"Herbert George Wells. When the Sleeper Wakes" - читать интересную книгу автора

Suddenly a loud voice shouted-it seemed from a piece of machinery in the
corner-"At once-at once. The people know all over the city. Work is being
stopped. Work is being stopped. Wait for nothing, but come."

This shout appeared to perturb Howard exceedingly. By his gestures it
seemed to Graham that he hesitated between two directions. Abruptly he went
towards the corner where the apparatus stood about the little crystal ball.
As he did so the undertone of tumultuous shouting from the archway that had
continued during all these occurrences rose to a mighty sound, roared as if
it were sweeping past, and fell again as if receding swiftly. It drew
Graham after it with an irresistible attraction. He glanced at the thickset
man, and then obeyed his impulse. In two strides he was down the steps and
in the passage, and, in a score he was out upon the balcony upon which |
the three men had been standing.

CHAPTER V

THE MOVING WAYS

He went to the railings of the balcony and stared upward. An exclamation of
surprise at his appearance, and the movements of a number of people came
from the spacious area below.

His first impression was of overwhelming architecture. The place into which
he looked was an aisle of Titanic buildings, curving spaciously in either
direction. Overhead mighty cantilevers sprang together across the huge
width of the place, and a tracery of translucent material shut out the sky.
Gigantic globes of cool white light shamed the pale sunbeams that filtered
down through the girders and wires. Here and there a gossamer suspension
bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across the chasm and the air was
webbed with slender cables. A cliff of edifice hung above him, he perceived
as he glanced upward, and the opposite facade was grey and dim and broken
by great archings, circular perforations, balconies, buttresses, turret
projections, myriads of vast windows, and an intricate scheme of
architectural relief. Athwart these ran inscriptions horizontally and
obliquely in an unfamiliar lettering. Here and there close to the roof
cables of a peculiar stoutness were fastened, and drooped in a steep curve
to circular openings on the opposite side of the space, and even as Graham
noted these a remote and tiny figure of a man clad in pale blue arrested
his attention. This little figure was far overhead across the space beside
the higher fastening of one of these festoons, hanging forward from a
little ledge of masonry and handling some well-nigh invisible strings
dependent from the line. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's
heart into his mouth, this man had rushed down the curve and vanished
through a round opening on the hither side of the way. Graham had been
looking up as he came out upon the balcony, and the things he saw above and
opposed to him had at first seized his attention to the exclusion of
anything else. Then suddenly he discovered the roadway! It was not a
roadway at all, as Graham understood such things, for in the nineteenth