nding the enemy area. It embraced now all the mid-section of the
island. The soldiers rushed in. Machine-guns were set up.

But the Robots were difficult to find. With this direct attack they
began fighting with an almost human caution. Their bodies were
impervious to bullets, save perhaps in the orifices of the face which
might or might not be vulnerable. But when attacked, they skulked in
the houses, or crouched like cautious animals under the smashed
vehicles. Then there were times when they would wade forward directly
into machine-gun fire--unharmed--plunging on until the gunners fled
and the Robots wreaked their fury upon the abandoned gun.

The only hand-to-hand conflicts took place on the afternoon of June
10th. A full thousand soldiers were killed--and possibly six or eight
of the Robots. The troops were ordered away after that; they made
lines across the island to the north and to the south, to keep the
enemy from increasing its area. Over Greenwich Village now, the
circling planes--at their highest altitude, to avoid the upflung
crimson beams--dropped bombs. Hundreds of houses there were wrecked.
Tugh's house could not be positively identified, though the attack was
directed at it most particularly. Afterward, it was found by chance to
have escaped.

* * * * *

The night of June 10th brought new horrors. The city lights failed.
Against all the efforts of the troops and the artillery fire which now
was shelling the Washington Square area, the giant mechanisms pushed
north and south. By midnight, with their dull-red beams illumining the
darkness of the canyon streets, they had reached the Battery, and
spread northward beyond the northern limits of Central Park.

It is estimated that by then there were still a million people on
Manhattan Island.

The night of the 11th, the Robots made their real attack. Those who
saw it, from planes overhead, say that upon a roof near Washington
Square a machine was mounted from which a red beam sprang. It was not
of parallel rays, like the others; this one spread. And of such power
it was, that it painted the leaden clouds of the threatening, overcast
night. Every plane, at whatever high altitude, felt its frigid blast
and winged hastily away to safety.

Spreading, dull-red beam! It flashed with a range of miles. Its light
seemed to cling to the clouds, staining like blood; and to cling to
the air itself with a dull lurid radiance.

It wa