diff --git "a/Science Fiction/The_War_of_the_Worlds.txt" "b/Science Fiction/The_War_of_the_Worlds.txt" deleted file mode 100644--- "a/Science Fiction/The_War_of_the_Worlds.txt" +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6748 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The War of the Worlds - -Author: H. G. Wells - -Release Date: July 1992 [eBook #36] -[Most recently updated: November 27, 2021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR OF THE WORLDS *** - -cover - - - - -The War of the Worlds - -by H. G. Wells - - - - - ‘But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? - . . . Are we or they Lords of the World? . . . And - how are all things made for man?’ - KEPLER (quoted in _The Anatomy of Melancholy_) - - - - -Contents - - - BOOK ONE.—THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS - - I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. - II. THE FALLING STAR. - III. ON HORSELL COMMON. - IV. THE CYLINDER OPENS. - V. THE HEAT-RAY. - VI. THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD. - VII. HOW I REACHED HOME. - VIII. FRIDAY NIGHT. - IX. THE FIGHTING BEGINS. - X. IN THE STORM. - XI. AT THE WINDOW. - XII. WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. - XIII. HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE. - XIV. IN LONDON. - XV. WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY. - XVI. THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. - XVII. THE “THUNDER CHILD”. - - BOOK TWO.—THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS - - I. UNDER FOOT. - II. WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE. - III. THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT. - IV. THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. - V. THE STILLNESS. - VI. THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS. - VII. THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL. - VIII. DEAD LONDON. - IX. WRECKAGE. - X. THE EPILOGUE. - - - - -BOOK ONE -THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS - - - - -I. -THE EVE OF THE WAR. - - -No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century -that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences -greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied -themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and -studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might -scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of -water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe -about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire -over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do -the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources -of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life -upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of -the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men -fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to -themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the -gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the -beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, -regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their -plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great -disillusionment. - -The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the -sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it -receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It -must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; -and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface -must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of -the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the -temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all -that is necessary for the support of animated existence. - -Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to -the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that -intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, -beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since -Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the -superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that -it is not only more distant from time’s beginning but nearer its end. - -The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already -gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still -largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region -the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. -Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until -they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change -huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically -inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to -us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the -inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened -their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And -looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we -have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only -35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own -warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy -atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting -cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, -navy-crowded seas. - -And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at -least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The -intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant -struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief -of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this -world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they -regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their -only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, -creeps upon them. - -And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless -and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon -animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior -races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely -swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European -immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy -as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit? - -The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing -subtlety—their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of -ours—and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh -perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen -the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like -Schiaparelli watched the red planet—it is odd, by-the-bye, that for -countless centuries Mars has been the star of war—but failed to -interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so -well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready. - -During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated -part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of -Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in -the issue of _Nature_ dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this -blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk -into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar -markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak -during the next two oppositions. - -The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached -opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange -palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of -incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of -the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, -indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an -enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become -invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal -puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, “as -flaming gases rushed out of a gun.” - -A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was -nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the _Daily -Telegraph_, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest -dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of -the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at -Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of -his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a -scrutiny of the red planet. - -In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil -very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern -throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking -of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an -oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved -about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a -circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. -It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly -marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect -round. But so little it was, so silvery warm—a pin’s head of light! It -was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with -the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view. - -As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to -advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty -millions of miles it was from us—more than forty millions of miles of -void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of -the material universe swims. - -Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, -three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the -unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks -on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. -And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly -and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer -every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were -sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity -and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one -on earth dreamed of that unerring missile. - -That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant -planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection -of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I -told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, -and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the -darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy -exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us. - -That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth -from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first -one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with -patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a -light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I -had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till -one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his -house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all -their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace. - -He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and -scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were -signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy -shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in -progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic -evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets. - -“The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one,” he -said. - -Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after -about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a -flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth -has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the -Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through -a powerful telescope on earth as little grey, fluctuating patches, -spread through the clearness of the planet’s atmosphere and obscured -its more familiar features. - -Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular -notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the volcanoes -upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical _Punch_, I remember, made a happy -use of it in the political cartoon. And, all unsuspected, those -missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a -pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by -hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost -incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men -could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how -jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the -illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times -scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century -papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the -bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable -developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed. - -One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000 -miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I -explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a -bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many -telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of -excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing -music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the -people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the -sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into -melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the -red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the -sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil. - - - - -II. -THE FALLING STAR. - - -Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the -morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the -atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary -falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it -that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on -meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about -ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth -about one hundred miles east of him. - -I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my -French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved -in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet -this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space -must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only -looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it -travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many -people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of -it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No -one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night. - -But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting -star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common -between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of -finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the -sand-pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the -projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every -direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. -The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against -the dawn. - -The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the -scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its -descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, -caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured -incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached -the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most -meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still -so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. -A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling -of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it -might be hollow. - -He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for -itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its -unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence -of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and -the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already -warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was -certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint -movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the -common. - -Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, -the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the -circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining -down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a -sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth. - -For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the -heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to -see the Thing more clearly. He fancied even then that the cooling of -the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the -fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder. - -And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the -cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that -he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been -near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the -circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, -until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk -forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The -cylinder was artificial—hollow—with an end that screwed out! Something -within the cylinder was unscrewing the top! - -“Good heavens!” said Ogilvy. “There’s a man in it—men in it! Half -roasted to death! Trying to escape!” - -At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the flash -upon Mars. - -The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he -forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But -luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands -on the still-glowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment, -then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into -Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o’clock. He -met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told -and his appearance were so wild—his hat had fallen off in the pit—that -the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman -who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell Bridge. -The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful -attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a little; and -when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his garden, he called -over the palings and made himself understood. - -“Henderson,” he called, “you saw that shooting star last night?” - -“Well?” said Henderson. - -“It’s out on Horsell Common now.” - -“Good Lord!” said Henderson. “Fallen meteorite! That’s good.” - -“But it’s something more than a meteorite. It’s a cylinder—an -artificial cylinder, man! And there’s something inside.” - -Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. - -“What’s that?” he said. He was deaf in one ear. - -Ogilvy told him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so -taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and -came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to the common, -and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the -sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed -between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering -or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound. - -They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and, -meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside -must be insensible or dead. - -Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted -consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get -help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and disordered, -running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the shop -folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their -bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, in -order to telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had -prepared men’s minds for the reception of the idea. - -By eight o’clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already -started for the common to see the “dead men from Mars.” That was the -form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about a -quarter to nine when I went out to get my _Daily Chronicle_. I was -naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the -Ottershaw bridge to the sand-pits. - - - - -III. -ON HORSELL COMMON. - - -I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge -hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance -of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground. The turf and gravel -about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion. No doubt its -impact had caused a flash of fire. Henderson and Ogilvy were not there. -I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present, and -had gone away to breakfast at Henderson’s house. - -There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with their -feet dangling, and amusing themselves—until I stopped them—by throwing -stones at the giant mass. After I had spoken to them about it, they -began playing at “touch” in and out of the group of bystanders. - -Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed -sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little -boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to -hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of -the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical -ideas in those days. Most of them were staring quietly at the big table -like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvy and Henderson had -left it. I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses -was disappointed at this inanimate bulk. Some went away while I was -there, and other people came. I clambered into the pit and fancied I -heard a faint movement under my feet. The top had certainly ceased to -rotate. - -It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of this -object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no -more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the -road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It -required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the -grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white -metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an -unfamiliar hue. “Extra-terrestrial” had no meaning for most of the -onlookers. - -At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had come -from the planet Mars, but I judged it improbable that it contained any -living creature. I thought the unscrewing might be automatic. In spite -of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men in Mars. My mind ran -fancifully on the possibilities of its containing manuscript, on the -difficulties in translation that might arise, whether we should find -coins and models in it, and so forth. Yet it was a little too large for -assurance on this idea. I felt an impatience to see it opened. About -eleven, as nothing seemed happening, I walked back, full of such -thought, to my home in Maybury. But I found it difficult to get to work -upon my abstract investigations. - -In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much. -The early editions of the evening papers had startled London with -enormous headlines: - -“A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS.” - - -“REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,” - - -and so forth. In addition, Ogilvy’s wire to the Astronomical Exchange -had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms. - -There were half a dozen flys or more from the Woking station standing -in the road by the sand-pits, a basket-chaise from Chobham, and a -rather lordly carriage. Besides that, there was quite a heap of -bicycles. In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in -spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there -was altogether quite a considerable crowd—one or two gaily dressed -ladies among the others. - -It was glaringly hot, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind, and -the only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees. The burning -heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards Ottershaw -was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off vertical -streamers of smoke. An enterprising sweet-stuff dealer in the Chobham -Road had sent up his son with a barrow-load of green apples and ginger -beer. - -Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of about -half a dozen men—Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man that I -afterwards learned was Stent, the Astronomer Royal, with several -workmen wielding spades and pickaxes. Stent was giving directions in a -clear, high-pitched voice. He was standing on the cylinder, which was -now evidently much cooler; his face was crimson and streaming with -perspiration, and something seemed to have irritated him. - -A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its lower -end was still embedded. As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the staring -crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down, and asked me -if I would mind going over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor. - -The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their -excavations, especially the boys. They wanted a light railing put up, -and help to keep the people back. He told me that a faint stirring was -occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had -failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them. The case -appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint -sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior. - -I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the privileged -spectators within the contemplated enclosure. I failed to find Lord -Hilton at his house, but I was told he was expected from London by the -six o’clock train from Waterloo; and as it was then about a quarter -past five, I went home, had some tea, and walked up to the station to -waylay him. - - - - -IV. -THE CYLINDER OPENS. - - -When I returned to the common the sun was setting. Scattered groups -were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were -returning. