that matter was not explained to him. He saw that though the file of red
figures was trotting from left to right, yet they were passing out of the
picture to the left. He wondered momentarily, and then saw that the
picture was passing slowly, panorama fashion, across the oval.

"In a moment you will see the fighting," said Ostrog at his elbow. "Those
fellows in red you notice are prisoners. This is the roof space of
London--all the houses are practically continuous now. The streets and
public squares are covered in. The gaps and chasms of your time have
disappeared."

Something out of focus obliterated half the picture. Its form suggested a
man. There was a gleam of metal, a flash, something that swept across the
oval, as the eyelid of a bird sweeps across its eye, and the picture was
clear again. And now Graham beheld men running down among the
wind-wheels, pointing weapons from which jetted out little smoky flashes.
They swarmed thicker and thicker to the right, gesticulating--it might be
they were shouting, but of that the picture told nothing. They and the
wind-wheels passed slowly and steadily across the field of the mirror.

"Now," said Ostrog, "comes the Council House," and slowly a black edge
crept into view and gathered Graham's attention. Soon it was no longer an
edge but a cavity, a huge blackened space amidst the clustering edifices,
and from it thin spires of smoke rose into the pallid winter sky. Gaunt
ruinous masses of the building, mighty truncated piers and girders, rose
dismally out of this cavernous darkness. And over these vestiges of some
splendid place, countless minute men were clambering, leaping, swarming.

"This is the Council House," said Ostrog. "Their last stronghold. And the
fools wasted enough ammunition to hold out for a month in blowing up the