air was full of
their shouting, and were pressing and swaying towards the central space.

The upper storeys of the Council House seemed deserted, not a human
being was visible. Only the drooping banner of the surrender hung
heavily against the light. The dead were within the Council House, or
hidden by the swarming people, or carried away. Graham could see only
a few neglected bodies in gaps and corners of the ruins, and amidst the
flowing water.

"Will you let them see you, Sire?" said Ostrog. "They are very anxious
to see you."

Graham hesitated, and then walked forward to where the broken verge
of wall dropped sheer. He I stood looking down, a lonely, tall, black
figure against the sky.

Very slowly the swarming ruins became aware of him. And as they did so
little bands of black-uniformed men appeared remotely, thrusting through
the crowds towards the Council House. He saw little black heads become
pink, looking at him, saw by that means a wave of recognition sweep
across the space. It occurred to him that he should accord them some
recognition. He held up his arm, then pointed to the Council House and
dropped 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 in
the south, before the capitulation was accomplished. Above was a slow
insensible change, the advance of night serene and beautiful; below was
hurry, excitement, conflicting orders, pauses, spasmodic developments of
organisation, a vast ascending clamour and confusion. Before the Council
came out, toiling perspiring men, directed by a conflict of shouts,
carried forth hundreds of those who had perished in the hand-to-hand
conflict within those long passages and chambers.

Guards in black lined the way that the Council would come, and as far
as the eye could reach into the hazy blue twilight of the ruins, and
swarming now at every possible point in the captured Council House
and along the shattered cliff of its circumadjacent buildings, were
innumerable people, and their voices even when they were not cheering,
were as the soughing of the sea upon a pebble beach. Ostrog had chosen
a huge commanding pile of crushed and overthrown masonry, and on this
a stage of timbers and metal girders was being hastily constructed.
Its essential parts were complete, but humming and clangorous machinery
still glared fitfully in the shadows