gazed upon this dreadful personage,
who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their
highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all
the moral depravity of a fiend.

The appearance of the Martian was indeed so threatening and repellent
that we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitating
to approach nearer. A grin of rage and hate overspread his face. If he
had been a man I should say he shook his fist at us. What he did was to
express in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and his
determination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within his
clutches.

Mr. Edison and I still stood upon the deck of the ship, where several
others had gathered around us. The atmosphere of the little asteroid was
so rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could not
possibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air tight
suits. How the Martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. It
was another of their secrets which we were yet to learn.

Mr. Edison retained his disintegrator in his hand.

"Kill him," said someone. "He is too horrible to live."

"If we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon the
asteroid," said another.

"No," said Mr. Edison. "I shall not kill him. We have got another use
for him. Tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he
had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetic."

This was something entirely new to nearly all the members of the
expedition. Mr. Edison, however, had confided to me before we left the
earth the fact that he had invented a little instrument by means of
which a bubble, strongly charged with a powerful anaesthetic agent,
could be driven to a considerable distance into the face of an enemy,
where exploding without other damage, it would instantly put him to
sleep.

When Tom had placed the instrument in his hands Mr. Edison ordered the
electrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower toward
the Martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted our
approach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. Suddenly Mr.
Edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseous
globe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine,
and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face of
the Martian. It burst as it touched and the monster fell back senseless
upon the g