“They had.  But the greater part of the aeronauts were in the revolt with us.  They wouldn’t take the risk of fighting on our side, but they would not stir against us.  We had to get a pull with the aeronauts.  Quite half were with us, and the others knew it.  Directly they knew you had got away, those looking for you dropped.  We killed the man who shot at you—­an hour ago.  And we occupied the flying stages at the outset in every city we could, and so stopped and captured the greater aeroplanes, and as for the little flying machines that turned out—­for some did—­we kept up too straight and steady a fire for them to get near the Council House.  If they dropped they couldn’t rise again, because there’s no clear space about there for them to get up.  Several we have smashed, several others have dropped and surrendered, the rest have gone off to the Continent to find a friendly city if they can before their fuel runs out.  Most of these men were only too glad to be taken prisoner and kept out of harm’s way.  Upsetting in a flying machine isn’t a very attractive prospect.  There’s no chance for the Council that way.  Its days are done.”

He laughed and turned to the oval reflection again to show Graham what he meant by flying stages.  Even the four nearer ones were remote and obscured by a thin morning haze.  But Graham could perceive they were very vast structures, judged even by the standard of the things about them.

And then as these dim shapes passed to the left there came again the sight of the expanse across which the disarmed men in red had been marching.  And then the black ruins, and then again the beleaguered white fastness of the Council.  It appeared no longer a ghostly pile, but glowing amber in the sunlight, for a cloud shadow had passed.  About it the pigmy struggle still hung in suspense, but now the red defenders were no longer firing.

So, in a dusky stillness, the man from the nineteenth century saw the closing scene of the great revolt, the forcible establishment of his rule.  With a quality of startling discovery it came to him that this was his world, and not that other he had left behind; that this was no spectacle to culminate and cease; that in this world lay whatever life was still before him, lay all his duties and dangers and responsibilities.  He turned with fresh questions.  Ostrog began to answer them, and then broke off abruptly.  “But these things I must explain more fully later.  At present there are—­duties.  The people are coming by the moving ways towards this ward from every part of the city—­the markets and theatres are densely crowded.  You are just in time for them.  They are clamouring to see you.  And abroad they want to see you.  Paris, New York, Chicago, Denver, Capri—­thousands of cities are up and in a tumult, undecided, and clamouring to see you.  They have clamoured that you should be awakened for years, and now it is done they will scarcely believe—­”