, that it was a case of "burn, sink and
destroy," and the thousand-year-old Berserker awoke in him just, as a
matter of fact, it had done in his lordship.

"They can pick up the pieces down there, what there is left of them,"
said Redgrave, still holding Zaidie tight to his side with one hand and
working the wheel with the other, "and now we'll teach them another
lesson."

"What are you going to do, dear?" she said, looking up at him with
somewhat frightened eyes.

"You'll see in a moment," he said, between his shut teeth. "I don't care
whether these Martians are degenerate human beings or only animals; but
from my point of view the reception they have given us justifies any
kind of retaliation. If we'd had a single port-hole open during the
first volley you and I would have been dead by this time, and I'm not
going to stand anything like that without reprisals. They've declared
war on us, and killing in war isn't murder."

"Well, no, I suppose not," she said; "but it's the first fight I've been
in, and I don't like it. Still, they did receive us pretty meanly,
didn't they?"

"Meanly? If there was anything like a code of interplanetary morals or
manners one might call it absolutely caddish. I don't believe even Stead
himself could stand that--unless, of course, he wasn't here."

He sent another message to Murgatroyd. The _Astronef_ sprang a thousand
feet towards the zenith; another touch on the button, and she stopped
exactly over the biggest of the Martian air-ships; another, and she
dropped on to it like a stone and smashed it to fragments. Then she
stopped and mounted again above the broken circle of the fleet, while
the pieces of the air-ship and what was left of her crew plunged
downwards through the crimson clouds in a fall of nearly thirty thousand
feet.

Within the next few moments the rest of the Martian fleet had followed
it, sinking rapidly down through the clouds and scattering in all
directions.

"They seem to have had enough of it," laughed Redgrave, as the
_Astronef_, in obedience to another signal, began to drop towards the
surface of Mars. "Now we'll go down and see if they're in a more
reasonable frame of mind. At any rate we've won our first scrimmage,
dear."

"But it was rather brutal, Lenox, wasn't it?"

"When you are dealing with brutes, little woman, it is sometimes
necessary to be brutal."

"And you look a wee bit brutal right now," she replied, looking up at
him with something li