pedestal of steps. And he wondered whether the little shop was
still by the side of it and whether its window had been mended.

As the flying ship swept round the dome he observed other
alterations. The dome had been redecorated so as to give it a
more solemn and somewhat more ecclesiastical note; the ball was
draped or destroyed, and round the gallery, under the cross, ran
what looked like a ring of silver statues, like the little leaden
images that stood round the hat of Louis XI. Round the second
gallery, at the base of the dome, ran a second rank of such
images, and Evan thought there was another round the steps below.
When they came closer he saw that they were figures in complete
armour of steel or silver, each with a naked sword, point upward;
and then he saw one of the swords move. These were not statues
but an armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the
cross. MacIan drew in his breath, as children do at anything they
think utterly beautiful. For he could imagine nothing that so
echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric art as this
white dome sitting like a vast silver tiara over London, ringed
with a triple crown of swords.

As they went sailing down Ludgate Hill, Evan saw that the state
of the streets fully answered his companion's claim about the
reintroduction of order. All the old blackcoated bustle with its
cockney vivacity and vulgarity had disappeared. Groups of
labourers, quietly but picturesquely clad, were passing up and
down in sufficiently large numbers; but it required but a few
mounted men to keep the streets in order. The mounted men were
not common policemen, but knights with spurs and plume whose
smooth and splendid armour glittered like diamond rather than