“Once—and once again....”
The mob howled:
“The machines must die—to hell with them!
Death!—Death!—Death to the machines!”
Then—! What happened then?—Then!!—From one of the tunnels there broke forth a train, like a steed of fire, with sparkling lights, driverless, at a tearing speed—galloping death.
From whence did this hell-horse come?—Where were the giants, who were thus giving answer to the giants’ game of the mob? The train vanished, amid shrieks—and, some seconds later, came the tearing crash from the depths of the pit. And the second train was crashing onwards, sent off by unknown hands.
The stones shook loose under the feet of the mob. Smoke gushed up from the pit. Suddenly the lights went out. Only the clocks, the whitish-shimmering clocks, hung, as patches of light, in a darkness which was filled with long, dim, drifting clouds.
The mob pressed towards the stairs and up them. Behind them, unchained demons, pulling their reeling carriages along behind them, the engines, now released, hurled themselves on, to fall upon each other and break into flames....
Metropolis had a brain.