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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 24 - While the Aeroplanes Were Coming · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four of The Sleeper Awakes. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Arowit. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: chapter twenty four. While the aeroplanes were coming, the man
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  Speaker 1: in yellow was beside them. Neither had noted his coming.
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  Speaker 1: He was saying that the southwest wards were marching. I
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  Speaker 1: never expected it so soon, he cried. They have done, wonders.
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  Speaker 1: You must send them a word to help them on
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  Speaker 1: their way. Graham stared at him absent mindedly. Then with
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  Speaker 1: a start, he returned to his previous preoccupation about the
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  Speaker 1: flying stages. Yes, he said, that is good. That is good,
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  Speaker 1: He weighed a message, tell them well done Southwest. He
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  Speaker 1: turned his eyes to Helen Wotton again. His face expressed
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  Speaker 1: his struggle between conflicting ideas. We must capture the flying stages,
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  Speaker 1: he explained. Unless we can do that, they will land
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  Speaker 1: negroes at all costs. We must prevent that. He felt,
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  Speaker 1: even as he spoke that this was not what had
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  Speaker 1: been in his mind before the interruption. He saw a
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  Speaker 1: touch of surprise in her eyes. She seemed about to speak,
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  Speaker 1: and a shrill bell drowned her voice. It occurred to
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  Speaker 1: Graham that she expected him to lead these marching people,
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  Speaker 1: that that was the thing he had to do. He
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  Speaker 1: made the offer abruptly. He addressed the man in yellow,
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  Speaker 1: but he spoke to her. He saw her face respond here,
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  Speaker 1: I am doing nothing, he said. It is impossible, protested
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  Speaker 1: the man in yellow. It is a fight in a warren.
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  Speaker 1: Your place is here, he explained elaborately. He motioned towards
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  Speaker 1: the room where Graham must wait. He insisted no other
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  Speaker 1: course was possible. We must know where you are, he said.
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  Speaker 1: At any moment a crisis may arise, needing your presence
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  Speaker 1: and decision. A picture had drifted through his mind of
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  Speaker 1: such a vast, dramatic struggle as the masses in the
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  Speaker 1: ruins had suggested, But here was no spectacular battle field
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  Speaker 1: such as he imagined. Instead was seclusion and suspense. It
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  Speaker 1: was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced
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  Speaker 1: together a truer picture of the fight that was raging
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  Speaker 1: inaudibly and invisibly within four miles of him. Beneath the
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  Speaker 1: Roehampton stage, a strange and unprecedented contest. It was a
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  Speaker 1: battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle
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  Speaker 1: in a sponge of ways and channels, fought out of
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  Speaker 1: sight of sky or sun, under the electric glare, fought
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  Speaker 1: out on a vast confusion by multitudes untrained in arms,
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  Speaker 1: led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless labor, and
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  Speaker 1: enervated by the tradition of two hundred years of servile
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  Speaker 1: security against multitudes demoralized by lives of venial differentiation into
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  Speaker 1: this force of that the only weapon on either side
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  Speaker 1: of the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and
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  Speaker 1: sudden distribution in enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog's
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  Speaker 1: culminating moves against the council. Few had any experience with
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  Speaker 1: his weapon, Many had never discharged one. Many who carried
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  Speaker 1: it came unprovided with ammunition. Never was a wilder firing
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  Speaker 1: in the history of warfare. It was a battle of amateurs,
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  Speaker 1: armed wiaters, swept forward by the words and fury of
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  Speaker 1: the song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers, pouring
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  Speaker 1: in countless myriads towards the smaller ways. The disabled lifts
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  Speaker 1: the gallery slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked
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  Speaker 1: with smoke beneath the Flying stages, to learn there when
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  Speaker 1: retreat was hopeless the ancient mysteries of warfare and overhead.
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  Speaker 1: Save for a few sharpshooters upon the roof spaces, and
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  Speaker 1: for a few bands and threads of vapor that multiplied
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  Speaker 1: and darkened towards the evening, the day was a clear serenity. Ostrog,
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  Speaker 1: it seems, had no bombs at command, and in all
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  Speaker 1: the earlier phases of the battle, the flying machines played
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  Speaker 1: no part. Not the smallest cloud was there to break
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  Speaker 1: the empty brilliance of the sky. It seemed as though
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  Speaker 1: it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come. Ever
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  Speaker 1: and again there was news of these drawing nearer from
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  Speaker 1: this Vanish town, and then that, and presently from France.
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  Speaker 1: But of the new guns that Ostrog had made and
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  Speaker 1: which were known to be in the city, came no
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  Speaker 1: news in spite of Graham's urgency, nor any report of
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  Speaker 1: successes from the dense felt of fighting strands about the
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  Speaker 1: Flying stages. Section after section of the labor societies reported
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  Speaker 1: itself assembled, reported itself marching, and vanished from knowledge into
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  Speaker 1: the labyrinth of that warfare. What was happening there? Even
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  Speaker 1: the busy ward leaders did not know. In spite of
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  Speaker 1: the opening and closing of doors, the hasty messengers, the
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  Speaker 1: ringing of bells, and perpetual clear clock of recording implements,
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  Speaker 1: Graham felt isolated, strangely, inactive, inoperative. His isolation seemed at
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  Speaker 1: times the strangest, the most unexpected, of all the things
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  Speaker 1: that had happened since his awakening. It had something of
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  Speaker 1: the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams, a tumult,
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  Speaker 1: the stupendous realization of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself.
