Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth CenturyDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
Donnelly, Ignatius
Dystopias -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; Twentieth century -- Fiction
I thought it must be nearly twelve. I drew out my watch to look at
the time. It lacked one minute of that hour. Another instant, and the
whole city was wrapped in profound darkness. Some of the workmen
about the Magnetic Works were members of the Brotherhood, and, in
pursuance of their orders, they had cut the connections of the works
and blotted out the light.
CHAPTER XXXI.
"SHEOL"
I looked down into the dark street. I could see nothing; but
immediately a confused buzz and murmur, of motion everywhere, arose
from the depths below me. As it grew louder and clearer I could hear
the march of thousands of feet, moving rapidly; and then a number of
wagons, heavily loaded, creaked and groaned over the pavements. I
surmised that these wagons were loaded with stones, and were to be
used in the construction of the barricades. There was no music, no
shouting, not even the sound of voices; but tramp, tramp, tramp, in
endless multitude, the heavy feet went by; and now and then, where
the light yet streamed out of the window of some house, I could see
the glitter of the steel barrels of rifles; and here and there I
caught a glimpse of men on horseback, officers apparently, but
dressed in the rough garb of workmen. Along the line of the houses
near me, I could see, at opened, lighted windows, an array of pale
faces, looking out with astonishment and terror at this dark and
silent procession, which seemed to have arisen out of the earth, and
was so vast that one might dream that the trumpet of the archangel
had been blown, and all the dead of a thousand battle-fields had
risen up for one last grand review. And not alone past our doors, but
through all the streets near us, the same mighty, voiceless
procession moved on; all converging to the quarter where the
treasures of the great city lay, heaped up in safe and vault.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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