CHAPTER XXII
QUEER PEOPLE
"Hear! Hold on! Quit shovin' me!" cried Washington White.
"Stop, Massa Jack!"
"I'm not pushing you," replied the boy, who, with the others, was
being moved forward against his will. "I can't seem to stop!"
Nor could the rest of them. It was just as if some one had
commanded them to walk forward toward the crowd that stood
waiting for them, and they could no more avoid obeying than they
could had they been pulled by wire cables.
"What can it be?" murmured Mr. Roumann. "Hold back, all of you.
They must have attached invisible wires to us, and are going to
make prisoners of us!"
"There are no wires on me," observed Mark, carefully feeling
about him.
"Nor me, either," added Jack.
"I'll soon make 'em stop!" exclaimed Andy Sudds, and raising his
gun to his shoulder, he fired over the heads of the Martians,
intending to frighten them.
To the surprise of the adventurers the gun only made a faint
sound, about half as loud as it usually did, and they saw
something small and black pop out of the muzzle, and sail lazily
through the air for a short distance, then fall.
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