midnight
* * * * * The night of June 10th brought new horrors . The city lights failed . Against all the efforts of the troops and the artillery fire which now was shelling the Washington Square area , the giant mechanisms pushed north and south . By midnight , with their dull-red beams illumining the darkness of the canyon streets , they had reached the Battery , and spread northward beyond the northern limits of Central Park . It is estimated that by then there were still a million people on Manhattan Island . The night of the 11th , the Robots made their real attack . Those who saw it , from planes overhead , say that upon a roof near Washington Square a machine was mounted from which a red beam sprang .