H. G. Wells The Sleeper Awakes

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But--"
Graham's exasperation fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried. "Preposterous. The dream must end. It
gets wilder and wilder. Here am I--in this damned twilight--I never knew a dream in twilight before--an
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anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that I am myself, and meanwhile--Ugh!"
He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment the old man was pursuing him. "Eh! but don't
go!" cried the old man. "I'm an old fool, I know. Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness."
Graham hesitated, stopped. Suddenly the folly of telling his secret flashed into his mind.
"I didn't mean to offend you--disbelieving you," said the old man coming near. "It's no manner of harm. Call
yourself the Sleeper if it pleases you. 'Tis a foolish trick--"
Graham hesitated, turned abruptly and went on his way.
For a time he heard the old man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy cries receding. But at last the darkness
swallowed him, and Graham saw him no more.
CHAPTER XII 68
CHAPTER XII
OSTROG
Graham could now take a clearer view of his position. For a long time yet he wandered, but after the talk of
the old man his discovery of this Ostrog was clear in his mind as the final inevitable decision. One thing was
evident, those who were at the headquarters of the revolt had succeeded very admirably in suppressing the fact
of his disappearance. But every moment he expected to hear the report of his death or of his recapture by the
Council.
Presently a man stopped before him. "Have you heard?" he said.
"No!" said Graham, starting.
"Near a dozand," said the man, "a dozand men!" and hurried on.
A number of men and a girl passed in the darkness, gesticulating and shouting: "Capitulated! Given up!" "A
dozand of men." "Two dozand of men." "Ostrog, Hurrah! Ostrog, Hurrah!" These cries receded, became
indistinct.
Other shouting men followed. For a time his attention was absorbed in the fragments of speech he heard. He
had a doubt whether all were speaking English. Scraps floated to him, scraps like Pigeon English, like
"nigger" dialect, blurred and mangled distortions. He dared accost no one with questions. The impression the
people gave him jarred altogether with 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 cross-way. 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 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 social convulsion and darkness. Far off and high up he presently saw a pallid light of a
semi-circular shape. As he approached this, a black edge came up and hid it. He stumbled at steps and found
himself in a gallery. He heard a sobbing, and found two scared little girls crouched by a railing. These
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children became silent at the near sound of feet. He tried to console them, but they were very still until he left
them. Then as he receded he could hear them sobbing again.
Presently he found himself at the foot of a staircase and near a wide opening. He saw a dim twilight above this
and ascended out of the blackness into a street of moving ways again. Along this a disorderly swarm of people
marched shouting. They were singing snatches of the song of the revolt, most of them out of tune. Here and
there torches flared creating brief hysterical shadows. He asked his way and was twice puzzled by that same
thick dialect. His third attempt won an answer he could understand. He was two miles from the wind-vane
offices in Westminster, but the way was easy to follow.
When at last he did approach the district of the wind-vane offices it seemed to him, from the cheering
processions that came marching along the Ways, from the tumult of rejoicing, and finally from the restoration
of the lighting of the city, that the overthrow of the Council must already be accomplished. And still no news
of his absence came to his ears.
The re-illumination of the city came with startling abruptness. Suddenly he stood blinking, all about him men
halted dazzled, and the world was incandescent. The light found him already upon the outskirts of the excited
crowds that choked the ways near the wind-vane offices, and the sense of visibility and exposure that came
with it turned his colourless intention of joining Ostrog to a keen anxiety.
For a time he was jostled, obstructed, and endangered by men hoarse and weary with cheering his name, some
of them bandaged and bloody in his cause. The frontage of the wind-vane offices was illuminated by some
moving picture, but what it was he could not see, because in spite of his strenuous attempts the density of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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