hin. "Go
on," cried Howard, laying hands on him.

Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see
whence he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network of
cables and girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans of
windmills, and between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. Then
Howard had thrust him forward across the bridge, and he was in a little
narrow passage decorated with geometrical patterns.

"I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting.

"No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm.

"This way. You must go this way." And the men in red following them
seemed ready to enforce his orders.

Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeared
down the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that
had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found
himself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The
attendant in black and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutter
and stood waiting.

This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of people
in the central space, and at the opposite end a large and imposing
doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving a
glimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white men in
red and other negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about those
portals.

As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The
Sleeper," and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation.
They entered another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber,
and then he found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal that
passed round the side of the great hall he had already seen through the
curtains. He entered the place at the corner, so that he received
the fullest impression of its huge proportions. The black in the wasp
uniform stood aside like a well-trained servant, and closed the valve
behind him.

Compared with any of the places Graham had see thus far, this second
hall appeared to be decorate with extreme richness. On a pedestal at
the remote end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was a
gigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon his
bowed shoulders. It was the first thing to strike his attention, it was
so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for
this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place
was a s