He said nothing. He began to tremble
violently. He looked sideways at the swift shadow that swallowed up the
sky as it rushed upon him.
"Jump! Jump--in God's name! Or they will have us," cried Graham's guide,
and in the violence of his passion thrust him forward.
Graham tottered convulsively, gave a sobbing cry, a cry in spite of
himself, and then, as the flying machine swept over them, fell forward
into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the
ropes with the clutch of death. Something cracked, something rapped
smartly against a wall. He heard the pulley of the cradle hum on its
rope. He heard the aeronauts shout. He felt a pair of knees digging into
his back.... He was sweeping headlong through the air, falling through
the air. All his strength was in his hands. He would have screamed but he
had no breath.
He shot into a blinding light that made him grip the tighter. He
recognised the great passage with the running ways, the hanging lights
and interlacing girders. They rushed upward and by him. He had a
momentary impression of a great round mouth yawning to swallow him up.
He was in the dark again, falling, falling, gripping with aching hands,
and behold! a clap of sound, a burst of light, and he was in a brightly
lit hall with a roaring multitude of people beneath his feet. The people!
His people! A proscenium, a stage rushed up towards him, and his cable
swept down to a circular aperture to the right of this.
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