ich still refused to work.

At this fearful moment I glanced around upon our company, and was
astonished at the spectacle. In the presence of the danger many of them
had lost all self-command. A half dozen had dropped their disintegrators
upon the ground. Others stood as if frozen fast in their tracks. The
expert electrician, whose poor aim had had such disastrous results,
held in his hand an instrument which was in perfect condition, yet with
mouth agape, he stood trembling like a captured bird.

The Electricians Lose Their Heads.

It was a disgraceful exhibition. Mr. Edison, however, had not lost
his head. Again and again he sighted at the dreadful knob with his
disintegrator, but the vibratory force refused to respond.

The means of safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination of
ill luck and paralyzing terror we seemed unable to use them.

In a second more it would be all over with us.

The suspense in reality lasted only during the twinkling of an eye,
though it seemed ages long.

Unable to endure it, I sharply struck the shoulder of the paralyzed
electrician. To have attempted to seize the disintegrator from his hands
would have been a fatal waste of time. Luckily the blow either roused
him from his stupor or caused an instinctive movement of his hand that
set the little engine in operation.

I am sure he took no aim, but providentially the vibratory force fell
upon the desired point, and the knob disappeared.

Saved!

We were saved!

Instantly half a dozen rushed toward the car of the Martians. We bitterly
repented their haste; they did not live to repent.

Unknown to us the Martians carried hand engines, capable of launching
bolts of death of the same character as those which emanated from the
knobs of their larger machines. With these they fired, so to speak,
through the breach in their car, and four of our men who were rushing
upon them fell in heaps of cinders. The effect of the terrible fire
was like that which the most powerful strokes of lightning occasionally
produce on earth.

The destruction of the threatening knob had instantaneously relieved
the pressure upon the terror-stricken nerves of our company, and they
had all regained their composure and self-command. But this new and
unexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recently
overpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was not
to stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to sen