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  Speaker 1: And then this confined little room, with its mouthpieces and
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  Speaker 1: bells and broken mirror. Now the door would be closed,
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  Speaker 1: and Graham and Helen were alone together. They seemed sharply
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  Speaker 1: marked off, then from all the unprecedented world storm that
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  Speaker 1: rushed together without vividly aware of one another, only concerned
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  Speaker 1: with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers
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  Speaker 1: would enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy,
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  Speaker 1: And it was like a window in a well built,
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  Speaker 1: brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a hurricane. The dark,
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  Speaker 1: hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of the battle
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  Speaker 1: rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer persons
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  Speaker 1: but mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion. They
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  Speaker 1: became unreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality indescribably small,
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  Speaker 1: And the two antagonistic realities, the only realities in being,
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  Speaker 1: were first the city that throbbed and roared yonder in
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  Speaker 1: a belated frenzy of defense, and secondly the aeroplanes hurling
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  Speaker 1: inexorably towards them over the round shoulder of the world.
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  Speaker 1: There came a sudden stir outside, a running to and
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  Speaker 1: fro and cries. The girl stood up, speechless, incredulous. Metallic
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  Speaker 1: voices were shouting victory. Yes, it was victory. Bursting through
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  Speaker 1: the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and disheveled
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  Speaker 1: with excitement. Victory, he cried, victory. The people are winning.
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  Speaker 1: Ostrog's people have collapsed. She rose victory. What do you mean,
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  Speaker 1: asked grahamt tell me what we have driven them out
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  Speaker 1: of the under galleries at Norwood. Streatham is afire and
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  Speaker 1: burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours ours, and we have
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  Speaker 1: taken the monoplane that lay thereon A shrill bell rang.
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  Speaker 1: An agitated, gray headed man appeared from the room of
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  Speaker 1: the ward leaders. It is all over, he cried. What
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  Speaker 1: matters it now that we have Roehampton. The aeroplanes have
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  Speaker 1: been sighted at Boulogne the channel, said the man in yellow.
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  Speaker 1: He calculated swiftly. Half an hour. They still have three
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  Speaker 1: of the flying stages, said the old man. Those guns,
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  Speaker 1: cried Graham. We cannot mount them in half an hour.
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  Speaker 1: Do you mean they are found too late, said the
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  Speaker 1: old man. If we could stop them another hour, cried
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  Speaker 1: the man in yellow. Nothing can stop them now, said
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  Speaker 1: the old man. They have near a hundred aeroplanes in
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  Speaker 1: the first fleet. Another hour to be so near, said
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  Speaker 1: the ward leader, Now that we have found those guns
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  Speaker 1: to be so near, if once we could get them
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  Speaker 1: out upon the roof spaces, how long would that take,
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  Speaker 1: asked Graham. Suddenly an hour certainly too late, cried the
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  Speaker 1: ward leader. Too late? Is it too late? Said Graham,
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  Speaker 1: even now an hour. He had suddenly perceived a possibility.
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  Speaker 1: He tried to speak calmly, but his face was white.
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  Speaker 1: There is a chance, you said, there was a monoplane
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  Speaker 1: on the Ropehampton stage, Sire smashed. No, it is lying
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  Speaker 1: crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon the
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  Speaker 1: guides easily, but there is no aeronaut. Graham glanced at
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  Speaker 1: the two men, and then at Helen. He spoke, after
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  Speaker 1: a long pause, we have no aeronauts. None. He turned
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  Speaker 1: suddenly to Helen. His decision was made. I must do it.
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  Speaker 1: Do what go to this flying stage, to this machine?
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean I am an aeronaut. After all
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  Speaker 1: those days for which you reproached me were not altogether wasted.
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  Speaker 1: He turned to the old man in yellow. Tell them
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  Speaker 1: to put it upon the guides. The man in yellow hesitated.
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean to do, cried Helen. This monoplane,
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  Speaker 1: it is a chance. You don't mean to fight? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: to fight in the air. I have thought before a
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  Speaker 1: big aeroplane is a clumsy thing. A resolute man. But
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  Speaker 1: never since flying began, cried the man in yellow, there
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  Speaker 1: has been no need. But now the time has come.
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  Speaker 1: Tell them now, send them my message to put it
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  Speaker 1: upon the guides. I see now something to do. I
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  Speaker 1: see now why I am here? The old man dumbly
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  Speaker 1: interrogated the man in yellow, nodded and hurried out. Helen
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  Speaker 1: made a step towards Graham. Her face was white. But sire,
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  Speaker 1: how can one fight? You will be killed? Perhaps, yet
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  Speaker 1: not to do it, or to let some one else
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  Speaker 1: attempt it, you will be killed, She repeated. I've said
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  Speaker 1: my word, do you not see? It may save London.
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  Speaker 1: He stopped, he could speak no more. He swept the
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  Speaker 1: alternative sigh by a gesture, and they stood looking at
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  Speaker 1: one another. They were both clear that he must go.
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  Speaker 1: There was no step back from these towering heroisms. Her
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  Speaker 1: eyes brimmed with tears, she came towards him with a
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  Speaker 1: curious movement of her hands, as though she felt her
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  Speaker 1: way and could not see. She seized his hand and
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  Speaker 1: kissed it to wake. She cried for this. He held
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  Speaker 1: her clumsily for a moment and kissed the hair of
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  Speaker 1: her bowed head, and then thrust her away and turned
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  Speaker 1: towards the man in yellow. He could not speak. The
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  Speaker 1: gesture of his arms said onward. End of chapter twenty four,