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black -against the lemon yellow of the sky—a couple of hundred people, -perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared -to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my -mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent’s voice: - -“Keep back! Keep back!” - -A boy came running towards me. - -“It’s a-movin’,” he said to me as he passed; “a-screwin’ and a-screwin’ -out. I don’t like it. I’m a-goin’ ’ome, I am.” - -I went on to the crowd. There were really, I should think, two or three -hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two ladies -there being by no means the least active. - -“He’s fallen in the pit!” cried some one. - -“Keep back!” said several. - -The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through. Every one -seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. - -“I say!” said Ogilvy; “help keep these idiots back. We don’t know -what’s in the confounded thing, you know!” - -I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, -standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. -The crowd had pushed him in. - -The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two -feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I -narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and -as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder -fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion. I stuck my elbow into -the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a -moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in -my eyes. - -I think everyone expected to see a man emerge—possibly something a -little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I -did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the -shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two -luminous disks—like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey -snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the -writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another. - -A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman -behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, -from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my -way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to -horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate -exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I -saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself -alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, -Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable -terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring. - -A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising -slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught -the light, it glistened like wet leather. - -Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass -that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one -might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim -of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature -heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped -the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. - -Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the -strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its -pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin -beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, -the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs -in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of -movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth—above -all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes—were at once -vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something -fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of -the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, -this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread. - -Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the -cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great -mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith -another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the -aperture. - -I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps -a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could -not avert my face from these things. - -There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, -panting, and waited further developments. The common round the -sand-pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a -half-fascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the -heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. And then, with -a renewed horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing up and down on -the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman who had fallen in, -but showing as a little black object against the hot western sun. Now -he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until -only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have -fancied a faint shriek had reached me. I had a momentary impulse to go -back and help him that my fears overruled. - -Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the -heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made. Anyone coming -along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the -sight—a dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred people or more -standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes, behind -gates and hedges, saying little to one another and that in short, -excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of sand. The -barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black against the -burning sky, and in the sand-pits was a row of deserted vehicles with -their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the ground. - - - - -V. -THE HEAT-RAY. - - -After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder -in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of -fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the -heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of -fear and curiosity. - -I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate -longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, -seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand-heaps -that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black -whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was -immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by -joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling -motion. What could be going on there? - -Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups—one a little -crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of -Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near -me. One man I approached—he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, -though I did not know his name—and accosted. But it was scarcely a time -for articulate conversation. - -“What ugly _brutes_!” he said. “Good God! What ugly brutes!” He -repeated this over and over again. - -“Did you see a man in the pit?” I said; but he made no answer to that. -We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving, -I fancy, a certain comfort in one another’s company. Then I shifted my -position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more -of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards -Woking. - -The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. The -crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I heard -now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham -dispersed. There was scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit. - -It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I -suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. -At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement upon the -sand-pits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the -stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken. Vertical -black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and -advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular -crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, -too, on my side began to move towards the pit. - -Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand-pits, -and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad -trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of -the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little -black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag. - -This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since -the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, -intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by -approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent. - -Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. -It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I -learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this -attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged -inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete -circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at -discreet distances. - -Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous -greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove -up, one after the other, straight into the still air. - -This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so -bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown -common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken -abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their -dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible. - -Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at -its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical -black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their -faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then -slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning -noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a -beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. - -Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to -another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some -invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was -as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. - -Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and -falling, and their supporters turning to run. - -I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from -man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was -something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of -light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft -of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry -furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away -towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden -buildings suddenly set alight. - -It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this -invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me -by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied -to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand-pits and the sudden -squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an -invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather -between me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the -sand-pits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a -crash far away to the left where the road from Woking station opens out -on the common. Forth-with the hissing and humming ceased, and the -black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit. - -All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, -dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept -through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. -But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark -and unfamiliar. - -The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where -its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early -night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were -mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost -greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came -out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and -their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast -upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated -trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards -Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of -the evening air. - -Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The -little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out -of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had -scarcely been broken. - -It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, -and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, -came—fear. - -With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather. - -The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of -the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an -extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently -as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back. - -I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played -with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this -mysterious death—as swift as the passage of light—would leap after me -from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down. - - - - -VI. -THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD. - - -It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so -swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to -generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute -non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam -against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror -of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse -projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these -details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the -essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. -Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like -water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon -water, incontinently that explodes into steam. - -That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, -charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common -from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze. - -The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and -Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when the -tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so forth, -attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell -Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon -the common. You may imagine the young people brushed up after the -labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would make any -novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial -flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road -in the gloaming. . . . - -As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had -opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the -post office with a special wire to an evening paper. - -As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they found -little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the spinning -mirror over the sand-pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon -infected by the excitement of the occasion. - -By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may have -been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place, besides -those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer. There were -three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under -instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from -approaching the cylinder. There was some booing from those more -thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an occasion -for noise and horse-play. - -Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision, had -telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians -emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these strange -creatures from violence. After that they returned to lead that -ill-fated advance. The description of their death, as it was seen by -the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions: the three -puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame. - -But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only the -fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the -Heat-Ray saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a -few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the -flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the -bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then, with a -whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung -close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees that line -the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the -window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the -gable of the house nearest the corner. - -In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the -panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some -moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and -single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire. Then -came a crying from the common. There were shrieks and shouts, and -suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with -his hands clasped over his head, screaming. - -“They’re coming!” a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was -turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to -Woking again. They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep. -Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd -jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not -escape; three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were -crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the -darkness. - - - - -VII. -HOW I REACHED HOME. - - -For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress of -blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about -me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless sword -of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before it -descended and smote me out of life. I came into the road between the -crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads. - -At last I could go no further; I was exhausted with the violence of my -emotion and of my flight, and I staggered and fell by the wayside. That -was near the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks. I fell and -lay still. - -I must have remained there some time. - -I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not -clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like -a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its -fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things -before me—the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own -feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it was as -if something turned over, and the point of view altered abruptly. There -was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was -immediately the self of every day again—a decent, ordinary citizen. The -silent common, the impulse of my flight, the starting flames, were as -if they had been in a dream. I asked myself had these latter things -indeed happened? I could not credit it. - -I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My -mind was blank wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their -strength. I dare say I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, -and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran -a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to -speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless -mumble and went on over the bridge. - -Over the Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit -smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying -south—clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of -people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row -of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so -familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I -told myself, could not be. - -Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my -experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of -detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all -from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out -of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was -very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream. - -But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the -swift death flying yonder, not two miles away. There was a noise of -business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight. I -stopped at the group of people. - -“What news from the common?” said I. - -There were two men and a woman at the gate. - -“Eh?” said one of the men, turning. - -“What news from the common?” I said. - -“Ain’t yer just _been_ there?” asked the men. - -“People seem fair silly about the common,” said the woman over the -gate. “What’s it all abart?” - -“Haven’t you heard of the men from Mars?” said I; “the creatures from -Mars?” - -“Quite enough,” said the woman over the gate. “Thenks”; and all three -of them laughed. - -I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell them what -I had seen. They laughed again at my broken sentences. - -“You’ll hear more yet,” I said, and went on to my home. - -I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I. I went into the -dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could collect -myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen. The dinner, which -was a cold one, had already been served, and remained neglected on the -table while I told my story. - -“There is one thing,” I said, to allay the fears I had aroused; “they -are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl. They may keep the pit -and kill people who come near them, but they cannot get out of it. . . -. But the horror of them!” - -“Don’t, dear!” said my wife, knitting her brows and putting her hand on -mine. - -“Poor Ogilvy!” I said. “To think he may be lying dead there!” - -My wife at least did not find my experience incredible. When I saw how -deadly white her face was, I ceased abruptly. - -“They may come here,” she said again and again. - -I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her. - -“They can scarcely move,” I said. - -I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told -me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the -earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On -the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is -on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times -more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His -own body would be a cope of lead to him, therefore. That, indeed, was -the general opinion. Both _The Times_ and the _Daily Telegraph_, for -instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as -I did, two obvious modifying influences. - -The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen or -far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars’. The -invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians -indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their -bodies. And, in the second place, we all overlooked the fact that such -mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to -dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch. - -But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning -was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the -confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I -grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure. - -“They have done a foolish thing,” said I, fingering my wineglass. “They -are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. Perhaps they -expected to find no living things—certainly no intelligent living -things.” - -“A shell in the pit,” said I, “if the worst comes to the worst, will -kill them all.” - -The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive -powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with -extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife’s sweet anxious face -peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the white cloth with its -silver and glass table furniture—for in those days even philosophical -writers had many little luxuries—the crimson-purple wine in my glass, -are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts -with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy’s rashness, and denouncing the -short-sighted timidity of the Martians. - -So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his -nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in -want of animal food. “We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear.” - -I did not know it, but that was the last civilised dinner I was to eat -for very many strange and terrible days. - - - - -VIII. -FRIDAY NIGHT. - - -The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and -wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of -the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of -the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong. If -on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle -with a radius of five miles round the Woking sand-pits, I doubt if you -would have had one human being outside it, unless it were some relation -of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or London people lying dead -on the common, whose emotions or habits were at all affected by the -new-comers. Many people had heard of the cylinder, of course, and -talked about it in their leisure, but it certainly did not make the -sensation that an ultimatum to Germany would have done. - -In London that night poor Henderson’s telegram describing the gradual -unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard, and his evening -paper, after wiring for authentication from him and receiving no -reply—the man was killed—decided not to print a special edition. - -Even within the five-mile circle the great majority of people were -inert. I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to -whom I spoke. All over the district people were dining and supping; -working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were -being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes -love-making, students sat over their books. - -Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant -topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger, or even an -eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a -shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most part the daily -routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done -for countless years—as though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even -at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham that was the case. - -In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and going -on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were alighting and -waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy -from the town, trenching on Smith’s monopoly, was selling papers with -the afternoon’s news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle -of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of “Men -from Mars!” Excited men came into the station about nine o’clock with -incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might -have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside -the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark -dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of -smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious -than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the -common that any disturbance was perceptible. There were half a dozen -villas burning on the Woking border. There were lights in all the -houses on the common side of the three villages, and the people there -kept awake till dawn. - -A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but the -crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two -adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness and -crawled quite near the Martians; but they never returned, for now and -again a light-ray, like the beam of a warship’s searchlight swept the -common, and the Heat-Ray was ready to follow. Save for such, that big -area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay -about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of -hammering from the pit was heard by many people. - -So you have the state of things on Friday night. In the centre, -sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart, -was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. Around it -was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few -dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. -Here and there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of -excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept -as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it -had flowed for immemorial years. The fever of war that would presently -clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to -develop. - -All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, -indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and -ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit -sky. - -About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed -along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company -marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. -Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common -earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. -The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy -questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were -certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. About eleven, the -next morning’s papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two -Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started -from Aldershot. - -A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, -saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It -had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer -lightning. This was the second cylinder. - - - - -IX. -THE FIGHTING BEGINS. - - -Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of -lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating -barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in -sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and -stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but -a lark. - -The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went -round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during -the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns -were expected. Then—a familiar, reassuring note—I heard a train running -towards Woking. - -“They aren’t to be killed,” said the milkman, “if that can possibly be -avoided.” - -I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then -strolled in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My -neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or to -destroy the Martians during the day. - -“It’s a pity they make themselves so unapproachable,” he said. “It -would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might -learn a thing or two.” - -He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for his -gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he -told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links. - -“They say,” said he, “that there’s another of those blessed things -fallen there—number two. But one’s enough, surely. This lot’ll cost the -insurance people a pretty penny before everything’s settled.” He -laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The -woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to -me. “They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil -of pine needles and turf,” he said, and then grew serious over “poor -Ogilvy.” - -After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk down towards the -common. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldiers—sappers, I -think, men in small round caps, dirty red jackets unbuttoned, and -showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots coming to the calf. -They told me no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking along the -road towards the bridge, I saw one of the Cardigan men standing -sentinel there. I talked with these soldiers for a time; I told them of -my sight of the Martians on the previous evening. None of them had seen -the Martians, and they had but the vaguest ideas of them, so that they -plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who had -authorised the movements of the troops; their idea was that a dispute -had arisen at the Horse Guards. The ordinary sapper is a great deal -better educated than the common soldier, and they discussed the -peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I -described the Heat-Ray to them, and they began to argue among -themselves. - -“Crawl up under cover and rush ’em, say I,” said one. - -“Get aht!” said another. “What’s cover against this ’ere ’eat? Sticks -to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground’ll let -us, and then drive a trench.” - -“Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha’ been -born a rabbit Snippy.” - -“Ain’t they got any necks, then?” said a third, abruptly—a little, -contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe. - -I repeated my description. - -“Octopuses,” said he, “that’s what I calls ’em. Talk about fishers of -men—fighters of fish it is this time!” - -“It ain’t no murder killing beasts like that,” said the first speaker. - -“Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish ’em?” said the -little dark man. “You carn tell what they might do.” - -“Where’s your shells?” said the first speaker. “There ain’t no time. Do -it in a rush, that’s my tip, and do it at once.” - -So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the -railway station to get as many morning papers as I could. - -But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long morning -and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse of -the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the -hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn’t know -anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people -in the town quite secure again in the presence of the military, and I -heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son -was among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on -the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their houses. - -I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day -was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I took a -cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the -railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had -contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent, -Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn’t know. -The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemed busy in -their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous -streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting ready for a -struggle. “Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without -success,” was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me -it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The -Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the -lowing of a cow. - -I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this preparation, -greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the -invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my schoolboy dreams of -battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at -that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs. - -About three o’clock there began the thud of a gun at measured intervals -from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering pine wood -into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled, in the -hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only about -five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the -first body of Martians. - -About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the -summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon -us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately after -a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violent rattling -crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and, starting out upon -the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College burst -into smoky red flame, and the tower of the little church beside it -slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the -roof line of the college itself looked as if a hundred-ton gun had been -at work upon it. One of our chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, -flew, and a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and made a heap -of broken red fragments upon the flower bed by my study window. - -I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of Maybury -Hill must be within range of the Martians’ Heat-Ray now that the -college was cleared out of the way. - -At that I gripped my wife’s arm, and without ceremony ran her out into -the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go -upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for. - -“We can’t possibly stay here,” I said; and as I spoke the firing -reopened for a moment upon the common. - -“But where are we to go?” said my wife in terror. - -I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead. - -“Leatherhead!” I shouted above the sudden noise. - -She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their -houses, astonished. - -“How are we to get to Leatherhead?” she said. - -Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge; -three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College; two -others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, -shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, -seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything. - -“Stop here,” said I; “you are safe here”; and I started off at once for -the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I -ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the -hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was -going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to -him. - -“I must have a pound,” said the landlord, “and I’ve no one to drive -it.” - -“I’ll give you two,” said I, over the stranger’s shoulder. - -“What for?” - -“And I’ll bring it back by midnight,” I said. - -“Lord!” said the landlord; “what’s the hurry? I’m selling my bit of a -pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What’s going on now?” - -I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dog -cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the -landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, -drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and -servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as -we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were burning -while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was -occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He -was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on -as I came out of my front door, lugging my treasures, done up in a -tablecloth. I shouted after him: - -“What news?” - -He turned, stared, bawled something about “crawling out in a thing like -a dish cover,” and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A -sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a -moment. I ran to my neighbour’s door and rapped to satisfy myself of -what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had -locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get -my servant’s box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of -the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver’s -seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of the smoke and -noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old -Woking. - -In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either -side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the -doctor’s cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head -to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke -shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and -throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke -already extended far away to the east and west—to the Byfleet pine -woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with -people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct -through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun that -was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles. -Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of -their Heat-Ray. - -I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention -to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the -black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a loose -rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that quivering tumult. I -overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send. - - - - -X. -IN THE STORM. - - -Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of hay -was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the hedges -on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses. The -heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury -Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very peaceful -and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine -o’clock, and the horse had an hour’s rest while I took supper with my -cousins and commended my wife to their care. - -My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed -with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out -that the Martians were tied to the pit by sheer heaviness, and at the -utmost could but crawl a little out of it; but she answered only in -monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to the innkeeper, she -would, I think, have urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night. Would -that I had! Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted. - -For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very -like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community -had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I -had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that that last -fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our invaders from -Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be -in at the death. - -It was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was -unexpectedly dark; to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my -cousins’ house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as -the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath -stirred the shrubs about us. My cousins’ man lit both lamps. Happily, I -knew the road intimately. My wife stood in the light of the doorway, -and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart. Then abruptly she -turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side wishing me good -hap. - -I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife’s -fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time -I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening’s -fighting. I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated -the conflict. As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I -returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western -horizon a blood-red glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the -sky. The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there -with masses of black and red smoke. - -Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so the -village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an accident -at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people stood with -their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know -what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, nor do I know -if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping securely, or -deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the terror of the -night. - -From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the -Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little -hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the -trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that was -upon me. Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church behind -me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its tree-tops -and roofs black and sharp against the red. - -Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and -showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the reins. -I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a thread -of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling into the -field to my left. It was the third falling star! - -Close on its apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced out -the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like -a rocket overhead. The horse took the bit between his teeth and bolted. - -A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down this -we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a -succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading -one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment, -sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the -usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and -confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the -slope. - -At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my -attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the -opposite slope of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of -a house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift -rolling movement. It was an elusive vision—a moment of bewildering -darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the -Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, -and this problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright. - -And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher -than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them -aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now -across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the -clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. -A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in -the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the -next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool -tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression -those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a -great body of machinery on a tripod stand. - -Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted, as -brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were -snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared, -rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard to -meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether. -Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse’s head hard round to -the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled over upon the -horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell -heavily into a shallow pool of water. - -I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the -water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was -broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk -of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still -spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went striding -by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford. - -Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere -insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing -metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which -gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange -body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood -that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a -head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal -like a gigantic fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted -out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an -instant it was gone. - -So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in -blinding highlights and dense black shadows. - -As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the -thunder—“Aloo! Aloo!”—and in another minute it was with its companion, -half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt -this Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had -fired at us from Mars. - -For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by the -intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about in the -distance over the hedge tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as it -came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness -again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night -swallowed them up. - -I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below. It was some time -before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to a -drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril. - -Not far from me was a little one-roomed squatter’s hut of wood, -surrounded by a patch of potato garden. I struggled to my feet at last, -and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run -for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people hear -(if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted, and, -availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way, succeeded -in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine -woods towards Maybury. - -Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and shivering now, towards my own -house. I walked among the trees trying to find the footpath. It was -very dark indeed in the wood, for the lightning was now becoming -infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down in a torrent, fell in -columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage. - -If I had fully realised the meaning of all the things I had seen I -should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street -Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that -night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, -prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and -blinded by the storm. - -I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and that was as much -motive as I had. I staggered through the trees, fell into a ditch and -bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out into the -lane that ran down from the College Arms. I say splashed, for the storm -water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent. There in -the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me reeling back. - -He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I could -gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy was the stress of -the storm just at this place that I had the hardest task to win my way -up the hill. I went close up to the fence on the left and worked my way -along its palings. - -Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of -lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of -boots. Before I could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the flicker -of light had passed. I stood over him waiting for the next flash. When -it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily -dressed; his head was bent under his body, and he lay crumpled up close -to the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it. - -Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a -dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was -quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed -for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It -was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance I had taken. - -I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my way by -the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing -was burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a -red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the -drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about -me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the -road. - -Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of -feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I let myself -in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to -the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of -those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against -the fence. - -I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, -shivering violently. - - - - -XI. -AT THE WINDOW. - - -I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of -exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and -wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got -up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some -whisky, and then I was moved to change my clothes. - -After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I -do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the -railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this -window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with -the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed -impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway. - -The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the -pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red -glare, the common about the sand-pits was visible. Across the light -huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to and fro. - -It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on -fire—a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and -writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red -reflection upon the cloud scud above. Every now and then a haze of -smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid -the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the clear -form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied upon. -Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it -danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of -burning was in the air. - -I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window. As I did -so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the -houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and -blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the hill, -on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along the -Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins. The -light upon the railway puzzled me at first; there were a black heap and -a vivid glare, and to the right of that a row of yellow oblongs. Then I -perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part smashed and on fire, -the hinder carriages still upon the rails. - -Between these three main centres of light—the houses, the train, and -the burning county towards Chobham—stretched irregular patches of dark -country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and -smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set -with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries at -night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I peered -intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking station a -number of black figures hurrying one after the other across the line. - -And this was the little world in which I had been living securely for -years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven hours I -still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to guess, -the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish lumps I -had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of -impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, and -stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three gigantic -black things that were going to and fro in the glare about the -sand-pits. - -They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. -Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. -Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a -man’s brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things -to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an -ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal. - -The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning -land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, -when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the -fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I -looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the -sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the -window eagerly. - -“Hist!” said I, in a whisper. - -He stopped astride of the fence in doubt. Then he came over and across -the lawn to the corner of the house. He bent down and stepped softly. - -“Who’s there?” he said, also whispering, standing under the window and -peering up. - -“Where are you going?” I asked. - -“God knows.” - -“Are you trying to hide?” - -“That’s it.” - -“Come into the house,” I said. - -I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the door -again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was -unbuttoned. - -“My God!” he said, as I drew him in. - -“What has happened?” I asked. - -“What hasn’t?” In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of -despair. “They wiped us out—simply wiped us out,” he repeated again and -again. - -He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room. - -“Take some whisky,” I said, pouring out a stiff dose. - -He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head -on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect -passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own -recent despair, stood beside him, wondering. - -It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my -questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a -driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At -that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the -first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second -cylinder under cover of a metal shield. - -Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of -the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered -near Horsell, in order to command the sand-pits, and its arrival it was -that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the -rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into -a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind -him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found -himself lying under a heap of charred dead men and dead horses. - -“I lay still,” he said, “scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter -of a horse atop of me. We’d been wiped out. And the smell—good God! -Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of the horse, -and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like parade it had -been a minute before—then stumble, bang, swish!” - -“Wiped out!” he said. - -He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out furtively -across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in skirmishing -order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the -monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely to and -fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its headlike hood -turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human being. A kind of -arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes -scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray. - -In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a -living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that -was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been -on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of -them. He heard the Maxims rattle for a time and then become still. The -giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; -then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became -a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and -turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards -the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it -did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit. - -The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman -began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards -Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the -road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The -place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, -frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned -aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken -wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a -man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head -against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the -artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment. - -Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of -getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and -cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village -and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the -water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out -like a spring upon the road. - -That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling -me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no -food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some -mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no -lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands -would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came -darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose -trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of -men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, -blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also. - -When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I -looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become -a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been -there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered -and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had -hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. -Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escape—a white -railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh -amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had -destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with -the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about -the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the -desolation they had made. - -It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again -puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the -brightening dawn—streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished. - -Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of -bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day. - - - - -XII. -WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. - - -As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had -watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs. - -The artilleryman agreed with me that the house was no place to stay in. -He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence rejoin his -battery—No. 12, of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once -to Leatherhead; and so greatly had the strength of the Martians -impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go -with her out of the country forthwith. For I already perceived clearly -that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a -disastrous struggle before such creatures as these could be destroyed. - -Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its -guarding giants. Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my -chance and struck across country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me: -“It’s no kindness to the right sort of wife,” he said, “to make her a -widow”; and in the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the -woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. -Thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead. - -I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active -service and he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for -a flask, which he filled with whisky; and we lined every available -pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out -of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the ill-made road by -which I had come overnight. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay -a group of three charred bodies close together, struck dead by the -Heat-Ray; and here and there were things that people had dropped—a -clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the -corner turning up towards the post office a little cart, filled with -boxes and furniture, and horseless, heeled over on a broken wheel. A -cash box had been hastily smashed open and thrown under the debris. - -Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the -houses had suffered very greatly here. The Heat-Ray had shaved the -chimney tops and passed. Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem to be -a living soul on Maybury Hill. The majority of the inhabitants had -escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking road—the road I had taken -when I drove to Leatherhead—or they had hidden. - -We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now from -the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the hill. -We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul. The -woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened ruins of -woods; for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain proportion -still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown foliage instead of -green. - -On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees; it -had failed to secure its footing. In one place the woodmen had been at -work on Saturday; trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a clearing, -with heaps of sawdust by the sawing-machine and its engine. Hard by was -a temporary hut, deserted. There was not a breath of wind this morning, -and everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed, and as -we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked -now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to listen. - -After a time we drew near the road, and as we did so we heard the -clatter of hoofs and saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers -riding slowly towards Woking. We hailed them, and they halted while we -hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of -the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman -told me was a heliograph. - -“You are the first men I’ve seen coming this way this morning,” said -the lieutenant. “What’s brewing?” - -His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously. The -artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and saluted. - -“Gun destroyed last night, sir. Have been hiding. Trying to rejoin -battery, sir. You’ll come in sight of the Martians, I expect, about -half a mile along this road.” - -“What the dickens are they like?” asked the lieutenant. - -“Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like -’luminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir.” - -“Get out!” said the lieutenant. “What confounded nonsense!” - -“You’ll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and -strikes you dead.” - -“What d’ye mean—a gun?” - -“No, sir,” and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the Heat-Ray. -Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I -was still standing on the bank by the side of the road. - -“It’s perfectly true,” I said. - -“Well,” said the lieutenant, “I suppose it’s my business to see it too. -Look here”—to the artilleryman—“we’re detailed here clearing people out -of their houses. You’d better go along and report yourself to -Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know. He’s at Weybridge. -Know the way?” - -“I do,” I said; and he turned his horse southward again. - -“Half a mile, you say?” said he. - -“At most,” I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward. He -thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more. - -Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children in -the road, busy clearing out a labourer’s cottage. They had got hold of -a little hand truck, and were piling it up with unclean-looking bundles -and shabby furniture. They were all too assiduously engaged to talk to -us as we passed. - -By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the -country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far -beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there, and had it not been for the -silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of -packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over -the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day would -have seemed very like any other Sunday. - -Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road to -Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a -stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-pounders standing neatly at equal -distances pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns -waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance. -The men stood almost as if under inspection. - -“That’s good!” said I. “They will get one fair shot, at any rate.” - -The artilleryman hesitated at the gate. - -“I shall go on,” he said. - -Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a number -of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and more -guns behind. - -“It’s bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow,” said the -artilleryman. “They ’aven’t seen that fire-beam yet.” - -The officers who were not actively engaged stood and stared over the -treetops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now and -again to stare in the same direction. - -Byfleet was in a tumult; people packing, and a score of hussars, some -of them dismounted, some on horseback, were hunting them about. Three -or four black government waggons, with crosses in white circles, and an -old omnibus, among other vehicles, were being loaded in the village -street. There were scores of people, most of them sufficiently -sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes. The soldiers were having -the greatest difficulty in making them realise the gravity of their -position. We saw one shrivelled old fellow with a huge box and a score -or more of flower pots containing orchids, angrily expostulating with -the corporal who would leave them behind. I stopped and gripped his -arm. - -“Do you know what’s over there?” I said, pointing at the pine tops that -hid the Martians. - -“Eh?” said he, turning. “I was explainin’ these is vallyble.” - -“Death!” I shouted. “Death is coming! Death!” and leaving him to digest -that if he could, I hurried on after the artillery-man. At the corner I -looked back. The soldier had left him, and he was still standing by his -box, with the pots of orchids on the lid of it, and staring vaguely -over the trees. - -No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were -established; the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen -in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing -miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh. The respectable inhabitants -of the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily dressed, -were packing, river-side loafers energetically helping, children -excited, and, for the most part, highly delighted at this astonishing -variation of their Sunday experiences. In the midst of it all the -worthy vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration, and his -bell was jangling out above the excitement. - -I and the artilleryman, seated on the step of the drinking fountain, -made a very passable meal upon what we had brought with us. Patrols of -soldiers—here no longer hussars, but grenadiers in white—were warning -people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars as soon as the -firing began. We saw as we crossed the railway bridge that a growing -crowd of people had assembled in and about the railway station, and the -swarming platform was piled with boxes and packages. The ordinary -traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage -of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage -struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at -a later hour. - -We remained at Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found -ourselves at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Wey and Thames -join. Part of the time we spent helping two old women to pack a little -cart. The Wey has a treble mouth, and at this point boats are to be -hired, and there was a ferry across the river. On the Shepperton side -was an inn with a lawn, and beyond that the tower of Shepperton -Church—it has been replaced by a spire—rose above the trees. - -Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. As yet the -flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more people -than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross. People came -panting along under heavy burdens; one husband and wife were even -carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their -household goods piled thereon. One man told us he meant to try to get -away from Shepperton station. - -There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The idea -people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply formidable -human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be certainly -destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously -across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over -there was still. - -Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was -quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed -there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat -had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of -the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to -help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. - -“What’s that?” cried a boatman, and “Shut up, you fool!” said a man -near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the -direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud—the sound of a gun. - -The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across -the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the -chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone -stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible -to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding -unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless -in the warm sunlight. - -“The sojers’ll stop ’em,” said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A -haziness rose over the treetops. - -Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff of -smoke that jerked up into the air and hung; and forthwith the ground -heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or -three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished. - -“Here they are!” shouted a man in a blue jersey. “Yonder! D’yer see -them? Yonder!” - -Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured -Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat -meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly towards -the river. Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going with a -rolling motion and as fast as flying birds. - -Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armoured -bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the -guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer. One on the extreme -left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air, and -the ghostly, terrible Heat-Ray I had already seen on Friday night smote -towards Chertsey, and struck the town. - -At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd near -the water’s edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck. There -was no screaming or shouting, but a silence. Then a hoarse murmur and a -movement of feet—a splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to -drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and sent -me staggering with a blow from the corner of his burden. A woman thrust -at me with her hand and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of the -people, but I was not too terrified for thought. The terrible Heat-Ray -was in my mind. To get under water! That was it! - -“Get under water!” I shouted, unheeded. - -I faced about again, and rushed towards the approaching Martian, rushed -right down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water. Others did -the same. A boatload of people putting back came leaping out as I -rushed past. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery, and the -river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet scarcely waist-deep. -Then, as the Martian towered overhead scarcely a couple of hundred -yards away, I flung myself forward under the surface. The splashes of -the people in the boats leaping into the river sounded like -thunderclaps in my ears. People were landing hastily on both sides of -the river. But the Martian machine took no more notice for the moment -of the people running this way and that than a man would of the -confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot has kicked. When, -half suffocated, I raised my head above water, the Martian’s hood -pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river, and -as it advanced it swung loose what must have been the generator of the -Heat-Ray. - -In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading halfway -across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank, and in -another moment it had raised itself to its full height again, close to -the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to -anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that -village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussion, the last -close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already -raising the case generating the Heat-Ray as the first shell burst six -yards above the hood. - -I gave a cry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other -four Martian monsters; my attention was riveted upon the nearer -incident. Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the -body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to -dodge, the fourth shell. - -The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, -flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and -glittering metal. - -“Hit!” shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer. - -I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could -have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation. - -The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did not -fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle, and, no longer -heeding its steps and with the camera that fired the Heat-Ray now -rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living -intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to -the four winds of heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate -device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight -line, incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, -smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, -swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force into -the river out of my sight. - -A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud, -and shattered metal shot far up into the sky. As the camera of the -Heat-Ray hit the water, the latter had immediately flashed into steam. -In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore but almost -scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream. I saw people -struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting faintly -above the seething and roar of the Martian’s collapse. - -For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need of -self-preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water, pushing -aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the bend. Half a -dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. -The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river, -and for the most part submerged. - -Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through the -tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, -the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray -of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like -living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of these -movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for its life -amid the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid were -spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine. - -My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious yelling, -like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A -man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me and -pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic -strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey. The -Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly. - -At that I ducked at once under water, and, holding my breath until -movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under the surface as -long as I could. The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly -growing hotter. - -When for a moment I raised my head to take breath and throw the hair -and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white fog -that at first hid the Martians altogether. The noise was deafening. -Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of grey, magnified by the mist. -They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing, -tumultuous ruins of their comrade. - -The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps two -hundred yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the -Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and -that. - -The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of -noises—the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, -the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling -and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was leaping up to mingle with -the steam from the river, and as the Heat-Ray went to and fro over -Weybridge its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent white, that -gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames. The nearer houses -still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint and pallid in -the steam, with the fire behind them going to and fro. - -For a moment perhaps I stood there, breast-high in the almost boiling -water, dumbfounded at my position, hopeless of escape. Through the reek -I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out -of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through -grass from the advance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay -on the towing path. - -Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards -me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out -flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and -down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and that, -and came down to the water’s edge not fifty yards from where I stood. -It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the water in its track -rose in a boiling weal crested with steam. I turned shoreward. - -In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had -rushed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised, -I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had -my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in -full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that -runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing -but death. - -I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a score -of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel, whirling -it this way and that and lifting again; of a long suspense, and then of -the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them, now clear -and then presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding -interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of river and -meadow. And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle I had -escaped. - - - - -XIII. -HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE. - - -After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, -the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; -and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed -companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible -victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, -there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of -twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital -in advance of the tidings of their approach; as sudden, dreadful, and -destructive their advent would have been as the earthquake that -destroyed Lisbon a century ago. - -But they were in no hurry. Cylinder followed cylinder on its -interplanetary flight; every twenty-four hours brought them -reinforcement. And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now -fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with -furious energy. Every minute a fresh gun came into position until, -before twilight, every copse, every row of suburban villas on the hilly -slopes about Kingston and Richmond, masked an expectant black muzzle. -And through the charred and desolated area—perhaps twenty square miles -altogether—that encircled the Martian encampment on Horsell Common, -through charred and ruined villages among the green trees, through the -blackened and smoking arcades that had been but a day ago pine -spinneys, crawled the devoted scouts with the heliographs that were -presently to warn the gunners of the Martian approach. But the Martians -now understood our command of artillery and the danger of human -proximity, and not a man ventured within a mile of either cylinder, -save at the price of his life. - -It would seem that these giants spent the earlier part of the afternoon -in going to and fro, transferring everything from the second and third -cylinders—the second in Addlestone Golf Links and the third at -Pyrford—to their original pit on Horsell Common. Over that, above the -blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and wide, -stood one as sentinel, while the rest abandoned their vast -fighting-machines and descended into the pit. They were hard at work -there far into the night, and the towering pillar of dense green smoke -that rose therefrom could be seen from the hills about Merrow, and -even, it is said, from Banstead and Epsom Downs. - -And while the Martians behind me were thus preparing for their next -sally, and in front of me Humanity gathered for the battle, I made my -way with infinite pains and labour from the fire and smoke of burning -Weybridge towards London. - -I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting down-stream; -and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained -it, and so escaped out of that destruction. There were no oars in the -boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled hands would -allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going very -tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well -understand. I followed the river, because I considered that the water -gave me my best chance of escape should these giants return. - -The hot water from the Martian’s overthrow drifted downstream with me, -so that for the best part of a mile I could see little of either bank. -Once, however, I made out a string of black figures hurrying across the -meadows from the direction of Weybridge. Halliford, it seemed, was -deserted, and several of the houses facing the river were on fire. It -was strange to see the place quite tranquil, quite desolate under the -hot blue sky, with the smoke and little threads of flame going straight -up into the heat of the afternoon. Never before had I seen houses -burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd. A little -farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a -line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay. - -For a long time I drifted, so painful and weary was I after the -violence I had been through, and so intense the heat upon the water. -Then my fears got the better of me again, and I resumed my paddling. -The sun scorched my bare back. At last, as the bridge at Walton was -coming into sight round the bend, my fever and faintness overcame my -fears, and I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick, -amid the long grass. I suppose the time was then about four or five -o’clock. I got up presently, walked perhaps half a mile without meeting -a soul, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge. I seem to -remember talking, wanderingly, to myself during that last spurt. I was -also very thirsty, and bitterly regretful I had drunk no more water. It -is a curious thing that I felt angry with my wife; I cannot account for -it, but my impotent desire to reach Leatherhead worried me excessively. - -I do not clearly remember the arrival of the curate, so that probably I -dozed. I became aware of him as a seated figure in soot-smudged shirt -sleeves, and with his upturned, clean-shaven face staring at a faint -flickering that danced over the sky. The sky was what is called a -mackerel sky—rows and rows of faint down-plumes of cloud, just tinted -with the midsummer sunset. - -I sat up, and at the rustle of my motion he looked at me quickly. - -“Have you any water?” I asked abruptly. - -He shook his head. - -“You have been asking for water for the last hour,” he said. - -For a moment we were silent, taking stock of each other. I dare say he -found me a strange enough figure, naked, save for my water-soaked -trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders blackened by the -smoke. His face was a fair weakness, his chin retreated, and his hair -lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low forehead; his eyes were -rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring. He spoke abruptly, -looking vacantly away from me. - -“What does it mean?” he said. “What do these things mean?” - -I stared at him and made no