It flashed up it and licked him.

The gun was torn from his grip, hurled high in air, exploding as it went.

He leaped convulsively from his knees and dropped.
I heard a wailing, low, bitter and heartbroken.

Past us ran Ruth, all dream, all unearthliness gone from a face now a tragic mask of human woe and terror.

She threw herself down beside her brother, felt of his heart; then raised herself upon her knees and thrust out supplicating hands to the shapes.
"Don't hurt him any more! He didn't mean it!" she cried out to them piteously--like a child.