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He gave the
solid rail a hateful kick.
From far away there came
an answering tick
And then another tick. He knew the
code:
His hate had roused an engine up the road.
He wished when he had had the track alone
He had
attacked it with a club or stone
And bent some rail
wide open like switch
So as to wreck the engine in
the ditch.
Too late though, now, he had himself to
thank.
Its click was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He
stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then
for a moment all there was was size
Confusion and a
roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the
gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay
serene.
The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train,
between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And
followed it to where he made out vague
But certain
signs of buried turtle's egg;
And probing with one
finger not too rough,
He found suspicious sand, and
sure enough,
The pocket of a little turtle mine.
If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather
All packed
in sand to wait the trump together.
'You'd better not
disturb any more,'
He told the distance, 'I am armed
for war.
The next machine that has the power to pass
Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.'
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