Adventure, June 1911 — page 151: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Awakening bly enable me to understand the situation better. It was a long story—far too long to set down here; but the main points were these. The fly—but some people said it was a poison-dust, not an insect—appeared . everywhere, all over the world, August 24, 1916, and stung people into a dense stupor. Nearly all the inhabitants of the earth went ' into the sleep, the account said. Those who remained awake were almost all clever, cruel people. They formed new govern- ments, and called the head people ‘ Pow- ers.’ The Chief Power in England was the gray-haired woman. Her name was Ash- bury. She did not wish the sleepers to wake, because she wanted to go on ruling. So she proposed to kill them. The Power of the World, an American Jew named Abrahams, who had been a hotel-keeper and considered a bad and unscrupulous man, but who was really a good one, would not agree to this. But, when the sleepers seemed likely. to wake, he had to inoculate them, to make them sleep longer, because there wasn’t food for them. He tried to grow food, but the harvests were bad, and the dogs, who had become like wolves from hunger, overran the coun- try. There were pestilences and storms, and those who ‘‘woke” were in great trouble; but at last there was a good harvest, and, after most of it had been sown for the next year, he thought it would produce enough to keep everybody. So he persuaded most of the “wakers” to go to sleep too, until it would be ready, so as to economize sup- plies. That was how Mr. Raynor came to go to sleep. He did not know if he would wake, for the Chief Power was plotting to depose the Power of the World, and if she did, she was sure to kill most: of the sleepers. He had rescued me, and the “‘disobedi- ences” for which she wished to kill him were all on my account. There was a Chief Physician, and he was a good man and had helped him, and liked me. He was one of those left awake. He said that he meant to dance at my wedding with Mr. Raynor. (The history made it quite plain that Mr. Raynor was in love with meé.) He called me “pretty little 214,713, Lon- don.” The sleepers had all been num- bered, and I suppose the ‘‘wakers” had been numbered first, because Mr. Raynor was 184. 337 I I DECIDED at once that4 would try to find the Chief Physician. The history said that he lived in the: building where we slept. (It was the War Office.) I opened the door and looked into a very long corridor, paneled with brown wood. It was quiteempty. I lifted Mr. Raynor in my arms and staggered out with him, and went up-stairs. On the walls there were printed plans of the floor. ‘There were only numbers on them, but one or two had been written across in red ink, “Captain of Guard,” and so on. On the top floor I found ‘‘Chief Physician’? marked on one. I opened the door, and staggered in. Mr. Raynor was big and heavy, and I am only small. I was so exhausted that I fell; and then I heard a voice—a kind voice that did not frighten me, “2-1-4-7-1-3, London! Good girl!” és Water! ! T begged. ‘“‘Water!” the voice said. “T can’t move, my dear,” I wiped my eyes and looked up, and saw a gentleman rather like my father, bound to a chair; and I got up somehow and tried to untie him. “You'll never do it with those little fin- gers,” he said. “There’s a penknife in my waistcoat pocket; left hand; my left; the lower one. That’s right!” I cut the knots and he got up and stag- gered about, stamping and shaking himself to get rid of his stiffness. He asked if I had read the history, and I said yes; and he told me what had happened afterward. Mrs. Ashbury had gone to America, with a shipful of armed men, to try to kill the Power of the World; but he had been pre- pared, and had taken them by surprise as they were landing, and defeated them. So she and those who were left had come back in another ship. She had broken away from the other Governments, and those in England who did not agree with her had fled abroad, or had been killed, unless it was a party in Lancashire, led by a “‘Suffragette lady,” who had been one of the Powers under Mrs, Ashbury, but would never agree to harming the sleepers. He did not know her fate. Mrs. Ashbury and her followers meant to wake only enough of the sleepers to fight the wolves—and perhaps a few women and children later—and to kill the rest. He had refused to help in the slaugh- Go OOOKS ANUC (C@