hands.  He would have screamed but he had no breath.

He shot into a blinding light that made him grip the tighter.  He recognised the great passage with the running ways, the hanging lights and interlacing girders.  They rushed upward and by him.  He had a momentary impression of a great round mouth yawning to swallow him up.

He was in the dark again, falling, falling, gripping with aching hands, and behold! a clap of sound, a burst of light, and he was in a brightly lit hall with a roaring multitude of people beneath his feet.  The people!  His people!  A proscenium, a stage rushed up towards him, and his cable swept down to a circular aperture to the right of this.  He felt he was travelling slower, and suddenly very much slower.  He distinguished shouts of “Saved!  The Master.  He is safe!” The stage rushed up towards him with rapidly diminishing swiftness.  Then—­

He heard the man clinging behind him shout as if suddenly terrified, and this shout was echoed by a shout from below.  He felt that he was no longer gliding along the cable but falling with it.  There was a tumult of yells, screams, and cries.  He felt something soft against his extended hand, and the impact of a broken fall quivering through his arm....

He wanted to be still and the people were lifting him.  He believed afterwards he was carried to the platform and given some drink, but he was never sure.  He did not notice what became of his guide.  When his mind was clear again he was on his feet; eager hands were assisting him to stand.  He was in a big alcove, occupying the position that in his previous experience had been devoted to the lower boxes.  If this was indeed a theatre.

A mighty tumult was in his ears, a thunderous roar, the shouting of a countless multitude.  “It is the Sleeper!  The Sleeper is with us!”

“The Sleeper is with us!  The Master—­the Owner!  The Master is with us.  He is safe.”

Graham had a surging vision of a great hall crowded with people.  He saw no individuals, he was conscious of a froth of pink faces, of waving arms and garments, he felt the occult influence of a vast crowd pouring over him, buoying him up.  There were balconies, galleries, great archways giving remoter perspectives, and everywhere people, a vast arena of people, densely packed and cheering.  Across the nearer space lay the collapsed cable like a huge snake.  It had been cut by the men of the flying machine at its upper end, and had crumpled down into the hall.  Men seemed to be hauling this out of the way.  But the whole effect was vague, the very buildings throbbed and leapt with the roar of the voices.