“Look!” and Ostrog pointed to a coil of black that crept in little jerks up the vacant flagstaff, unfolding as it rose.

The oval picture paled as Lincoln pulled the curtain aside and entered.

“They are clamorous,” he said.

Ostrog kept his grip of Graham’s arm.

“We have raised the people,” he said.  “We have given them arms.  For to-day at least their wishes must be law.”

Lincoln held the curtain open for Graham and Ostrog to pass through....

On his way to the markets Graham had a transitory glance of a long narrow white-walled room in which men in the universal blue canvas were carrying covered things like biers, and about which men in medical purple hurried to and fro.  From this room came groans and wailing.  He had an impression of an empty blood-stained couch, of men on other couches, bandaged and blood-stained.  It was just a glimpse from a railed footway and then a buttress hid the place and they were going on towards the markets....

The roar of the multitude was near now:  it leapt to thunder.  And, arresting his attention, a fluttering of black banners, the waving of blue canvas and brown rags, and the swarming vastness of the theatre near the public markets came into view down a long passage.  The picture opened out.  He perceived they were entering the great theatre of his first appearance, the great theatre he had last seen as a chequer-work of glare and blackness in his flight from the red police.  This time he entered it along a gallery at a level high above the stage.  The place was now brilliantly lit again.  His eyes sought the gangway up which he had fled, but he could not tell it from among its dozens of fellows; nor could he see anything of the smashed seats, deflated cushions, and such like traces of the fight because of the density of the people.  Except the stage the whole place was closely packed.  Looking down the effect was a vast area of stippled pink, each dot a still upturned face regarding him.  At his appearance with Ostrog the cheering died away, the singing died away, a common interest stilled and unified the disorder.  It seemed as though every individual of those myriads was watching him.

CHAPTER XIII

THE END OF THE OLD ORDER

So far as Graham was able to judge, it was near midday when the white banner of the Council fell.  But some hours had to elapse before it was possible to effect the formal capitulation, and so after he had spoken his “Word” he retired to his new apartments in the wind-vane offices.  The continuous excitement of the last twelve hours had left him inordinately fatigued, even his curiosity was exhausted; for a space he sat inert and passive with open eyes, and for a space he slept.  He was roused by two medical attendants, come prepared with stimulants to sustain him through the next occasion.  After he had taken their drugs and bathed by their advice in cold water, he felt a rapid return of interest and energy, and was presently able and willing to accompany Ostrog through several miles (as it seemed) of passages, lifts, and slides to the closing scene of the White Council’s rule.