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

glass. From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, so
remote in time, and so recent in his experience, it seemed to him that they
must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He stopped, looked
down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes, minute and
foreshortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards the little
balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where he had so
recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of
light obscured everything. A man seated in a little openwork cradle shot by
from some point still higher than the little narrow bridge, rushing down a
cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling. Graham stopped involuntarily
to watch this strange passenger vanish in a great circular opening below,
and then his eyes went back to the tumultuous struggle.

Along one of the swifter ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. This broke
up into individuals as it approached the balcony, and went pouring down the
slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the central area. These
men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons; they seemed to
be striking and thrusting. A great shouting, cries of wrath, screaming,
burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Go on," cried Howard,
laying hands on him.

Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see whence
he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network of cables and
girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans of windmills, and
between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. Then Howard had thrust
him forward across the bridge, and he was in a little narrow passage
decorated with geometrical patterns.

"I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting.

"No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm.

"This way. You must go this way." And the men in red following them seemed
ready to enforce his orders.

Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeared
down the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that had
seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found himself
in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The attendant in black
and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutter and stood waiting.

This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of people in
the central space, and at the opposite end a large and imposing doorway at
the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving a glimpse of
some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white men in red and other
negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about those portals.

As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The Sleeper,"
and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation. They entered
another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber, and then he found