steel at their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from
their severed arteries as they died the real death.

I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beasts
appeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one really
materialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently
lose my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the
belief that the beasts came into the room other than through some
concealed and well-contrived doorway.

Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas' leather harness, which is the
only manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and
robes of silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was
a small mirror, about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which
hung midway between his shoulders and his waist against his broad
back.

Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyes
happened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I saw
pictured a sight that caused me to whisper:

"Move not, Tars Tarkas! Move not a muscle!"

He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes
watched the strange thing that meant so much to us.

What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind
me. It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor
directly in front of it was turning. It was as though you placed
a visiting-card upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat