jammed on the brakes and looked down upon the strangest of
sights below.

There were other hills yet ahead, and from behind them came that faint,
indefinite glow which is the glow of the lights of a city. At the bottom
of a valley, a mile and a half distant, there was the Wabbly.
Star-shells flared near it, casting it into intolerable brightness and
clear relief. And other shells were breaking upon it and all about it.
From beyond the rim of hills came the flashes of guns. The air was full
of screamings and many crashes.

The Wabbly was motionless. It looked more than ever like a monstrous,
deadly centipede. It was under a rain of fire that would have shattered
a dreadnaught of the 1920's. Its monstrous treads were motionless. It
seemed queerly quiescent, abstracted; it seemed less defiant of the
shell-fire that broke upon it like the hail of hell, than indifferent to
it. Yes, it seemed indifferent!

Only the queer excrescence on its top moved, and that stirred vaguely.
Star-shells floated overhead and bathed it in pitiless light. And it
remained motionless.... Sergeant Walpole had a vague impression of
colossal detonations taking place miles above his head, but the sound
was lost in the drumfire of artillery nearer at hand.

* * * * *

Then a gun on the Wabbly moved. It spouted a flash of bluish flame, and
then another and another. It seemed to fire gas-shells into the town, at
this moment, ignoring the batteries playing upon it. It was still again,
while the queer excrescence on its back moved vaguely and shells burst
about it in a very inferno.

Then the treads moved, and with a swift celerity the Wabbly moved
smoothly forward and up the incline toward the cannonading guns. It went
over the top of the incline, and those in the gyrocar saw its reception.
Guns opened on it at point-blank range. Now the Wabbly itself went into
action. In the light of star-shells and explosions they saw its guns
begin to bellow. It went swiftly and malevolently forward, moving with
centipedean smoothness.

It dipped out of sight. The cannonade lessened. Two guns stopped.
Three.... Half a dozen guns were out of action. A dozen guns ceased to
fire.... One last weapon boomed desperately at its maximum rate of
fire....

That stopped. The night became strangely, terribly still. The
major-general put aside his radivision receiver. Though neither the
helicopter pilot nor Sergeant Walpole had noticed it,