ly on his feet, clawing for the switch. But he
stopped, reeling. His head spun and he could not see. Through his
dizzy brain the great voice roared and the mighty tones below hearing
hammered at the inmost fortress of the man's will.

On the heels of that deafening assault the voice began to change. The
numbing thunder rumbled back, repeating the pain and the threat--but
underneath something crooned and wheedled obscenely. It said,
"_Come ... come ... come...._" And the stunned prey came on stumbling
feet, shivering with a terror that could not break the spell.

Where the squat black machine had been was something that was also
squat and black and huge. It crouched motionless and blind in the mud
and from its pulsing expanded throat vibrated the demonic croaking. As
the victim swayed helplessly nearer the mouth opened wide upon long
rows of frightful teeth....

The monstrous song stopped suddenly. Then still another voice cried
briefly, thinly in agony and despair. That voice was human.

Each of the two men looked into a white strange face. They were
standing on opposite sides of the table and between them the playback
machine had fallen silent. Then it began to whir again in the locust
speech of the Martian commentator, explaining rapidly, unintelligibly.

Thwaite found the switch with wooden fingers. As if with one accord
they retreated from the black machine. Neither of them even tried to
make a false show of self-possession. Each knew, from his first
glimpse of the other's dilated staring eyes, that both had experienced
and seen the same.

Dalton sank shivering into a chair, the darkness still swirling
threateningly in his brain. Presently he said, "The expression of a
will--that much was true. But the will--was not of man."

* * * * *

James Dalton took a vacation. After a few days he went to a
psychiatrist, who observed the usual symptoms of overwork and worry
and recommended a change of scene--a rest in the country.

On the first night at a friend's secluded farm Dalton awoke drenched
in cold sweat. Through the open window from not far away came a
hellish serenade, the noise of frogs--the high nervous voices of
peepers punctuating the deep leisured booming of bullfrogs.

The linguist flung on his clothes and drove back at reckless speed to
where there were lights and the noises of men and their machines. He
spent the rest of his vacation burrowing under the clamor of the