must not come."

There was a pause and Ostrog looked him in the eyes.

"They will," he said.

"I forbid it," said Graham.

"They have started."

"I will not have it."

"No," said Ostrog. "Sorry as I am to follow the method of the Council--.
For your own good--you must not side with disorder. And now that you are
here--. It was kind of you to come here."

Lincoln laid his hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realized
the enormity of his blunder in coming to the Council House. He turned
towards the curtains that separated the hall from the antechamber.
The clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had
grasped Graham's cloak.

He turned and struck at Lincoln's face, and incontinently a negro
had him by collar and arm. He wrenched himself away, his sleeve tore
noisily, and he stumbled back, to be tripped by the other attendant.
Then he struck the ground heavily and he was staring at the distant
ceiling of the hall.

He shouted, rolled over, struggling fiercely, clutched an attendant's
leg and threw him headlong, and struggled to his feet.

Lincoln appeared before him, went down heavily again with a blow under
the point of the jaw and lay still. Graham made two strides, stumbled.
And then Ostrog's arm was round his neck, he was pulled over backward,
fell heavily, and his arms were pinned to the ground. After a few
violent efforts he ceased to struggle and lay staring at Ostrog's
heaving throat.

"You--are--a prisoner," panted Ostrog, exulting. "You--were rather a
fool--to come back."

Graham turned his head about and perceived through the irregular
green window in the walls of the hall the men who had been working the
building cranes gesticulating excitedly to the people below them. They
had seen!

Ostrog followed his eyes and started. He shouted something to Lincoln,
but Lincoln did not move. A bullet smashed among the mouldings above
the Atlas The two sheets of transparent matter that had been stretched
across this gap were rent, the edges of the torn aperture darkened,
curved, ran rapidly towards the framework, and in a moment the Council
chamber stood open to the air. A chilly gust blew in by the gap,
bringing with it a war of voices from the ruinous spaces without,
an elvish babblement, "Save the Master!" "What are they doing to the
Master?" "The Master is betrayed!"

And then he realised that Ostrog's attention was distracted, that
Ostrog's grip had relaxed, and, wrenching