I felt the concentrated vengeance of the earth quivering through me as I pressed the button of the disintegrator and, sweeping it rapidly up and down, saw the gigantic form that confronted me melt into nothingness.
There were three other giants in the room, and they had been on the point of following up the attack of their comrade. But when he disappeared from before their eyes, they paused, staring in amazement at the place where, but a moment before, he had stood, but where now only the metal weapon he had wielded lay on the floor.
At first they started back, and seemed on the point of fleeing; then, with a second glance, perceiving again how small and insignificant we were, all three together advanced upon us.
The girl sank trembling on her knees.
In the meantime I had readjusted my disintegrator for another discharge, and Colonel Smith stood by me with the light of battle upon his face.
"Sweep the discharge across the three," I exclaimed. "Otherwise there will be one left and before we can fire again he will crush us."
The whirr of the two instruments sounded simultaneously, and with a quick horizontal motion we swept the lines of force around in such a manner that all three of the Martians were caught by the vibratory streams and actually cut in two.
Long gaps were opened in the wall of the room behind them, where the destroying currents had passed, for with wrathful fierceness, we had ran the vibrations through half a gamut on the index.
The victory was ours. There were no other enemies, that we could see, in the house.
Yet at any moment others might make their appearance, and what more we did must be done quickly.