h many
airships floating above it and the blaze of innumerable electric lights
illuminating it. The Martians had created an artificial day under the
curtain.

This time there was no question that the blow had been effective. Four
or five of the airships, partially destroyed, tumbled headlong toward
the ground, while even from our great distance there was unmistakable
evidence that fearful execution had been done among the crowded
structures along the shore of the lake.

As each of our ships possessed but one of the new disintegrators, and
since a minute or so was required to adjust them for a fresh discharge,
we remained for a little while inactive after delivering the blow.
Meanwhile the cloud curtain, though rent to shreds by the concentrated
discharge of the disintegrators, quickly became a uniform black sheet
again, hiding everything.

We had just had time to congratulate ourselves on the successful opening
of our bombardment, and the disintegrator of the flagship was poised for
another discharge, when suddenly out of the black expanse beneath,
quivered immense electric beams, clear cut and straight as bars of
steel, but dazzling our eyes with unendurable brilliance.

It was the reply of the Martians to our attack.

Three or four of the electrical ships were seriously damaged, and one,
close beside the flagship, changed color, withered and collapsed, with
the same sickening phenomena that had made our hearts shudder when the
first disaster of this kind occurred during our brief battle over the
asteroid.

Another score of our comrades were gone, and yet we had hardly begun the
fight.

Glancing at the other ships which had been injured, I saw that the
damage to them was not so serious, although they were evidently _hors de
combat_ for the present.

Our fighting blood was now boiling and we did not stop long to count our
losses.

"Into the smoke!" was the signal, and the ninety and more electric ships
which still remained in condition for action immediately shot downward.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_THE EARTH GIRL_

It was a wild plunge. We kept off the decks while rushing through the
blinding smoke, but the instant we emerged below, where we found
ourselves still a mile above the ground, we were out again, ready to
strike.

I have simply a confused recollection of flashing lights beneath, and a
great, dark arch of clouds above, out of which our ships seemed dropping
on all sides, and then the fray bur