in the central space before his eyes; a dense swaying
mass of people, and the shouts grew from a fitful crying

to a voluminous incessant clamour: "The Sleeper!"
The Sleeper!" and yells and cheers, a waving of garments

and cries of "Stop the ways!" They were also
crying another name strange to Graham. It sounded

like "Ostrog." The slower platforms were soon thick
with active people, running against the movement so

as to keep themselves opposite to him.
"Stop the ways," they cried. Agile figures ran up

swiftly from the centre to the swift road nearest to him,
were borne rapidly past him, shouting strange,

unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to the central
way. One thing he distinguished: "It is indeed the

Sleeper. It is indeed the Sleeper," they testified.
For a space Graham stood without a movement.

Then he became vividly aware that all this concerned
him. He was pleased at his wonderful popularity, he

bowed, and, seeking a gesture of longer range, waved
his arm. He was astonished at the violence of uproar

that this provoked. The tumult about the descending
stairway rose to furiousviolence. He became aware

of crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of
men in trapeze-like seats hurling athwart the space.

He heard voices behind him, a number of people
descending the steps through the archway; he suddenly

perceived that his guardian Howard was back
again and gripping his arm painfully, and shouting

inaudibly in his ear.
He turned, and Howard's face was white. "Come

back," he heard. "They will stop the ways. The
whole city will be in confusion."

He perceived a number of men hurrying along the
passage of blue pillars behind Howard, the red-haired

man, the man with the flaxen beard, a tall man in vivid
vermilion, a crowd of others in red carrying staves, and

all these people had anxious eager faces.
"Get him away," cried Howard.

"But why?" said Graham. "I don't see--"
"You must come away!" said the man in red in a

resolute voice. His face and eyes were resolute, too.
Graham's glances went from face to face, and he was

suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavour in
life, compulsion. Some one gripped his arm....

He was being dragged away. It seemed as though the
tumult suddenly became two, as if half the shouts that

had come in from this wonderful roadway had sprung
into the passages of the great building behind him.

Marvelling and confused, feeling an impotent desire
to resist, Graham was half led, half thrust, along the

passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he found himself
alone with Howard in a lift and moving swiftly

upward.
CHAPTER VI

THE HALL OF THE ATLAS
From the moment when the tailor had bowed his

farewell to the moment when Graham found himself
in the lift, was altogetherbarely five minutes. And

as yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about
him, as yet the initial strangeness of his being alive

at all in this remote age touched everything with wonder,
with a sense of the irrational, with something of

the quality of a realistic dream. He was still detached,
an astonished spectator, still but half involved in life.

What he had seen, and especially the last crowded
tumult, framed in the setting of the balcony, had a

spectacular turn, like a thing witnessed from the box
of a theatre. "I don't understand," he said. "What

was the trouble? My mind is in a whirl. Why were
they shouting? What is the danger?"

"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes
avoided Graham's enquiry. "This is a time of unrest.

And, in fact, your appearance, your waking just now,
has a sort of connexion--"

He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his
breathing. He stopped abruptly.

"I don't understand," said Graham.
"It will be clearer later," said Howard.

He glanced uneasilyupward, as though he found the
progress of the lift slow.

"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have
seen my way about a little," said Graham puzzled. "It.

will be--it is bound to be perplexing. At present it is
all so strange. Anything seems possible. Anything

In the details even. Your counting, I understand, is
different."

The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow
but very long passage between high walls, along

which ran an extraordinary number of tubes and big
cables.

"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it
all one building? What place is it?"

"This is one of the city ways for various public
services. Light and so forth."

"Was it a social trouble--that--in the great
roadway place? How are you governed? Have you

still a police?"
"Several," said Howard.

"Several? "
"About fourteen."

"I don't understand."
"Very probably not. Our social order will probably

seem very complex to you. To tell you the truth, I
don't understand it myself very clearly. Nobody does.

You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to
the Council."

Graham's attention was divided between the urgent
necessity of his inquiries and the people in the

passages and halls they were traversing. For a moment
his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and

the halting answers he made, and then he would lose
the thread in response to some vivid unexpected

impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the
people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale

blue canvas that had been so abundant in the aisle of
moving ways did not appear. Invariably these men

looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as they
passed.

He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor,
and there were a number of girls sitting on low seats

and as though in a class. He saw no teacher, but only
a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice proceeded.

The girls regarded him and his conductor, he
thought, with curiosity and astonishment. But he was

hurried on before he could form a clear idea of the