answer. - -He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone. - -“Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning -service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for -the afternoon, and then—fire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom -and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work—— What are these -Martians?” - -“What are we?” I answered, clearing my throat. - -He gripped his knees and turned to look at me again. For half a minute, -perhaps, he stared silently. - -“I was walking through the roads to clear my brain,” he said. “And -suddenly—fire, earthquake, death!” - -He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his knees. - -Presently he began waving his hand. - -“All the work—all the Sunday schools—What have we done—what has -Weybridge done? Everything gone—everything destroyed. The church! We -rebuilt it only three years ago. Gone! Swept out of existence! Why?” - -Another pause, and he broke out again like one demented. - -“The smoke of her burning goeth up for ever and ever!” he shouted. - -His eyes flamed, and he pointed a lean finger in the direction of -Weybridge. - -By this time I was beginning to take his measure. The tremendous -tragedy in which he had been involved—it was evident he was a fugitive -from Weybridge—had driven him to the very verge of his reason. - -“Are we far from Sunbury?” I said, in a matter-of-fact tone. - -“What are we to do?” he asked. “Are these creatures everywhere? Has the -earth been given over to them?” - -“Are we far from Sunbury?” - -“Only this morning I officiated at early celebration——” - -“Things have changed,” I said, quietly. “You must keep your head. There -is still hope.” - -“Hope!” - -“Yes. Plentiful hope—for all this destruction!” - -I began to explain my view of our position. He listened at first, but -as I went on the interest dawning in his eyes gave place to their -former stare, and his regard wandered from me. - -“This must be the beginning of the end,” he said, interrupting me. “The -end! The great and terrible day of the Lord! When men shall call upon -the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide them—hide them -from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!” - -I began to understand the position. I ceased my laboured reasoning, -struggled to my feet, and, standing over him, laid my hand on his -shoulder. - -“Be a man!” said I. “You are scared out of your wits! What good is -religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and -floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God -had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent.” - -For a time he sat in blank silence. - -“But how can we escape?” he asked, suddenly. “They are invulnerable, -they are pitiless.” - -“Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other,” I answered. “And the -mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be. One of them was -killed yonder not three hours ago.” - -“Killed!” he said, staring about him. “How can God’s ministers be -killed?” - -“I saw it happen.” I proceeded to tell him. “We have chanced to come in -for the thick of it,” said I, “and that is all.” - -“What is that flicker in the sky?” he asked abruptly. - -I told him it was the heliograph signalling—that it was the sign of -human help and effort in the sky. - -“We are in the midst of it,” I said, “quiet as it is. That flicker in -the sky tells of the gathering storm. Yonder, I take it are the -Martians, and Londonward, where those hills rise about Richmond and -Kingston and the trees give cover, earthworks are being thrown up and -guns are being placed. Presently the Martians will be coming this way -again.” - -And even as I spoke he sprang to his feet and stopped me by a gesture. - -“Listen!” he said. - -From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance of -distant guns and a remote weird crying. Then everything was still. A -cockchafer came droning over the hedge and past us. High in the west -the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of Weybridge and -Shepperton and the hot, still splendour of the sunset. - -“We had better follow this path,” I said, “northward.” - - - - -XIV. -IN LONDON. - - -My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. He -was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard -nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on -Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the -planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely -worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity. - -The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number -of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram -concluded with the words: “Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians -have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, -seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative -strength of the earth’s gravitational energy.” On that last text their -leader-writer expanded very comfortingly. - -Of course all the students in the crammer’s biology class, to which my -brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no -signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers -puffed scraps of news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell -beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the -pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. Then the _St. -James’s Gazette_, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare fact -of the interruption of telegraphic communication. This was thought to -be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing -more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to -Leatherhead and back. - -My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in -the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He -made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to -see the Things before they were killed. He dispatched a telegram, which -never reached me, about four o’clock, and spent the evening at a music -hall. - -In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my -brother reached Waterloo in a cab. On the platform from which the -midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an -accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature -of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway authorities -did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in -the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further -than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were -running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by -Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary -arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth -Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my -brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, -waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway -officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. - -I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning -“all London was electrified by the news from Woking.” As a matter of -fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Plenty -of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday -morning. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily -worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. The majority of people -in London do not read Sunday papers. - -The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the -Londoner’s mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course -in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors: -“About seven o’clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, -and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely -wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an -entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims -have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field guns have -been disabled by them. Flying hussars have been galloping into -Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or -Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are -being thrown up to check the advance Londonward.” That was how the -_Sunday Sun_ put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt “handbook” -article in the _Referee_ compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly -let loose in a village. - -No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured -Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be -sluggish: “crawling,” “creeping painfully”—such expressions occurred in -almost all the earlier reports. None of the telegrams could have been -written by an eyewitness of their advance. The Sunday papers printed -separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of -it. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in -the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in -their possession. It was stated that the people of Walton and -Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads -Londonward, and that was all. - -My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, -still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. There he -heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. -Coming out, he bought a _Referee_. He became alarmed at the news in -this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication -were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable -people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the -strange intelligence that the newsvendors were disseminating. People -were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local -residents. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor -and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. The porters told him that -several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from -Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. My -brother could get very little precise detail out of them. - -“There’s fighting going on about Weybridge” was the extent of their -information. - -The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of -people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western -network were standing about the station. One grey-headed old gentleman -came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. “It -wants showing up,” he said. - -One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, -containing people who had gone out for a day’s boating and found the -locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. A man in a blue and -white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. - -“There’s hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and -things, with boxes of valuables and all that,” he said. “They come from -Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there’s been guns heard -at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to -get off at once because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing -at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What the -dickens does it all mean? The Martians can’t get out of their pit, can -they?” - -My brother could not tell him. - -Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the -clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists -began to return from all over the South-Western “lung”—Barnes, -Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth—at unnaturally early hours; -but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. -Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered. - -About five o’clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely -excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost -invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western -stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and -carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought -up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was an exchange -of pleasantries: “You’ll get eaten!” “We’re the beast-tamers!” and so -forth. A little while after that a squad of police came into the -station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother -went out into the street again. - -The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation -Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of -loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the -stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and -the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it -is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse -stripes of reddish-purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. One -of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had -seen the heliograph flickering in the west. - -In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had -just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and -staring placards. “Dreadful catastrophe!” they bawled one to the other -down Wellington Street. “Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! -Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!” He had to give threepence -for a copy of that paper. - -Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full -power and terror of these monsters. He learned that they were not -merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds -swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and -smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand -against them. - -They were described as “vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet -high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a -beam of intense heat.” Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had -been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially -between the Woking district and London. Five of the machines had been -seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been -destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries -had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers -were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic. - -The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had -retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about -Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from -all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, -Aldershot, Woolwich—even from the north; among others, long wire-guns -of ninety-five tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen -were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London. -Never before in England had there been such a vast or rapid -concentration of military material. - -Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at -once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and -distributed. No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the -strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to avoid -and discourage panic. No doubt the Martians were strange and terrible -in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more than twenty -of them against our millions. - -The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the cylinders, -that at the outside there could not be more than five in each -cylinder—fifteen altogether. And one at least was disposed of—perhaps -more. The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger, and -elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of the people in -the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with reiterated assurances -of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with -the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation closed. - -This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was still -wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment. It was -curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents of -the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place. - -All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the pink -sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the voices -of an army of hawkers following these pioneers. Men came scrambling off -buses to secure copies. Certainly this news excited people intensely, -whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map shop in the -Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a man in his Sunday -raiment, lemon-yellow gloves even, was visible inside the window -hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass. - -Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand, -my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man -with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart -such as greengrocers use. He was driving from the direction of -Westminster Bridge; and close behind him came a hay waggon with five or -six respectable-looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The -faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance -contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the people -on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them out of -cabs. They stopped at the Square as if undecided which way to take, and -finally turned eastward along the Strand. Some way behind these came a -man in workday clothes, riding one of those old-fashioned tricycles -with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white in the face. - -My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such -people. He had a vague idea that he might see something of me. He -noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of the -refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses. One was -professing to have seen the Martians. “Boilers on stilts, I tell you, -striding along like men.” Most of them were excited and animated by -their strange experience. - -Beyond Victoria the public-houses were doing a lively trade with these -arrivals. At all the street corners groups of people were reading -papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors. -They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my -brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother -addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers -from most. - -None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who -assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous -night. - -“I come from Byfleet,” he said; “a man on a bicycle came through the -place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to -come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look, and there were -clouds of smoke to the south—nothing but smoke, and not a soul coming -that way. Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from -Weybridge. So I’ve locked up my house and come on.” - -At that time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the -authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the -invaders without all this inconvenience. - -About eight o’clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all -over the south of London. My brother could not hear it for the traffic -in the main thoroughfares, but by striking through the quiet back -streets to the river he was able to distinguish it quite plainly. - -He walked from Westminster to his apartments near Regent’s Park, about -two. He was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at the -evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined to run, even as -mine had run on Saturday, on military details. He thought of all those -silent, expectant guns, of the suddenly nomadic countryside; he tried -to imagine “boilers on stilts” a hundred feet high. - -There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along Oxford -Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so slowly was the news -spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their -usual Sunday-night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups, and along -the edge of Regent’s Park there were as many silent couples “walking -out” together under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had been. The -night was warm and still, and a little oppressive; the sound of guns -continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet -lightning in the south. - -He read and re-read the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me. He -was restless, and after supper prowled out again aimlessly. He returned -and tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes. He -went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams -in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet -running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells. Red -reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment he lay astonished, -wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad. Then he jumped -out of bed and ran to the window. - -His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up and down the -street there were a dozen echoes to the noise of his window sash, and -heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Enquiries were being -shouted. “They are coming!” bawled a policeman, hammering at the door; -“the Martians are coming!” and hurried to the next door. - -The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street -Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing -sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin. There was a noise of doors -opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from -darkness into yellow illumination. - -Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting abruptly into -noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax under the window, -and dying away slowly in the distance. Close on the rear of this came a -couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of flying -vehicles, going for the most part to Chalk Farm station, where the -North-Western special trains were loading up, instead of coming down -the gradient into Euston. - -For a long time my brother stared out of the window in blank -astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and -delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him -opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed only -in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his -hair disordered from his pillow. - -“What the devil is it?” he asked. “A fire? What a devil of a row!” - -They both craned their heads out of the window, straining to hear what -the policemen were shouting. People were coming out of the side -streets, and standing in groups at the corners talking. - -“What the devil is it all about?” said my brother’s fellow lodger. - -My brother answered him vaguely and began to dress, running with each -garment to the window in order to miss nothing of the growing -excitement. And presently men selling unnaturally early newspapers came -bawling into the street: - -“London in danger of suffocation! The Kingston and Richmond defences -forced! Fearful massacres in the Thames Valley!” - -And all about him—in the rooms below, in the houses on each side and -across the road, and behind in the Park Terraces and in the hundred -other streets of that part of Marylebone, and the Westbourne Park -district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn and St. -John’s Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury and -Haggerston and Hoxton, and, indeed, through all the vastness of London -from Ealing to East Ham—people were rubbing their eyes, and opening -windows to stare out and ask aimless questions, dressing hastily as the -first breath of the coming storm of Fear blew through the streets. It -was the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone to bed on -Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened, in the small hours of -Monday morning, to a vivid sense of danger. - -Unable from his window to learn what was happening, my brother went -down and out into the street, just as the sky between the parapets of -the houses grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on foot and -in vehicles grew more numerous every moment. “Black Smoke!” he heard -people crying, and again “Black Smoke!” The contagion of such a -unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother hesitated on the -door-step, he saw another newsvendor approaching, and got a paper -forthwith. The man was running away with the rest, and selling his -papers for a shilling each as he ran—a grotesque mingling of profit and -panic. - -And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch of the -Commander-in-Chief: - -“The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and -poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our -batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are -advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It -is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but -in instant flight.” - - -That was all, but it was enough. The whole population of the great -six-million city was stirring, slipping, running; presently it would be -pouring _en masse_ northward. - -“Black Smoke!” the voices cried. “Fire!” - -The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult, a cart -carelessly driven smashed, amid shrieks and curses, against the water -trough up the street. Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the -houses, and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And -overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm. - -He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down -stairs behind him. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in -dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed, ejaculating. - -As my brother began to realise the import of all these things, he -turned hastily to his own room, put all his available money—some ten -pounds altogether—into his pockets, and went out again into the -streets. - - - - -XV. -WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY. - - -It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under the -hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was -watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the -Martians had resumed the offensive. So far as one can ascertain from -the conflicting accounts that have been put forth, the majority of them -remained busied with preparations in the Horsell pit until nine that -night, hurrying on some operation that disengaged huge volumes of green -smoke. - -But three certainly came out about eight o’clock and, advancing slowly -and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet and Pyrford towards -Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant batteries -against the setting sun. These Martians did not advance in a body, but -in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow. They -communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up -and down the scale from one note to another. - -It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s -Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley gunners, -unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in -such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual volley, and -bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the -Martian, without using his Heat-Ray, walked serenely over their guns, -stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and so came -unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he destroyed. - -The St. George’s Hill men, however, were better led or of a better -mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been -quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them. They laid their guns -as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a -thousand yards’ range. - -The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few -paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns -were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a -prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant, -answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that -a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of -the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, -simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on -the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns -flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already -running over the crest of the hill escaped. - -After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and -halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they remained -absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been -overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, -oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and -apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had -finished, for his cowl was then seen above the trees again. - -It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels -were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A -similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the seven proceeded -to distribute themselves at equal distances along a curved line between -St. George’s Hill, Weybridge, and the village of Send, southwest of -Ripley. - -A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they -began to move, and warned the waiting batteries about Ditton and Esher. -At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with -tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western -sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we hurried wearily and -painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford. They -moved, as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a milky mist covered the -fields and rose to a third of their height. - -At this sight the curate cried faintly in his throat, and began -running; but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I turned -aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the broad -ditch by the side of the road. He looked back, saw what I was doing, -and turned to join me. - -The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the -remoter being a grey indistinctness towards the evening star, away -towards Staines. - -The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they took up their -positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute -silence. It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never -since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. -To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the -same effect—the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling -night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow -of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George’s Hill and the -woods of Painshill. - -But facing that crescent everywhere—at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton, -Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across -the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever a cluster of trees -or village houses gave sufficient cover—the guns were waiting. The -signal rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and -vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a -tense expectation. The Martians had but to advance into the line of -fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns -glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a -thunderous fury of battle. - -No doubt the thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those vigilant -minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddle—how much they -understood of us. Did they grasp that we in our millions were -organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our -spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady -investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of -onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they might -exterminate us? (At that time no one knew what food they needed.) A -hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that -vast sentinel shape. And in the back of my mind was the sense of all -the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward. Had they prepared -pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare? Would the -Londoners have the heart and courage to make a greater Moscow of their -mighty province of houses? - -Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and -peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of -a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us -raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report -that made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There -was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation. - -I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that -I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber -up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second -report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards -Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such -evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with -one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath. -And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was -restored; the minute lengthened to three. - -“What has happened?” said the curate, standing up beside me. - -“Heaven knows!” said I. - -A bat flickered by and vanished. A distant tumult of shouting began and -ceased. I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now moving -eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion. - -Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to spring upon -him; but the evening calm was unbroken. The figure of the Martian grew -smaller as he receded, and presently the mist and the gathering night -had swallowed him up. By a common impulse we clambered higher. Towards -Sunbury was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had suddenly -come into being there, hiding our view of the farther country; and -then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw another such -summit. These hill-like forms grew lower and broader even as we stared. - -Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a -third of these cloudy black kopjes had risen. - -Everything had suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, -marking the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one another, and -then the air quivered again with the distant thud of their guns. But -the earthly artillery made no reply. - -Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I was -to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the -twilight. Each of the Martians, standing in the great crescent I have -described, had discharged, by means of the gunlike tube he carried, a -huge canister over whatever hill, copse, cluster of houses, or other -possible cover for guns, chanced to be in front of him. Some fired only -one of these, some two—as in the case of the one we had seen; the one -at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at that time. -These canisters smashed on striking the ground—they did not explode—and -incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour, -coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous -hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country. -And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was -death to all that breathes. - -It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke, so that, -after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank -down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather -liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the -valleys and ditches and watercourses even as I have heard the -carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do. And -where it came upon water some chemical action occurred, and the surface -would be instantly covered with a powdery scum that sank slowly and -made way for more. The scum was absolutely insoluble, and it is a -strange thing, seeing the instant effect of the gas, that one could -drink without hurt the water from which it had been strained. The -vapour did not diffuse as a true gas would do. It hung together in -banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope of the land and driving -reluctantly before the wind, and very slowly it combined with the mist -and moisture of the air, and sank to the earth in the form of dust. -Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue -of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the -nature of this substance. - -Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the black -smoke clung so closely to the ground, even before its precipitation, -that fifty feet up in the air, on the roofs and upper stories of high -houses and on great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison -altogether, as was proved even that night at Street Cobham and Ditton. - -The man who escaped at the former place tells a wonderful story of the -strangeness of its coiling flow, and how he looked down from the church -spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of its -inky nothingness. For a day and a half he remained there, weary, -starving and sun-scorched, the earth under the blue sky and against the -prospect of the distant hills a velvet-black expanse, with red roofs, -green trees, and, later, black-veiled shrubs and gates, barns, -outhouses, and walls, rising here and there into the sunlight. - -But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed to -remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground. As a rule the -Martians, when it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it again -by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it. - -This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the starlight -from the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had -returned. From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and -Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, -and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that had been put in -position there. These continued intermittently for the space of a -quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at -Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the electric light -vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow. - -Then the fourth cylinder fell—a brilliant green meteor—as I learned -afterwards, in Bushey Park. Before the guns on the Richmond and -Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far away in -the southwest, due, I believe, to guns being fired haphazard before the -black vapour could overwhelm the gunners. - -So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a wasps’ -nest, the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the -Londonward country. The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart, until -at last they formed a line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All night -through their destructive tubes advanced. Never once, after the Martian -at St. George’s Hill was brought down, did they give the artillery the -ghost of a chance against them. Wherever there was a possibility of -guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of the black vapour -was discharged, and where the guns were openly displayed the Heat-Ray -was brought to bear. - -By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and the -glare of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black smoke, -blotting out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as far as the -eye could reach. And through this two Martians slowly waded, and turned -their hissing steam jets this way and that. - -They were sparing of the Heat-Ray that night, either because they had -but a limited supply of material for its production or because they did -not wish to destroy the country but only to crush and overawe the -opposition they had aroused. In the latter aim they certainly -succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to -their movements. After that no body of men would stand against them, so -hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedo-boats and -destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames refused to -stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men -ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and -pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic. - -One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries -towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were -none. One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and -watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber -gunners with their horses and waggons, the groups of civilian -spectators standing as near as they were permitted, the evening -stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burned and -wounded from Weybridge; then the dull resonance of the shots the -Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and -houses and smashing amid the neighbouring fields. - -One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly -spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, -towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a -strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, -men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling -headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking -and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of the opaque -cone of smoke. And then night and extinction—nothing but a silent mass -of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead. - -Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of -Richmond, and the disintegrating organism of government was, with a -last expiring effort, rousing the population of London to the necessity -of flight. - - - - -XVI. -THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. - - -So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the -greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning—the stream of -flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round -the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the -shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel -northward and eastward. By ten o’clock the police organisation, and by -midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing -shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that -swift liquefaction of the social body. - -All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-Eastern people -at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and trains were -being filled. People were fighting savagely for standing-room in the -carriages even at two o’clock. By three, people were being trampled and -crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred yards or more -from Liverpool Street station; revolvers were fired, people stabbed, -and the policemen who had been sent to direct the traffic, exhausted -and infuriated, were breaking the heads of the people they were called -out to protect. - -And as the day advanced and the engine drivers and stokers refused to -return to London, the pressure of the flight drove the people in an -ever-thickening multitude away from the stations and along the -northward-running roads. By midday a Martian had been seen at Barnes, -and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapour drove along the Thames and -across the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges in -its sluggish advance. Another bank drove over Ealing, and surrounded a -little island of survivors on Castle Hill, alive, but unable to escape. - -After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk -Farm—the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there -_ploughed_ through shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to -keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace—my brother -emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across through a hurrying -swarm of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost in the sack of a -cycle shop. The front tire of the machine he got was punctured in -dragging it through the window, but he got up and off, notwithstanding, -with no further injury than a cut wrist. The steep foot of Haverstock -Hill was impassable owing to several overturned horses, and my brother -struck into Belsize Road. - -So he got out of the fury of the panic, and, skirting the Edgware Road, -reached Edgware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead of the -crowd. Along the road people were standing in the roadway, curious, -wondering. He was passed by a number of cyclists, some horsemen, and -two motor cars. A mile from Edgware the rim of the wheel broke, and the -machine became unridable. He left it by the roadside and trudged -through the village. There were shops half opened in the main street of -the place, and people crowded on the pavement and in the doorways and -windows, staring astonished at this extraordinary procession of -fugitives that was beginning. He succeeded in getting some food at an -inn. - -For a time he remained in Edgware not knowing what next to do. The -flying people increased in number. Many of them, like my brother, -seemed inclined to loiter in the place. There was no fresh news of the -invaders from Mars. - -At that time the road was crowded, but as yet far from congested. Most -of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there were -soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and the -dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to St. Albans. - -It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford, where some -friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike into a -quiet lane running eastward. Presently he came upon a stile, and, -crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward. He passed near several -farmhouses and some little places whose names he did not learn. He saw -few fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High Barnet, he happened -upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers. He came upon them -just in time to save them. - -He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a couple of -men struggling to drag them out of the little pony-chaise in which they -had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the frightened -pony’s head. One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was -simply screaming; the other, a dark, slender figure, slashed at the man -who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her disengaged hand. - -My brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted, and hurried -towards the struggle. One of the men desisted and turned towards him, -and my brother, realising from his antagonist’s face that a fight was -unavoidable, and being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith and -sent him down against the wheel of the chaise. - -It was no time for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him quiet -with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the -slender lady’s arm. