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While cruising there, with all eyes intent, they had suddenly perceived a glittering object moving from the direction of the ruddy planet, and manifestly approaching them. A little inspection with the telescope had shown them that it was one of the projectile cars used by the Martians.
Martians are not excessive eaters, as their bodies do not require the gross foods so characteristic of your Earth. There are two reasons for this. In the first place the difference in the gravitational pull on Mars being thirty-eight one-hundredths to that of your Earth, obviates the necessity of supplying as much fuel to the human body as your physical make-up demands.
The Martians had not had time to complete their work before they themselves fell a prey to the diseases that carried them off at the very culmination of their triumph. From those lands which had, fortunately, escaped invasion, relief was sent to the sufferers. The outburst of pity and of charity exceeded anything that the world had known.
And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians dead! slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.
"Manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely impossible for the Martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is near Mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for several years at a time, then is their opportunity.
We do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to the Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet. They may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man inexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make it understand what he says.
She knew, too, that many of them were used now by the nomadic tribes of green men, but that among them all was no city that the red men did not shun, for without exception they stood amidst vast, waterless tracts, unsuited for the continued sustenance of the dominant race of Martians. Why, then, should they be bringing her to such a place? There was but a single answer.
And the humming drone in the air rose and dwindled. It moved away from the mountain-top. It lessened and lessened until it was inaudible. Then there was dead silence again. "By his accent, he's a Baltic Russian," said Thorn very grimly in the darkness. "Which means Com-Pubs, not Martians, though we're the only people who realize it; and they're starting a war! And we, Sylva, must warn our people.
It was much to ask, for if one single one of these fire-balls could wreak such havoc with the people of Earth, what would be the destruction by the countless other unexploded fireballs of the Martians? Still, the Spokesmen themselves must discover a way to hold their own, to win against the Martians. For Sarka there was greater work to do.
The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them.
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