The
song and the tramping had ceased. The unanimous march, he discovered, was
arrested, there were eddies, a flow sideways, shouts of "The lights!"
Voices were crying together one thing. "The lights!" cried these voices.
"The lights!" He looked down. In this dancing death of the lights the
area of the street had suddenly become a monstrous struggle. The huge
white globes became purple-white, purple with a reddish glow, flickered,
flickered faster and faster, fluttered between light and extinction,
ceased to flicker and became mere fading specks of glowing red in a vast
obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction was accomplished, and there was
only this roaring darkness, a black monstrosity that had suddenly
swallowed up those glittering myriads of men.
He felt invisible forms about him; his arms were gripped. Something
rapped sharply against his shin. A voice bawled in his ear, "It is all
right--all right."
Graham shook off the paralysis of his first astonishment. He struck his
forehead against Lincoln's and bawled, "What is this darkness?"
"The Council has cut the currents that light the city. We must
wait--stop. The people will go on. They will--"
His voice was drowned. Voices were shouting, "Save the Sleeper. Take care
of the Sleeper." A guard stumbled against Graham and hurt his hand by an
inadvertent blow of his weapon. A wild tumult tossed and whirled about
him, growing, as it seemed, louder, denser, more furious each moment.
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