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III.
After devious windings and ascents they came out upon a projecting ledge
from which it was possible to see over the greater extent of the Giants'
pit, and from which Redwood might make himself heard by the whole of
their assembly. The Giants were already gathered below and about him at
different levels, to hear the message he had to deliver. The eldest son
of Cossar stood on the bank overhead watching the revelations of the
searchlights, for they feared a breach of the truce. The workers at the
great apparatus in the corner stood out clear in their own light; they
were near stripped; they turned their faces towards Redwood, but with a
watchful reference ever and again to the castings that they could not
leave. He saw these nearer figures with a fluctuating indistinctness, by
lights that came and went, and the remoter ones still less distinctly.
They came from and vanished again into the depths of great obscurities.
For these Giants had no more light than they could help in the pit, that
their eyes might be ready to see effectually any attacking force that
might spring upon them out of the darknesses around.
Ever and again some chance glare would pick out and display this group
or that of tall and powerful forms, the Giants from Sunderland clothed
in overlapping metal plates, and the others clad in leather, in woven
rope or in woven metal, as their conditions had determined. They sat
amidst or rested their hands upon, or stood erect among machines and
weapons as mighty as themselves, and all their faces, as they came and
went from visible to invisible, had steadfast eyes.
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