METROPOLIS was dyed red. She straightened herself up and closed her eyes. She staggered a little and a smile passed over her face as though she hoped she were dreaming. "Dear God, I J?ray Thee, bide with me, take care of me.. ,. Amen.... She leant her head against the stone wall. The wall quaked. Maria looked right up. In the dark, black vaulting of the stone roof above her, there gaped a winding cleft. What did that mean ... ? What was there-above her? Up there were the mole~tunne]s of the underground railway. What was happening up there-? It sounded as though three thousand giants were playing nine-pins with iron mountains, throwing them, one against the other, amid yells. . . . . The cleft gaped wider. The air was filled with dust. But it was not dust. It was ground stone. The structure of the City of the Dead quaked rigbt down to the centre of the earth. It was as if a mighty fist had suddenly opened a sluice-but, instead of water, a maelstrom of stones hurtled from the dammed-up bed-blocks, mortar, crumbles, stone-splinters, ruins poured down from the arch-a curtain of stones-a hail of stones. And above the falling and the smashing was the power of a thunder which was roaring, and roaring long and resonantly, through the destruction. A current of air, an irresistible whirl, swept the girl aside like a blade of straw. The skeletons rose up from the niches: bones rose up erect and skulls rolled I Doomsday seemed to be breaking over the thousandMyearMold City of the Dead. But above the great Metropolis the monster-voice was still howling and howling. Red lay the morning above the stone ocean of the city. The red morning saw, amidst the stone ocean of the city, rolling along, a broad, an endless stream. The stream was twelve files deep. They walked in even step. Men, men, men, all in the same uniform; from throat to ankle in the dark blue Hnen, bare feet in the same hard shoes, hair tightly pressed down by tIle same black caps. 159
