Herbert Wells - When the Sleeper wakes

In an instant these personal relations were submerged. There came messengers to tell that a great fleet of aeroplanes was rushing between the sky and Avignon. He went to the crystal dial in the corner and assured himself that the thing was so. He went to the chart room and consulted a map to measure the distances of Avignon, New Arawan, and London. He made swift calculations. He went to the room of the Ward Leaders to ask for news of the fight for the stages — and there was no one there. After a time he came back to her.

His face had changed. It had dawned upon him that the struggle was perhaps more than half over, that Ostrog was holding his own, that the arrival of the aeroplanes would mean a panic that might leave him helpless. A chance phrase in the message had given him a glimpse of the reality that came. Each of these soaring giants bore its thousand half savage negroes to the death grapple of the city. Suddenly his humanitarian enthusiasm showed flimsy. Only two of the Ward Leaders were in their room, when presently he repaired thither, the Hall of the Atlas seemed empty. He fancied a change in the bearing of the attendants in the outer rooms. A sombre disillusionment darkened his mind. She looked at him anxiously when he returned to her.

“No news,” he said with an assumed carelessness in answer to her eyes.

Then he was moved to frankness. “Or rather — bad news. We are losing. We are gaining no ground and the aeroplanes draw nearer and nearer.”

He walked the length of the room and turned.

“Unless we can capture those flying stages in the next hour — there will be horrible things. We shall be beaten.

“No!” she said. “We have justice — we have the people. We have God on our side.”

“Ostrog has discipline — he has plans. Do you know, out there just now I felt —. When I heard that these aeroplanes were a stage nearer. I felt as if I were fighting the machinery of fate.”

She made no answer for a while. “We have done right,” she said at last.

He looked at her doubtfully. “We have done what we could. But does this depend upon us? Is it not an older sin, a wider sin?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“These blacks are savages, ruled by force, used as force. And they have been under the rule of the whites two hundred years. Is it not a race quarrel? The race sinned — the race pays.”

“But these labourers, these poor people of London —!”

“Vicarious atonement. To stand wrong is to share the guilt.”

She looked keenly at him, astonished at the new aspect he presented.

Without came the shrill ringing of a bell, the sound of feet and the gabble of a phonographic message. The man in yellow appeared. “Yes?” said Graham.

“They are at Vichy.”

“Where are the attendants who were in the great Hall of the Atlas?” asked Graham abruptly.

Presently the Babble Machine rang again. “We may win yet,” said the man in yellow, going out to it. “If only we can find where Ostrog has hidden his guns. Everything hangs on that now. Perhaps this —”

Graham followed him. But the only news was of the aeroplanes. They had reached Orleans.

Graham returned to Helen. “No news,” he said “No news.”

“And we can do nothing?”

“Nothing.”

He paced impatiently. Suddenly the swift anger that was his nature swept upon him. “Curse this complex world!” he cried, “and all the inventions of men! That a man must die like a rat in a snare and never see his foe! Oh, for one blow!…”

He turned with an abrupt change in his manner. “That’s nonsense,” he said. “I am a savage.”

He paced and stopped. “After all London and Paris are only two cities. All the temperate zone has risen. What if London is doomed and Paris destroyed? These are but accidents.” Again came the mockery of news to call him to fresh enquiries. He returned with a graver face and sat down beside her.

“The end must be near,” he said. “The people it seems have fought and died in tens of thousands, the ways about Roehampton must be like a smoked beehive. And they have died in vain. They are still only at the sub stage. The aeroplanes are near Paris. Even were a gleam of success to come now, there would be nothing to do, there would be no time to do anything before they were upon us. The guns that might have saved us are mislaid. Mislaid! Think of the disorder of things! Think of this foolish tumult, that cannot even find its weapons! Oh, for one aeropile — just one! For the want of that I am beaten. Humanity is beaten and our cause is lost! My kingship, my headlong foolish kingship will not last a night. And I have egged on the people to fight —.”

“They would have fought anyhow.”

“I doubt it. I have come among them — ”

“No,” she cried, “not that. If defeat comes — if you die —. But even that cannot be, it cannot be, after all these years.”

“Ah! We have meant well. But — do you indeed believe —?”

“If they defeat you,” she cried, “you have spoken. Your word has gone like a great wind through the world, fanning liberty into a flame. What if the flame sputters a little! Nothing can change the spoken word. Your message will have gone forth….”

“To what end? It may be. It may be. You know I said, when you told me of these things dear God! but that was scarcely a score of hours ago! — I said that I had not your faith. Well — at any rate there is nothing to do now….”

“You have not my faith! Do you mean —? You are sorry?”

“No,” he said hurriedly, “no! Before God — no!” His voice changed. “But —. I think — I have been indiscreet. I knew little — I grasped too hastily….”

He paused. He was ashamed of this avowal. “There is one thing that makes up for all. I have known you. Across this gulf of time I have come to you. The rest is done. It is done. With you, too, it has been something more — or something less — ”

He paused with his face searching hers, and without clamoured the unheeded message that the aeroplanes were rising into the sky of Amiens.

She put her hand to her throat, and her lips were white. She stared before her as if she saw some horrible possibility. Suddenly her features changed. “Oh, but I have been honest!” she cried, and then, “Have I been honest? I loved the world and freedom, I hated cruelty and oppression. Surely it was that.”

“Yes,” he said, “yes. And we have done what it lay in us to do. We have given our message, our message! We have started Armageddon! But now —. Now that we have, it may be our last hour, together, now that all these greater things are done….”

He stopped. She sat in silence. Her face was a white riddle.

For a moment they heeded nothing of a sudden stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. Then Helen started to an attitude of tense attention. “It is —,” she cried and stood up, speechless, incredulous, triumphant. And Graham, too, heard. Metallic voices were shouting “Victory!” Yes it was “Victory!” He stood up also with the light of a desperate hope in his eyes.

Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and dishevelled with excitement. “Victory,” he cried, “victory! The people are winning. Ostrog’s people have collapsed.”

She rose. “Victory?” And her voice was hoarse and faint.

“What do you mean?” asked Graham. “Tell me! What?”

“We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham is afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. Ours! — and we have taken the aeropile that lay thereon.”

For an instant Graham and Helen stood in silence, their hearts were beating fast, they looked at one another. For one last moment there gleamed in Graham his dream of empire, of kingship, with Helen by his side. It gleamed, and passed.