w comes the end for you--and for all
that is yours! But until the end's end you shall see."

The hanging body was thrust forward; was thrust up; was brought down
upon its feet on the upper plane of the prostrate pyramid tipping the
metal arm that held him. For an instant he struggled to escape; I
think he meant to hurl himself down upon Norhala, to kill her before he
himself was slain.

If so, after one frenzied effort he realized the futility, for with
a certain dignity he drew himself upright, turned his eyes toward the
city.

Over that city a dreadful silence hung. It was as though it cowered, hid
its face, was afraid to breathe.

"The end!" murmured Norhala.

There was a quick trembling through the Metal Thing. Down swung its
forest of sledges. Beneath the blow down fell the smitten walls,
shattered, crumbling, and with it glittering like shining flies in a
dust storm fell the armored men.

Through that mile-wide breach and up to the inner barrier I glimpsed
confusion chaotic. And again I say it--they were no cowards, those men
of Cherkis. From the inner battlements flew clouds of arrows, of huge
stones--as uselessly as before.

Then out from the opened gates poured regiments of horsemen, brandishing
javelins and great maces, and shouting fiercely as they drove down upon
each end of the Metal Shape. Under cover of their attack I saw cloaked
riders spurring their ponies across the plain to shelter of the cliff
walls, to the chance of hiding places within them. Women and men of
the rich, the powerful, flying for safety; after them ran and scattered
through the fields of grain a multitude on foot.

The ends of the spindle drew back before the horsemen's charge,
broadening as they went--like the heads of monstrous cobras withdrawing
into their hoods. Abruptly, with a lightning velocity, these broadenings
expanded into immense lunettes, two tremendous curving and crablike
claws. Their tips flung themselves past the racing troops; then like
gigantic pincers began to contract.

Of no avail now was it for the horsemen to halt dragging their mounts on
their haunches, or to turn to fly. The ends of the lunettes had met,
the pincer tips had closed. The mounted men were trapped within
half-mile-wide circles. And in upon man and horse their living
walls marched. Within those enclosures of the doomed began a frantic
milling--I shut my eyes--

There was a dreadful screaming of horses, a shrieking of men. Then
silen