rned upon the
Martians from the electrical ships which hovered near.

Suddenly he who seemed to be the leader of the Martians began to speak
to them in pantomime, using his fingers after the manner in which they
are used for conversation by deaf and dumb people.

Of course, we did not know what he was saying, but his meaning became
perfectly evident a minute later. Clearly they did not comprehend the
powers of the insignificant looking strangers with whom they had to
deal. Instead of turning their destructive engines on us, they advanced
on a run, with the evident purpose of making us prisoners or crushing us
by main force.

The soft whirr of the disintegrator in the hands of Mr. Edison standing
near me came to my ears through the telephonic wire. He quickly swept
the concentrating mirror a little up and down, and instantly the
foremost Martian vanished! Part of some metallic dress that he wore fell
upon the ground where he had stood, its vibratory rate not having been
included in the range imparted to the disintegrator.

His followers paused for a moment, amazed, stared about as if looking
for their leader, and then hurried back to their projectile and
disappeared within it.

"Now we've got business on our hands," said Mr. Edison. "Look out for
yourselves."

As he spoke, I saw the death-dealing knob of the war engine contained in
the car of the Martians moving around toward us. In another instant it
would have launched its destroying bolt.

Before that could occur, however, it had been dissipated into space by a
vibratory stream from a disintegrator.

But we were not to get the victory quite so easily. There was another of
the war engines in the car, and before we could concentrate our fire
upon it, its awful flash shot forth, and a dozen of our comrades
perished before our eyes.

"Quick! Quick!" shouted Mr. Edison to one of his electrical experts
standing near. "There is something the matter with this disintegrator,
and I cannot make it work. Aim at the knob, and don't miss it."

But the aim was not well taken, and the vibratory force fell upon a
portion of the car at a considerable distance from the knob, making a
great breach, but leaving the engine uninjured.

A section of the side of the car had been destroyed, and the vibratory
energy had spread no further. To have attempted to sweep the car from
end to end would have been futile, because the period of action of the
disintegrators during each discha