hey discussed it afterwards,
ages of purely utilitarian civilisation had brought all conditions of
Martian life up--or down--to the same level. There was no apparent
difference between the males and females in stature; their faces were
all the same, with features of mathematical regularity, pale skin,
bloodless cheeks, and an expression, if such it could be called, utterly
devoid of emotion.

But still these creatures were human, or at least their forefathers had
been. Hearts beat in their breasts, blood of a sort still flowed through
their veins, and so the magic of this marvellous vision instantly awoke
the long-slumbering elementary instincts of a bygone age. A low murmur
ran through the vast throng, a murmur half-human, half-brutish, which
swiftly rose to a hoarse screaming roar.

"Look out, my Lord! Quick! Shut the door, they're coming! It's her
ladyship they want; she must look like an angel from Heaven to them.
Shall I fire?"

"Yes," said Redgrave, gripping the lever, and bringing the door down.
"Zaidie, if this fellow moves put a bullet through him. I'm going to
talk to that air-ship before he gets his poison-guns to work."

As the last word left his lips Murgatroyd put his thumb on the spring on
the Maxim. A roar such as Martian ears had never heard before resounded
through the vast square, and was flung back with a thousand echoes from
the walls of the huge palaces on every side. A stream of smoke and flame
poured out of the little port-hole, and then the onward-swarming throng
seemed to stop, and the front ranks of it began to sink down silently in
long rows.

Then through the roaring rattle of the Maxim sounded the deep, sharp
bang of Redgrave's gun, as he sent ten pounds weight of Rennickite, as
he had christened it, into the Martian air-ship. There was the roar of
an explosion which shook the air for miles around. A blaze of greenish
flame and a huge cloud of steamy smoke showed that the projectile had
done its work, and, when the smoke drifted away, the spot on which the
air-ship had lain was only a deep, red, jagged gash in the ground. There
was not even a fragment of the ship to be seen.

This done, Redgrave went and turned the starboard Maxim on to another
swarm which was approaching the _Astronef_ from that side. When he had
got the range he swung the gun slowly from side to side. The moving
throng stopped, as the other one had done, and sank down to the red
grass, now dyed with a deeper red.