, and the world was lit and glowing with the old familiar
light of day. In a little while he had recovered his breath. His
clothing had already dried upon him from the snow.

He wandered for miles along these twilight ways, speaking to no one,
accosted by no one--a dark figure among dark figures--the coveted man
out of the past, the inestimable unintentional owner of half the world.
Wherever there were lights or dense crowds, or exceptional excitement
he was afraid of recognition, and watched and turned back or went up and
down by the middle stairways, into some transverse system of ways at a
lower or higher level. And though he came on no more fighting, the
whole city stirred with battle. Once he had to run to avoid a marching
multitude of men that swept the street. Everyone abroad seemed involved.
For the most part they were men, and they carried what he judged were
weapons. It seemed as though the struggle was concentrated mainly in
the quarter of the city from which he came. Ever and again a distant
roaring, the remote suggestion of that conflict, reached his ears.
Then his caution and his curiosity struggled together. But his caution
prevailed, and he continued wandering away from the fighting--so far as
he could judge. He went unmolested, unsuspected through the dark. After
a time he ceased to hear even a remote echo of the battle, fewer and
fewer people passed him, until at last the Titanic streets became
deserted. The frontages of the buildings grew plain and harsh; he seemed
to have come to a district of vacant warehouses. Solitude crept upon
him--his pace slackened.

He became aware of a growing fatigue. At times he would turn aside
and seat himself on one of the numerous seats of the upper ways. But
a feverish restlessness, the knowledge of his vital implication in his
struggle, would not let him rest in any place for long. Was the struggle
on his behalf alone?

And then in a desolate place came the shock of an earthquake--a roaring
and thundering--a mighty wind of cold air pouring through the city,
the smash of glass, the slip and thud of falling masonry--a series of
gigantic concussions. A mass of glass and ironwork fell from the remote
roofs into the middle gallery, not a hundred yards away from him, and
in the distance were shouts and running. He, too, was startled to an
aimless activity, and ran first one way and then as aimlessly back.

A man came running towards him. His self-control returned. "What