e of the
middle staircases into the blackness of a cross-way. Thereupon came some
trivial adventures; chief of these an ambiguous encounter with a
gruff-voiced invisible creature speaking in a strange dialect that seemed
at first a strange tongue, a thick flow of speech with the drifting
corpses of English Words therein, the dialect of the latter-day vile.
Then another voice drew near, a girl's voice singing, "tralala tralala."
She spoke to Graham, her English touched with something of the same
quality. She professed to have lost her sister, she blundered needlessly
into him he thought, caught hold of him and laughed. But a word of vague
remonstrance sent her into the unseen again.

The sounds about him increased. Stumbling people passed him, speaking
excitedly. "They have surrendered!" "The Council! Surely not the
Council!" "They are saying so in the Ways." The passage seemed wider.
Suddenly the wall fell away. He was in a great space and people were
stirring remotely. He inquired his way of an indistinct figure. "Strike
straight across," said a woman's voice. He left his guiding wall, and in
a moment had stumbled against a little table on which were utensils of
glass. Graham's eyes, now attuned to darkness, made out a long vista with
tables on either side. He went down this. At one or two of the tables he
heard a clang of glass and a sound of eating. There were people then cool
enough to dine, or daring enough to steal a meal in spite of social
convulsion and darkness. Far off and high up he presently saw a pallid
light of a semi-circular shape. As he approached this, a black edge came
up and hid it. He stumbled at steps and found himself in a gallery. He
heard a sobbing, and found two scared little girls crouched by a railing.
These children became silent at the near sound of feet. He tried to
console them, but they were very still until he left them. Then as he
receded he could hear them sobbing again.

Presently he found himself at the foot of a staircase and near a wide
opening. He saw a dim twilight above this and ascended out of the
blackness into a street of moving ways again. Along this a disorderly
swarm of people marched shouting. They were singing snatches of the song
of the revolt, most of them out of tune. Here and there torches flared
creating brief hysterical shadows. He asked his way and was twice puzzled
by that same thick dialect. His third attempt won an answer he could
understand. He was two miles