Lord Alistair's Rebellion (ePub)

Excerpt: 'Night clad the imperial city in a black robe stitched with fire. The misty river rolled in from the sea through its illuminated bridges with the subdued swish of some great snake writhing its way through hoops of gold. Out in the fog-haunted region between the bridges the movement of the red and green-eyed steam-tugs, clutching invisible barges and dragging them away into the darkness, seemed like a shadow-show in which grotesque demons were hunting the souls of men. The two banks of the river offered a contrast full of significance. Along the left bank white lamps that slit the dusk with the hard, bright glare of diamonds were strung like beads at measured spaces apart. A broad, smooth-paven road rattled with the wheels of traffic, and the long bend of the river revealed a sweep of stately buildings representing the power and splendour of a great civilization. Education, law, science, government, police, had their homes side by side along that mighty façade, which thus became an entablature on which the characters of civilization were legibly impressed. Beside the ancient universities of the law stood the headquarters of the vast machinery for the teaching of the populace-that is to say, for the taming of successive generations of barbarians. The power of wealth was expressed in luxurious hotels and club-houses, in the mansion of the noble and the estate-office of the millionaire. The revenues of empire flowed in and out through the gates of one majestic pile; from another the guardians of the social order waged war against the restless ranks of crime. Last in place towered the huge palace of the imperial Legislature, supreme over all.'