From each side came other men, dragging more of these balisters; assembling a battery against the prodigious, gleaming monster that menaced their city.
Between outer wall and inner battlements galloped squadrons of mounted men.

Upon this inner wall the soldiers clustered as thickly as on the outer, preparing as actively for its defense.
The city seethed.

Up from it arose a humming, a buzzing, as of some immense angry hive.
Involuntarily I visualized the spectacle we must present to those who looked upon us--this huge incredible Shape of metal alive with quicksilver shifting.

This--as it must have seemed to them--hellish mechanism of war captained by a sorceress and two familiars in form of men.

There came to me dreadful visions of such a monster looking down upon the peace-reared battlements of New York--the panic rush of thousands away from it.
There was a blaring of trumpets.