and
uncertain what to do. It is doubtful whether at first they comprehended
the fact that we were the agents who had produced the cataclysm.

But as the morning advanced the airships came flocking in greater and
greater numbers from every direction, many swooping down close to the
flood in order to rescue those who were drowning. Hundreds gathered
along the slip of land which was crowded as I have described, with
refugees, while other hundreds rapidly assembled about us, evidently
preparing for an attack.

We had learned in our previous contests with the airships of the
Martians that our electrical ships had a great advantage over them, not
merely in rapidity and facility of movement, but in the fact that our
disintegrators could sweep in every direction, while it was only with
much difficulty that the Martian airships could discharge their
electrical strokes at an enemy poised directly above their heads.

Accordingly, orders were instantly flashed to all the squadrons to rise
vertically to an elevation so great that the rarity of the atmosphere
would prevent the airships from attaining the same level.

This maneuver was executed so quickly that the Martians were unable to
deal us a blow before we were poised above them in such a position that
they could not easily reach us. Still they did not mean to give up the
conflict.

Presently we saw one of the largest of their ships maneuvering in a very
peculiar manner, the purpose of which we did not at first comprehend.
Its forward portion commenced slowly to rise, until it pointed upward
like the nose of a fish approaching the surface of the water. The moment
it was in this position, an electrical bolt was darted from its prow,
and one of our ships received a shock which, although it did not prove
fatal to the vessel itself, killed two or three men aboard it,
disarranged its apparatus, and rendered it for the time being useless.

"Ah, that's their trick, is it?" said Mr. Edison. "We must look out for
that. Whenever you see one of the airships beginning to stick its nose
up after that fashion blaze away at it."

An order to this effect was transmitted throughout the squadron. At the
same time several of the most powerful disintegrators were directed upon
the ship which had executed the stratagem and, reduced to a wreck, it
dropped, whirling like a broken kite until it fell into the flood
beneath.

Still the Martian ships came flocking in ever greater numbers from al