They will doubt if it is you. But they will mass
about the Council House. There you will find their leaders. Your strength
is there--with them."
"Suppose this is only a rumour?"
"It sounds true," said Asano.
"Let us have the facts," said Graham.
Asano shrugged his shoulders. "We had better get towards the Council
House," he cried. "That is where they will swarm. Even now the ruins may
be impassable."
Graham regarded him doubtfully and followed him.
They went up the stepped platforms to the swiftest one, and there Asano
accosted a labourer. The answers to his questions were in the thick,
vulgar speech.
"What did he say?" asked Graham.
"He knows little, but he told me that the Black Police would have arrived
here before the people knew--had not someone in the Wind-Vane Offices
learnt. He said a girl."
"A girl? Not--?"
"He said a girl--he did not know who she was. Who came out from the
Council House crying aloud, and told the men at work among the ruins."
And then another thing was shouted, something that turned an aimless
tumult into determinate movements, it came like a wind along the
street. "To your wards, to your wards. Every man get arms. Every man to
his ward!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE STRUGGLE IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE
As Asano and Graham hurried along to the ruins about the Council House,
they saw everywhere the excitement of the people rising. "To your wards!
To your wards!" Everywhere men and women in blue were hurrying from
unknown subterranean employments, up the staircases of the middle path;
at one place Graham saw an arsenal of the revolutionary committee
besieged by a crowd of shouting men, at another a couple of men in the
hated yellow uniform of the Labour Police, pursued by a gathering crowd,
fled precipitately along the swift way that went in the opposite
direction.
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