ith his preconceptions of the struggle and confirmed the
old man's faith in Ostrog. It was only slowly he could bring himself
to believe that all these people were rejoicing at the defeat of the
Council, that the Council which had pursued him with such power and
vigour was after all the weaker of the two sides in conflict. And if
that was so, how did it affect him? Several times he hesitated on the
verge of fundamental questions. Once he turned and walked for a long
way after a little man of rotund inviting outline, but he was unable to
master confidence to address him.

It was only slowly that it came to him that he might ask for the
"wind-vane offices," whatever the "wind-vane offices" might be.
His first enquiry simply resulted in a direction to go on towards
Westminster. His second led to the discovery of a short cut in which
he was speedily lost. He was told to leave the ways to which he had
hitherto confined himself knowing no other means of transit--and
to plunge down one of the middle staircases into the blackness of a
crossway. 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 pallid 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