CHAPTER XIII. THE END OF THE OLD ORDER
So far as Graham was able to judge, it was near midday when the whitebanner of the Council fell. But some hours had to elapse before it waspossible to effect the formal capitulation, and so after he had spokenhis "Word" he retired to his new apartments in the wind-vane offices.The continuous excitement of the last twelve hours had left himinordinately fatigued, even his curiosity was exhausted; for a space hesat inert and passive with open eyes, and for a space he slept. Hewas roused by two medical attendants, come prepared with stimulants tosustain him through the next occasion. After he had taken their drugsand bathed by their advice in cold water, he felt a rapid return ofinterest and energy, and was presently able and willing to accompanyOstrog through several miles (as it seemed) of passages, lifts, andslides to the closing scene of the White Council's rule.
The way ran deviously through a maze of buildings. They came at last toa passage that curved about, and showed broadening before him an oblongopening, clouds hot with sunset, and the ragged skyline of the ruinousCouncil House. A tumult of shouts came drifting up to him. In anothermoment they had come out high up on the brow of the cliff of tornbuildings that overhung the wreckage. The vast area opened to Graham'seyes, none the less strange and wonderful for the remote view he had hadof it in the oval mirror.
This rudely amphitheatral space seemed now the better part of a mile toits outer edge. It was gold lit on the left hand, catching the sunlight,and below and to the right clear and cold in the shadow. Above theshadowy grey Council House that stood in the midst of it, the greatblack banner of the surrender still hung in sluggish folds againstthe blazing sunset. Severed rooms, halls and passages gaped strangely,broken masses of metal projected dismally from the complex wreckage,vast masses of twisted cable dropped like tangled seaweed, and from itsbase came a tumult of innumerable voices, violent concussions, andthe sound of trumpets. All about this great white pile was a ring ofdesolation; the smashed and blackened masses, the gaunt foundations andruinous lumber of the fabric that had been destroyed by the Council'sorders, skeletons of girders, Titanic masses of wall, forests of stoutpillars. Amongst the sombre wreckage beneath, running water flashed andglistened, and far away across the space, out of the midst of a vaguevast mass of buildings, there thrust the twisted end of a water-main,two hundred feet in the air, thunderously spouting a shining cascade.And everywhere great multitudes of people.
Wherever there was space and foothold, people swarmed, little people,small and minutely clear, except where the sunset touched them toindistinguishable gold. They clambered up the tottering walls, theyclung in wreaths and groups about the high-standing pillars. Theyswarmed along the edges of the circle of ruins. The air was full oftheir shouting, and were pressing and swaying towards the central space.
The upper storeys of the Council House seemed deserted, not a humanbeing was visible. Only the drooping banner of the surrender hungheavily against the light. The dead were within the Council House, orhidden by the swarming people, or carried away. Graham could see onlya few neglected bodies in gaps and corners of the ruins, and amidst theflowing water.
"Will you let them see you, Sire?" said Ostrog. "They are very anxiousto see you."
Graham hesitated, and then walked forward to where the broken vergeof wall dropped sheer. He I stood looking down, a lonely, tall, blackfigure against the sky.
Very slowly the swarming ruins became aware of him. And as they did solittle bands of black-uniformed men appeared remotely, thrusting throughthe crowds towards the Council House. He saw little black heads becomepink, looking at him, saw by that means a wave of recognition sweepacross the space. It occurred to him that he should accord them somerecognition. He held up his arm, then pointed to the Council House anddropped his hand. The voices below became unanimous, gathered volume,came up to him as multitudinous wavelets of cheering.
The western sky was a pallid bluish green, and Jupiter shone high inthe south, before the capitulation was accomplished. Above was a slowinsensible change, the advance of night serene and beautiful; below washurry, excitement, conflicting orders, pauses, spasmodic developments oforganisation, a vast ascending clamour and confusion. Before the Councilcame out, toiling perspiring men, directed by a conflict of shouts,carried forth hundreds of those who had perished in the hand-to-handconflict within those long passages and chambers.
Guards in black lined the way that the Council would come, and as faras the eye could reach into the hazy blue twilight of the ruins, andswarming now at every possible point in the captured Council Houseand along the shattered cliff of its circumadjacent buildings, wereinnumerable people, and their voices even when they were not cheering,were as the soughing of the sea upon a pebble beach. Ostrog had chosena huge commanding pile of crushed and overthrown masonry, and on thisa stage of timbers and metal girders was being hastily constructed.Its essential parts were complete, but humming and clangorous machinerystill glared fitfully in the shadows beneath this temporary edifice.
The stage had a small higher portion on which Graham stood with Ostrogand Lincoln close beside him, a little in advance of a group of minorofficers. A broader lower stage surrounded this quarter deck, and onthis were the black-uniformed guards of the revolt armed with the littlegreen weapons whose very names Graham still did not know. Those standingabout him perceived that his eyes wandered perpetually from the swarmingpeople in the twilight ruins about him to the darkling mass of the WhiteCouncil House, whence the Trustees would presently come, and to thegaunt cliffs of ruin that encircled him, and so back to the people. Thevoices of the crowd swelled to a deafening tumult.
He saw the Councillors first afar off in the glare of one of thetemporary lights that marked their path, a little group of white figuresblinking in a black archway. In the Council House they had been indarkness. He watched them approaching, drawing nearer past first thisblazing electric star and then that; the minatory roar of the crowd overwhom their power had lasted for a hundred and fifty years marched alongbeside them. As they drew still nearer their faces came out weary, whiteand anxious. He saw them blinking up through the glare about him andOstrog. He contrasted their strange cold looks in the Hall of Atlas....Presently he could recognise several of them; the man who had rappedthe table at Howard, a burly man with a red beard, and onedelicate-featured, short, dark man with a peculiarly long skull. Henoted that two were whispering together and looking behind him atOstrog. Next there came a tall, dark and handsome man, walking downcast.Abruptly he glanced up, his eyes touched Graham for a moment, andpassed beyond him to Ostrog. The way that had been made for them was socontrived that they had to march past and curve about before they cameto the sloping path of planks that ascended to the stage where theirsurrender was to be made.
"The Master, the Master! God and the Master," shouted the people. "Tohell with the Council!" Graham looked at their multitudes, recedingbeyond counting into a shouting haze, and then at Ostrog beside him,white and steadfast and still. His eye went again to the little groupof White Councillors. And then he looked up at the familiar quiet starsoverhead. The marvellous element in his fate was suddenly vivid. Couldthat be his indeed, that little life in his memory two hundred yearsgone by--and this as well?