And like a monstrous cat the shape played with them--yes, PLAYED.
It melted once more--took new form.

Where had been pillar and flailing arms was now a tripod thirty feet high, its legs alternate globe and cube and upon its apex a wide and spinning ring of sparkling spheres.
Out from the middle of this ring stretched a tentacle--writhing, undulating like a serpent of steel, four score yards at least in length.
At its end cube, globe and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident.
With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck, swiftly, with fearful precision--JOYOUSLY--tining those who fled, forking them, tossing them from its points high in air.
It was, I think, that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of the Smiting Thing, that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my terror-parched mouth, and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that struggled to close.
Ever the armored men fled from it, and ever was it swifter than they, teetering at their heels on its tripod legs.
From half its length the darting snake streamed red rain.
I heard a sigh from Ruth; wrested my gaze from the hollow; turned.

She lay fainting in Drake's arms.
Beside the two the swathed woman stood, looking out upon that slaughter, calm and still, shrouded with an unearthly tranquillity--viewing it, it came to me, with eyes impersonal, cold, indifferent as the untroubled stars which look down upon hurricane and earthquake in this world of ours.
There was a rushing of many feet at our left; a wail from Chiu-Ming.
Were they maddened by fear, driven by despair, determined to slay before they themselves were slain?
I do not know.

But those who still lived of the men from the tunnel mouth were charging us.
They clustered close, their shields held before them.

They had no bows, these men.