nd. Tao spoke a few words
to him and then moved away. My guard immediately sat down. I saw nothing
was required of me at the moment, and sat down also.

I had opportunity now to examine the strange things and people about me
more in detail. The Mercutians all seemed to be of the same short, squat,
red-haired type. Tao was, indeed, the only one I saw who had black hair;
and he was the tallest, and by far the most commanding looking figure of
them all.

They wore several different costumes, although the garment of white fur
was the most common. A few were dressed in the black costume of the guard
in the gully. Still others were garbed only in short, wide trousers and
shirts of a soft leather, with legs bare from the knee down, and with
leather buskins on their feet.

The light-ray was set up near the river, on a metallic structure
supporting a small platform some thirty feet above the ground. A ladder
up one side gave access to this platform from below. The light itself
came from a cubical metallic box, perhaps six feet square, suspended
above the platform in a balancing mechanism that allowed it to swing in
all directions.

All the metal of this apparatus, the projector, the platform and its
framework, was apparently of the same kind; it had the appearance of
burnished copper. The whole seemed fairly complicated, but not unlike a
huge searchlight would appear if mounted that way.

Coming out of the projector and running down to the ground were black
wires, which led to a metallic box a few feet away. This box was
rectangular in shape; six feet long, perhaps, two feet broad, and the
same in depth. I judged it to be the dynamo or battery from which the
projector was supplied with the light-ray.

A short distance back from the river I saw what appeared to be a small
mortar, which I assumed was for the sending of the light-rockets, or
bombs. Several other light-ray projectors, sections of their supporting
structures, and the unassembled parts of other apparatus, were lying
scattered about the ground. A considerable number of the Mercutians were
laboriously bringing out of the vehicle still more apparatus.

It was obvious to me then that they were only just getting started in
their offensive and defensive preparations. This I could easily
understand when I had watched for a moment the activities going on. All
of the apparatus which they were engaged in bringing out and assembling
was of metal, and it was so extremely