Page:The world set free.djvu/192

 to rest amidst grass close by the smashed machine. Their passengers descended, and ran, holding their light rifles in their hands towards the débris and the two dead men. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied the centre of the machine had broken, and three black objects, each with two handles like the ears of a pitcher, lay peacefully amidst the litter.

These objects were so tremendously important in the eyes of their captors that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody and broken amidst the wreckage as they might have disregarded dead frogs by a country pathway.

"By God!" cried the first. "Here they are!"

"And unbroken!" said the second.

"I've never seen the things before," said the first.

"Bigger than I thought," said the second.

The third comer arrived. He stared for a moment at the bombs and then turned his eyes to the dead man with a crushed chest who lay in a muddy place among the green stems under the centre of the machine.

"One can take no risks," he said, with a faint suggestion of apology.

The other two now also turned to the victims. "We must signal," said the first man. A shadow