e had found us not what she expected.

Then for an instant she looked more intently at us, her countenance
cleared once more, and, overcome by some strange emotion, her eyes filled
with tears, and, drawing a little nearer, she stretched forth her hands
to us appealingly.

Meanwhile the Martians had started to their feet. They looked down upon
us in astonishment. We were like pigmies to them; like little gnomes
which had sprung out of the ground at their feet.

One of the giants seized some kind of a weapon and started forward with
a threatening gesture.

The Girl Appeals to Us.

The girl sprang to my side and grasped my arm with a cry of fear.

This seemed to throw the Martian into a sudden frenzy, and he raised
his arms to strike.

But the disintegrator was in my hand.

My rage was equal to his.

I felt the concentrated vengeance of the earth quivering through me as
I pressed the button of the disintegrator and, sweeping it rapidly up
and down, saw the gigantic form that confronted me melt into nothingness.

There were three other giants in the room, and they had been on the point
of following up the attack of their comrade. But when he disappeared
from before their eyes, they paused, staring in amazement at the place
where, but a moment before, he had stood, but where now only the metal
weapon he had wielded lay on the floor.

At first they started back, and seemed on the point of fleeing; then,
with a second glance, perceiving again how small and insignificant we
were, all three together advanced upon us.

The girl sank trembling on her knees.

In the meantime I had readjusted my disintegrator for another discharge,
and Colonel Smith stood by me with the light of battle upon his face.

"Sweep the discharge across the three," I exclaimed. "Otherwise there
will be one left and before we can fire again he will crush us."

The Martians Are Killed.

The whirr of the two instruments sounded simultaneously, and with a quick,
horizontal motion we swept the lines of force around in such a manner
that all three of the Martians were caught by the vibratory streams and
actually cut in two.

Long gaps were opened in the wall of the room behind them, where the
destroying currents had passed, for with wrathful fierceness, we had
run the vibrations through half a gamut on the index.

The victory was ours. There were no other enemies, that we could see,
in the house.

Yet at any moment others might make th