s, handles, bolts, bars
and levers, paused for an instant, as if making up his mind, then said
decidedly, "There it is," and stepping quickly forward, selected a small
wheel amid a dozen others, all furnished at the circumference with
handles like those of a pilot's wheel, and giving it a quick wrench,
turned it half-way around.

At this instant, a startling shout fell upon our ears. There was a
thunderous clatter behind us, and, turning, we saw three gigantic
Martians rushing forward.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_VENGEANCE IS OURS_

"Sweep them! sweep them!" shouted Colonel Smith, as he brought his
disintegrator to bear. Mr. Phillips and I instantly followed his
example, and thus we swept the Martians into eternity, while Mr. Edison
coolly continued his manipulations of the wheel.

The effect of what he was doing became apparent in less than half a
minute. A shiver ran through the mass of machinery and shook the entire
building.

"Look! Look!" cried Sydney Phillips, who had stepped a little apart from
the others.

We all ran to his side and found ourselves in front of a great window
which opened through the side of the engine, giving a view of what lay
in front of it. There, gleaming in the electric lights, we saw Syrtis
Major, its waters washing high against the walls of the vast power
house. Running directly out from the shore, there was an immense
metallic gate at least 400 yards in length and rising three hundred feet
above the present level of the water.

This great gate was slowly swinging upon an invisible hinge in such a
manner that in a few minutes it would evidently stand across the current
of the Syrtis Major at right angles.

Beyond was a second gate, which was moving in the same manner. Further
on was a third gate, and then another, and another, as far as the eye
could reach, evidently extending in an unbroken series completely across
the great strait.

As the gates, with accelerated motion when the current caught them,
clanged together, we beheld a spectacle that almost stopped the beating
of our hearts.

The great Syrtis seemed to gather itself for a moment, and then it
leaped upon the obstruction and buried its waters into one vast foaming
geyser that seemed to shoot a thousand feet skyward.

But the metal gates withstood the shock, though buried from our sight in
the seething white mass, and the baffled waters instantly swirled around
in ten thousand gigantic eddies, rising to the level