He was at first perplexed and incredulous. 'You mean to say,' he asked,

seeking confirmation, 'that you run about over the surface of your

world--this world, whose riches you have scarcely begun to scrape--killing

one another for beasts to eat?'

I told him that was perfectly correct.

He asked for particulars to assist his imagination.

'But do not ships and your poor little cities get injured?' he asked,

and I found the waste of property and conveniences seemed to impress him

almost as much as the killing. 'Tell me more,' said the Grand Lunar; 'make

me see pictures. I cannot conceive these things.'

"And so, for a space, though something loath, I told him the story of

earthly War.

"I told him of the first orders and ceremonies of war, of warnings and

ultimatums, and the marshalling and marching of troops. I gave him an idea

of manoeuvres and positions and battle joined. I told him of sieges and

assaults, of starvation and hardship in trenches, and of sentinels

freezing in the snow. I told him of routs and surprises, and desperate

last stands and faint hopes, and the pitiless pursuit of fugitives and the

dead upon the field. I told, too, of the past, of invasions and massacres,

of the Huns and Tartars, and the wars of Mahomet and the Caliphs, and of

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The First Men In The Moon