of the spiked gloves of those ancient gladiators who
fought for imperial Nero.

For an instant it stood here, preening, testing itself like an
athlete--a chimera, amorphous yet weirdly symmetric--under the darkening
sky, in the green of the hollow, the armored hosts frozen before it--

And then--it struck!

Out flashed two of the arms, with a glancing motion, with appalling
force. They sliced into the close-packed forward ranks of the armored
men; cut out of them two great gaps.

Sickened, I saw fragments of man and horse fly. Another arm javelined
from its place like a flying snake, clicked at the end of another,
became a hundred-foot chain which swirled like a flail through the
huddling mass. Down upon a knot of the soldiers with a straight-forward
blow drove a third arm, driving through them like a giant punch.

All that host which had driven us from the ruins threw down sword,
spear, and pike; fled shrieking. The horsemen spurred their mounts,
riding heedless over the footmen who fled with them.

The Smiting Thing seemed to watch them go with--AMUSEMENT!

Before they could cover a hundred yards it had disintegrated. I heard
the little wailing sounds--then behind the fleeing men, close behind
them, rose the angled pillar; into place sprang the flexing arms, and
again it took its toll of them.

They scattered, running singly, by twos, in little groups, for the sides
of the valley. They were like rats scampering in panic over the bottom
of a great green bowl. And like a monstrous cat the shape played with
them--yes, PLAYED.

It melted once more--took new form. Where had been pillar and flailing
arms was now a tripod thirty feet high, its legs alternate globe and
cube and upon its apex a wide and spinning ring of sparkling spheres.
Out from the middle of this ring stretched a tentacle--writhing,
undulating like a serpent of steel, four score yards at least in length.

At its end cube, globe and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident.
With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck, swiftly,
with fearful precision--JOYOUSLY--tining those who fled, forking them,
tossing them from its points high in air.

It was, I think, that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of the
Smiting Thing, that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my terror-parched
mouth, and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that struggled to
close.

Ever the armored men fled from it, and ever was it swifter than they,