matters, in the administration of the Labour Companies, for example, they have been unwise.  They have given endless opportunities.  Already we of the popular party were agitating for reforms—­when your waking came.  Came!  If it had been contrived it could not have come more opportunely.”  He smiled.  “The public mind, making no allowance for your years of quiescence, had already hit on the thought of waking you and appealing to you, and—­Flash!”

He indicated the outbreak by a gesture, and Graham moved his head to show that he understood.

“The Council muddled—­quarrelled.  They always do.  They could not decide what to do with you.  You know how they imprisoned you?”

“I see.  I see.  And now—­we win?”

“We win.  Indeed we win.  To-night, in five swift hours.  Suddenly we struck everywhere.  The wind-vane people, the Labour Company and its millions, burst the bonds.  We got the pull of the aeroplanes.”

“Yes,” said Graham.

“That was, of course, essential.  Or they could have got away.  All the city rose, every third man almost was in it!  All the blue, all the public services, save only just a few aeronauts and about half the red police.  You were rescued, and their own police of the ways—­not half of them could be massed at the Council House—­have been broken up, disarmed or killed.  All London is ours—­now.  Only the Council House remains.

“Half of those who remain to them of the red police were lost in that foolish attempt to recapture you.  They lost their heads when they lost you.  They flung all they had at the theatre.  We cut them off from the Council House there.  Truly to-night has been a night of victory.  Everywhere your star has blazed.  A day ago—­the White Council ruled as it has ruled for a gross of years, for a century and a half of years, and then, with only a little whispering, a covert arming here and there, suddenly—­So!”

“I am very ignorant,” said Graham.  “I suppose—­I do not clearly understand the conditions of this fighting.  If you could explain.  Where is the Council?  Where is the fight?”

Ostrog stepped across the room, something clicked, and suddenly, save for an oval glow, they were in darkness.  For a moment Graham was puzzled.

Then he saw that the cloudy grey disc had taken depth and colour, had assumed the appearance of an oval window looking out upon a strange unfamiliar scene.

At the first glance he was unable to guess what this scene might be.  It was a daylight scene, the daylight of a wintry day, grey and clear.  Across the picture, and halfway as it seemed between him and the remoter view, a stout cable of twisted white wire stretched vertically.  Then he perceived that the rows of great wind-wheels he saw, the wide intervals, the occasional gulfs of darkness, were akin to those through which he had fled from the Council House.  He distinguished an orderly file of red figures marching