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 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 ran
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 their appearance, and what more we
did must be done quickly.

The girl evidently was as much amazed as the Martians had been by the
effects which we had produced. Still she was not terrified, and
continued to cling to us and glance beseechingly into our faces,
expressing in her every look and gesture the fact that she knew we were
of her own race.

But clearly she could not speak our tongue, for the words she uttered
were unintelligible.

Colonel Smith, whose long experience in Indian warfare had made him
intensely practical, did not lose his military instincts, even in the
midst of events so strange.

"It occurs