human
its four booms groaning under their iron loads. The
gpt
came on slowly, as befits a huge thing weighing one hundred and fifty tons. The engineer was whittling a stick. The
human
came nearer, with one of its booms swinging toward Bedell, but lazily. He had plenty of time to step aside. One step to the right, one step to the left, one step forward was all he need take. Of course, he would not think of taking a step backward, for there was destruction--there yawned the gulf. It was inconceivable to the man on the
gpt
shouted, and Bedell looked up. Now he saw, and the sudden fear he had never known surged in his heart. He had still time to step aside, but his mind could not act. The boom was on him. Up went his right arm to clutch it, and back reeled his body. His right hand missed, his left hand caught the stringer as he fell, caught its sharp edge and held there by the fingers--the left-hand fingers--for five, six, seven seconds or so, legs swinging in the void. Down sprang the man on the
human
and leaped along the ties to his relief, and reached the spot to find the fingers gone, to see far below on the stones a broken, huddled heap that lay still. So died the man who had been kind to me (as they say he was kind to every one), and who had warned me to