After it had died down, Stubbs announced “We’ve had to swop out the straw in John Doe’s cell five times a day,” in case Daniel still had lingering doubts as to the efficacy of those purges. “The other inmates have learnt to stand clear of him-except for the coprophiliacs, of course, who must be beaten back with sticks.” He nodded to a door a short distance ahead. Coincidentally or not, an umber bullet flew out of its window and impacted on the wig of a passing fop, sending up a pretty burst of white powder. “He should have paid for a guide,” Stubbs remarked, leading Daniel, Isaac, and Saturn on a long arc to keep them out of turd-range. “I do wonder whether Mr. Doe might respond well to beatings,” Stubbs continued wistfully. “I know you have forbidden it, Doctor, but if you would allow me to have a go at him with the cane-”

“No,” Daniel said. “Your message to me yesterday stated that he had requested an interview-”

“Indeed, guv’nor. Begged for it, more like.”

“Let us withhold the cane, then, and see what the interview yields.”

By this time they had come near enough to the end of the gallery to hear a persistent low hollow grinding and booming noise. Stubbs threw open a door at the end and led them into a spacious room-for they had entered into a sort of bastion anchoring the western end of the hospital, like the fist at the end of an arm-where that noise was a good deal louder. This salon was as cluttered with peculiar exhibits as the Court of Technologickal Arts at Clerkenwell, and as crowded with obstreperous madmen as a meeting of Her Majesty’s Privy Council. But the biggest object in the room-and the source of the noise-was an immense wooden drum, mounted above the floor like a wheel. Its axle spanned the interval between a pair of massive upright timbers, each of which rose to slightly above Daniel’s head. The drum was shaped like a fat coin, perhaps a yard thick. Its rim nearly grazed both floor and ceiling, which would make its diameter rather more than twelve feet. The circular faces of it-the heads and tails of the coin, as it were-had been fabricated in the same way as primitive cart-wheels, viz. of broad deals fastened side-by-side with long iron straps. The rim consisted of more planks pegged crosswise between these two disks.

Projecting from one end of the axle was an enormous crank with a handle as long as an oar. A stout little stairway led up to a platform, large enough for two or three men to stand abreast and bend their backs to the operation of that crank. One crew was doing so now, and another stood by, quaffing beer to replace the moisture they’d sweated into their clothes.

As the great wheel ground away on its axle of greased iron, muffled thumps and booms sounded from within: sometimes a steady tattoo, as of running feet, always culminating in a series of thuds like a man falling down stairs.

“The therapy is compleat!” Stubbs announced. The laborers gladly let go and stood up straight to stretch their tired backs, whilst keeping wary vigil on the crank-handle, which continued to rotate-its vis inertiae might break the jaw of an unwary man. After the drum had slowed to a low idling speed they seized the crank again and nudged it around a quarter-turn or so. It was now possible to see that the near face of the drum was fitted with a long narrow hatch nearly spanning the interval between hub and rim. The crank-men made sure that this was down and vertical, like an hour-hand at the stroke of six. Then they tromped down the stairs in quest of refreshment.

Stubbs leaned into the space between axle-support and drum-side and unlatched the door. It flew open all the way and banged against the outside of the Machine, revealing that its inner surface was entirely covered by a quilted canvas bag, so filthy that it gleamed with a hard shine, stuffed with straw or horse-hair. The open hatchway was mostly empty; but down low, something reminiscent of a human figure could be seen draining lumpily onto the floor, like a half-melted wax statue being poured out of a saucepan.

“You see?” Stubbs announced. “The Machine works!”

The man who had emerged from the Machine seemed to want in the worst way to get clear of it. But he knew better than to stand, or even sit. He straightened himself out on the floor, supporting himself on his forearms and his forehead, and began to creep along like an inchworm, pausing every few inches for an episode of dry heaves. In a minute or so he reached a waiting chamber-pot, dashed its lid off with a blind arm-swing, hugged it, and used it to pull himself up off the floor. With some further exertions, and the aid of a man in indigo, he got himself seated upon this vessel and immediately began to generate sounds of a hydraulic and pneumatic character.

“Has he assaulted any more walls?” Daniel asked.

“Only the one, Doctor. It is a part of his mania that he phant’sies he knows just where the treasure is hidden.”

“What treasure do you refer to?” Isaac asked.

“Why, the same one all the lunaticks are searching for, sir,” said Stubbs, “the Gold of King Solomon.”

JOHN DOE WAS in no condition for an interview just yet. While the attendants busied themselves putting Doe’s chains back on his wrists and ankles, and returning him to his cell, Daniel, Isaac, and Peter Hoxton ascended to the storey above and walked back to the center of Bedlam along a gantlet of cells similar to those below. Fewer visitors came up here. The ones who did tended to be gangs of bloody-minded ’prentices, or the most distasteful sort of fops, or solitary men who looked as if they might themselves benefit from a few hours in the Machine. The prisoners here remained locked in their cells, and for the best reasons. Daniel prudently walked as close to the windows, and as far from the doors, as was practical, and tried not to hear the mutterings of the faces framed in some of those little door-hatches. He led the others on, and they gladly followed, at a brisk pace. Presently they exeunted from the men’s wing and entered the central part of the edifice, above the main entrance, and below the cupola. Here they ascended another stair into a vaulted space: technically an attic, but a carefully finished one, airy and well-lit.

Seen from Mr. Witanoont’s Vinegar-Yard, Bedlam’s center looked as if a squarish funnel had been turned upside-down and clapped on top of it. The broad part of the funnel was a high mansard roof enclosing the ample space in which Daniel, Isaac, and Saturn were now standing. The narrow nozzle was the cupola, which pierced the ceiling, admitting sky-light and (as its windows were ajar) exhausting the fouled air of the asylum. “This was Hooke’s favorite part of the building, his ?rie and his atelier,” Daniel said, “though it then looked much different.” He approached a railing and gazed down into the central well that vented cupola-light into the entrance hall. “This had planks thrown across it, making it into one great floor, uninterrupted.”

“I only paid one visit, and that was for your going-away party,” said Isaac.

This was of interest to Saturn, who had been distracted, leaning over the rail and beckoning to some blokes loitering on the ground floor, two storeys below them. Now those fellows were ascending the stair in a gang. A man in indigo was moving to intercept them on the landing. Saturn, whilst keeping an eye on their progress, attended to Daniel. “Was that before you went off to Massachusetts?” he inquired.

“Long before. I departed for Massachusetts, at long last, in 1695. The party to which Sir Isaac refers was in 1689.”

“That makes no sense,” Saturn pointed out. Then he leaned over the railing, turning his attention to what was happening on the landing below: the man in indigo had barred the path of the blokes-four in all-who had answered Saturn’s call. They were big, rough-looking lads who could have mowed this man down in an instant, but they had piled to a stop anyway, and were looking up to Saturn for their cue.