m moving. By daylight you can't. But nearer--I
haven't seen them--" (he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I
saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the
night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a
matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe
they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.

"Fly!"

"Yes," he said, "fly."

I went on into a little bower, and sat down.

"It is all over with humanity," I said. "If they can do that they
will simply go round the world."

He nodded.

"They will. But---- It will relieve things over here a bit. And
besides----" He looked at me. "Aren't you satisfied it _is_ up with
humanity? I am. We're down; we're beat."

I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact--a
fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a
vague hope; rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated
his words, "We're beat." They carried absolute conviction.

"It's all over," he said. "They've lost _one_--just _one_. And they've
made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world.
They've walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an
accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These
green stars--I've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt
they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's to be done. We're
under! We're beat!"

I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to
devise some countervailing thought.

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war,
any more than there's war between man and ants."

Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory.

"After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first
cylinder came."

"How do you know?" said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought.
"Something wrong with the gun," he said. "But what if there is?
They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it
alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their
cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want
them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we
are now--just ants. Only----"

"Yes," I said.

"We're eatable ants."

We sat looking at each other.

"And what will they do with us?" I said.

"That's