too, and both of them were drenched. They could see no more
than a couple of hundred yards in every direction, and they were hungry,
and they had seen things no man should have to look upon, in the way of
destruction. They came upon a wrecked artillery-train just as the world
lightened to a pallid gray. Guns twisted and burst. Caissons, no more
than shattered scraps of metal, because of the explosion of the shells
within them. And the tread-tracks of the Wabbly led across the mess.
Steam still rose, hissing softly, from the bent and twisted guns which
had burst when they were heated to redness by the power-beam. And there
was a staff gyrocar crumpled against a tree where it had been flung by
some explosion or other. There were neither sound nor wounded men about;
only dead ones. The Wabbly had been here.

"Hullo," said the helicopter man in a dreary levity, "there's a portable
vision set in this car. Let's call up the general and see how he is?"

Sergeant Walpole spat. Then he held up his hand. He was listening. Far
off in the drumming downpour of the rain there was a rumbling sound. He
had heard it before. It was partly made up of the noise of
internal-combustion engines of unthinkable power, and partly of
grumbling treads forcing a way through reluctant trees. It was a long
way off, now, but it was coming nearer.

"The Wabbly," said Sergeant Walpole. "Comin' back. Why? Hell's bells!
Why's it comin' back?"

"I don't know," said the 'copter man, "but let's get some rockets fixed
up."

The two of them worked almost lackadaisically. They were tired out. But
they took the tiny Bissel batteries and twisted the attached wires
about the rocket-heads. They had twenty or thirty of them fixed by the
time the noise of the Wabbly was very near. There was the noise of
felled trees, pushed down by the Wabbly in its progress. Great,
crackling crashes, and then crunching sounds, and above them the
thunderous smooth purring rumble of the monster. The 'copter man climbed
into the upside-down staff car. He turned the vision set on and fiddled
absurdly with the controls.

"I'm getting something," he announced suddenly. "The bomber up aloft is
sending its stuff down a beam, a tight beam to the Wabbly. Listen to
it!"

* * * * *

The uncouth, clacking syllables of the enemy tongue came from the vision
set. Someone was speaking crisply and precisely somewhere. Blurred,
indistinct flashes appeared on th