all his suggestions of beast
and monster, nevertheless the Martian produced the impression of being
a person and not a mere animal.

His Frightened Aspect.

I have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to the
fact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of a
man. There was something in this face that sent a shiver through the
soul of the beholder. One could feel in looking upon it that here was
intellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in the
direction of evil instead of good.

The sensations of one who had stood face to face with Satan, when he
was driven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellow
archangels, and had beheld him transformed from Lucifer, the Son of the
Morning, into the Prince of Night and Hell, might not have been unlike
those which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage,
who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their
highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all
the moral depravity of a fiend.

The Martian's Rage.

The appearance of the Martian was indeed so threatening and repellent
that we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitating
to approach nearer. A grin of rage and hate overspread his face. If he
had been a man I should say he shook his fist at us. What he did was
to express in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and
his determination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within
his clutches.

Mr. Edison and I still stood upon the deck of the ship, where several
others had gathered around us. The atmosphere of the little asteroid
was so rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could not
possibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air-tight
suits. How the Martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. It
was another of their secrets which we were yet to learn.

Mr. Edison retained his disintegrator in his hand.

"Kill him," said someone. "He is too horrible to live."

"If we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon the asteroid,"
said another.

Shall We Kill Him?

"No," said Mr. Edison, "I shall not kill him. We have got another use
for him. Tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he
had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetizer."

This was something entirely new to nearly all the members of the
expedition. Mr. E