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung -across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and -the man he held wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in the -direction from which he had come. - -Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held the -horse’s head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down the -lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking back. -The man before him, a burly rough, tried to close, and he stopped him -with a blow in the face. Then, realising that he was deserted, he -dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise, with the -sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had turned now, -following remotely. - -Suddenly he stumbled and fell; his immediate pursuer went headlong, and -he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists again. -He would have had little chance against them had not the slender lady -very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help. It seems she had had -a revolver all this time, but it had been under the seat when she and -her companion were attacked. She fired at six yards’ distance, narrowly -missing my brother. The less courageous of the robbers made off, and -his companion followed him, cursing his cowardice. They both stopped in -sight down the lane, where the third man lay insensible. - -“Take this!” said the slender lady, and she gave my brother her -revolver. - -“Go back to the chaise,” said my brother, wiping the blood from his -split lip. - -She turned without a word—they were both panting—and they went back to -where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened pony. - -The robbers had evidently had enough of it. When my brother looked -again they were retreating. - -“I’ll sit here,” said my brother, “if I may”; and he got upon the empty -front seat. The lady looked over her shoulder. - -“Give me the reins,” she said, and laid the whip along the pony’s side. -In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my -brother’s eyes. - -So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a cut -mouth, a bruised jaw, and bloodstained knuckles, driving along an -unknown lane with these two women. - -He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon -living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous -case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the -Martian advance. He had hurried home, roused the women—their servant -had left them two days before—packed some provisions, put his revolver -under the seat—luckily for my brother—and told them to drive on to -Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there. He stopped behind to -tell the neighbours. He would overtake them, he said, at about half -past four in the morning, and now it was nearly nine and they had seen -nothing of him. They could not stop in Edgware because of the growing -traffic through the place, and so they had come into this side lane. - -That was the story they told my brother in fragments when presently -they stopped again, nearer to New Barnet. He promised to stay with -them, at least until they could determine what to do, or until the -missing man arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the -revolver—a weapon strange to him—in order to give them confidence. - -They made a sort of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became -happy in the hedge. He told them of his own escape out of London, and -all that he knew of these Martians and their ways. The sun crept higher -in the sky, and after a time their talk died out and gave place to an -uneasy state of anticipation. Several wayfarers came along the lane, -and of these my brother gathered such news as he could. Every broken -answer he had deepened his impression of the great disaster that had -come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the immediate necessity -for prosecuting this flight. He urged the matter upon them. - -“We have money,” said the slender woman, and hesitated. - -Her eyes met my brother’s, and her hesitation ended. - -“So have I,” said my brother. - -She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold, besides a -five-pound note, and suggested that with that they might get upon a -train at St. Albans or New Barnet. My brother thought that was -hopeless, seeing the fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains, -and broached his own idea of striking across Essex towards Harwich and -thence escaping from the country altogether. - -Mrs. Elphinstone—that was the name of the woman in white—would listen -to no reasoning, and kept calling upon “George”; but her sister-in-law -was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last agreed to my -brother’s suggestion. So, designing to cross the Great North Road, they -went on towards Barnet, my brother leading the pony to save it as much -as possible. As the sun crept up the sky the day became excessively -hot, and under foot a thick, whitish sand grew burning and blinding, so -that they travelled only very slowly. The hedges were grey with dust. -And as they advanced towards Barnet a tumultuous murmuring grew -stronger. - -They began to meet more people. For the most part these were staring -before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. -One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground. -They heard his voice, and, looking back at him, saw one hand clutched -in his hair and the other beating invisible things. His paroxysm of -rage over, he went on his way without once looking back. - -As my brother’s party went on towards the crossroads to the south of -Barnet they saw a woman approaching the road across some fields on -their left, carrying a child and with two other children; and then -passed a man in dirty black, with a thick stick in one hand and a small -portmanteau in the other. Then round the corner of the lane, from -between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the high -road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and driven by a -sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust. There were three girls, -East End factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded in the -cart. - -“This’ll tike us rahnd Edgware?” asked the driver, wild-eyed, -white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the -left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks. - -My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the houses in -front of them, and veiling the white façade of a terrace beyond the -road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone -suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up -above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The -tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of -many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the -staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from the -crossroads. - -“Good heavens!” cried Mrs. Elphinstone. “What is this you are driving -us into?” - -My brother stopped. - -For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human -beings rushing northward, one pressing on another. A great bank of -dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything -within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was -perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses and -of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every -description. - -“Way!” my brother heard voices crying. “Make way!” - -It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting -point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust -was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was -burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to -add to the confusion. - -Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and -weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously -round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother’s threat. - -So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to -the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in -between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, -grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, -and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was -swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust. - -“Go on! Go on!” cried the voices. “Way! Way!” - -One man’s hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the -pony’s head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, -down the lane. - -Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult, but -this was a whole population in movement. It is hard to imagine that -host. It had no character of its own. The figures poured out past the -corner, and receded with their backs to the group in the lane. Along -the margin came those who were on foot threatened by the wheels, -stumbling in the ditches, blundering into one another. - -The carts and carriages crowded close upon one another, making little -way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted forward -every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing so, -sending the people scattering against the fences and gates of the -villas. - -“Push on!” was the cry. “Push on! They are coming!” - -In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, -gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, “Eternity! -Eternity!” His voice was hoarse and very loud so that my brother could -hear him long after he was lost to sight in the dust. Some of the -people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their horses and -quarrelled with other drivers; some sat motionless, staring at nothing -with miserable eyes; some gnawed their hands with thirst, or lay -prostrate in the bottoms of their conveyances. The horses’ bits were -covered with foam, their eyes bloodshot. - -There were cabs, carriages, shop-carts, waggons, beyond counting; a -mail cart, a road-cleaner’s cart marked “Vestry of St. Pancras,” a huge -timber waggon crowded with roughs. A brewer’s dray rumbled by with its -two near wheels splashed with fresh blood. - -“Clear the way!” cried the voices. “Clear the way!” - -“Eter-nity! Eter-nity!” came echoing down the road. - -There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with children -that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their -weary faces smeared with tears. With many of these came men, sometimes -helpful, sometimes lowering and savage. Fighting side by side with them -pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, -loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting -their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, -struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men -dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a -nightshirt with a coat thrown over it. - -But varied as its composition was, certain things all that host had in -common. There were fear and pain on their faces, and fear behind them. -A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a place in a waggon, sent the whole -host of them quickening their pace; even a man so scared and broken -that his knees bent under him was galvanised for a moment into renewed -activity. The heat and dust had already been at work upon this -multitude. Their skins were dry, their lips black and cracked. They -were all thirsty, weary, and footsore. And amid the various cries one -heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue; the voices -of most of them were hoarse and weak. Through it all ran a refrain: - -“Way! Way! The Martians are coming!” - -Few stopped and came aside from that flood. The lane opened slantingly -into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a delusive appearance -of coming from the direction of London. Yet a kind of eddy of people -drove into its mouth; weaklings elbowed out of the stream, who for the -most part rested but a moment before plunging into it again. A little -way down the lane, with two friends bending over him, lay a man with a -bare leg, wrapped about with bloody rags. He was a lucky man to have -friends. - -A little old man, with a grey military moustache and a filthy black -frock coat, limped out and sat down beside the trap, removed his -boot—his sock was blood-stained—shook out a pebble, and hobbled on -again; and then a little girl of eight or nine, all alone, threw -herself under the hedge close by my brother, weeping. - -“I can’t go on! I can’t go on!” - -My brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up, -speaking gently to her, and carried her to Miss Elphinstone. So soon as -my brother touched her she became quite still, as if frightened. - -“Ellen!” shrieked a woman in the crowd, with tears in her -voice—“Ellen!” And the child suddenly darted away from my brother, -crying “Mother!” - -“They are coming,” said a man on horseback, riding past along the lane. - -“Out of the way, there!” bawled a coachman, towering high; and my -brother saw a closed carriage turning into the lane. - -The people crushed back on one another to avoid the horse. My brother -pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man drove by -and stopped at the turn of the way. It was a carriage, with a pole for -a pair of horses, but only one was in the traces. My brother saw dimly -through the dust that two men lifted out something on a white stretcher -and put it gently on the grass beneath the privet hedge. - -One of the men came running to my brother. - -“Where is there any water?” he said. “He is dying fast, and very -thirsty. It is Lord Garrick.” - -“Lord Garrick!” said my brother; “the Chief Justice?” - -“The water?” he said. - -“There may be a tap,” said my brother, “in some of the houses. We have -no water. I dare not leave my people.” - -The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate of the corner house. - -“Go on!” said the people, thrusting at him. “They are coming! Go on!” - -Then my brother’s attention was distracted by a bearded, eagle-faced -man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother’s eyes -rested on it and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed to break up -into separate coins as it struck the ground. They rolled hither and -thither among the struggling feet of men and horses. The man stopped -and looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab struck his -shoulder and sent him reeling. He gave a shriek and dodged back, and a -cartwheel shaved him narrowly. - -“Way!” cried the men all about him. “Make way!” - -So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself, with both hands open, -upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket. A -horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half rising, he had -been borne down under the horse’s hoofs. - -“Stop!” screamed my brother, and pushing a woman out of his way, tried -to clutch the bit of the horse. - -Before he could get to it, he heard a scream under the wheels, and saw -through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch’s back. The -driver of the cart slashed his whip at my brother, who ran round behind -the cart. The multitudinous shouting confused his ears. The man was -writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to rise, for the -wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp and dead. My -brother stood up and yelled at the next driver, and a man on a black -horse came to his assistance. - -“Get him out of the road,” said he; and, clutching the man’s collar -with his free hand, my brother lugged him sideways. But he still -clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering -at his arm with a handful of gold. “Go on! Go on!” shouted angry voices -behind. “Way! Way!” - -There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart that -the man on horseback stopped. My brother looked up, and the man with -the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his collar. -There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering sideways, -and the carthorse pushed beside it. A hoof missed my brother’s foot by -a hair’s breadth. He released his grip on the fallen man and jumped -back. He saw anger change to terror on the face of the poor wretch on -the ground, and in a moment he was hidden and my brother was borne -backward and carried past the entrance of the lane, and had to fight -hard in the torrent to recover it. - -He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a little child, with all -a child’s want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated eyes at -a dusty something that lay black and still, ground and crushed under -the rolling wheels. “Let us go back!” he shouted, and began turning the -pony round. “We cannot cross this—hell,” he said and they went back a -hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting crowd was -hidden. As they passed the bend in the lane my brother saw the face of -the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white and drawn, -and shining with perspiration. The two women sat silent, crouching in -their seat and shivering. - -Then beyond the bend my brother stopped again. Miss Elphinstone was -white and pale, and her sister-in-law sat weeping, too wretched even to -call upon “George.” My brother was horrified and perplexed. So soon as -they had retreated he realised how urgent and unavoidable it was to -attempt this crossing. He turned to Miss Elphinstone, suddenly -resolute. - -“We must go that way,” he said, and led the pony round again. - -For the second time that day this girl proved her quality. To force -their way into the torrent of people, my brother plunged into the -traffic and held back a cab horse, while she drove the pony across its -head. A waggon locked wheels for a moment and ripped a long splinter -from the chaise. In another moment they were caught and swept forward -by the stream. My brother, with the cabman’s whip marks red across his -face and hands, scrambled into the chaise and took the reins from her. - -“Point the revolver at the man behind,” he said, giving it to her, “if -he presses us too hard. No!—point it at his horse.” - -Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right across -the road. But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition, to become -a part of that dusty rout. They swept through Chipping Barnet with the -torrent; they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of the town before -they had fought across to the opposite side of the way. It was din and -confusion indescribable; but in and beyond the town the road forks -repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the stress. - -They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of the -road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great multitude -of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at the water. -And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw two trains -running slowly one after the other without signal or order—trains -swarming with people, with men even among the coals behind the -engines—going northward along the Great Northern Railway. My brother -supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that time the -furious terror of the people had rendered the central termini -impossible. - -Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the -violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them. -They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger; the night was cold, and -none of them dared to sleep. And in the evening many people came -hurrying along the road nearby their stopping place, fleeing from -unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my -brother had come. - - - - -XVII. -THE “THUNDER CHILD”. - - -Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have -annihilated the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly -through the home counties. Not only along the road through Barnet, but -also through Edgware and Waltham Abbey, and along the roads eastward to -Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and -Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout. If one could have hung that -June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above London every -northward and eastward road running out of the tangled maze of streets -would have seemed stippled black with the streaming fugitives, each dot -a human agony of terror and physical distress. I have set forth at -length in the last chapter my brother’s account of the road through -Chipping Barnet, in order that my readers may realise how that swarming -of black dots appeared to one of those concerned. Never before in the -history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered -together. The legendary hosts of Goths and Huns, the hugest armies Asia -has ever seen, would have been but a drop in that current. And this was -no disciplined march; it was a stampede—a stampede gigantic and -terrible—without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed -and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout -of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind. - -Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of -streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares, crescents, -gardens—already derelict—spread out like a huge map, and in the -southward _blotted_. Over Ealing, Richmond, Wimbledon, it would have -seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart. Steadily, -incessantly, each black splash grew and spread, shooting out -ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising -ground, now pouring swiftly over a crest into a new-found valley, -exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper. - -And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river, the -glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically spreading -their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over that, -laying it again with their steam jets when it had served its purpose, -and taking possession of the conquered country. They do not seem to -have aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and -the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any stores of powder -they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and -there. They were hamstringing mankind. They seemed in no hurry to -extend the field of their operations, and did not come beyond the -central part of London all that day. It is possible that a very -considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through -Monday morning. Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the -Black Smoke. - -Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene. -Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous -sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam -out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned. About -one o’clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the -black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. At that -the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and -for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern -arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight -savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront. -People were actually clambering down the piers of the bridge from -above. - -When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and -waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse. - -Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The -sixth star fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the -women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it far beyond -the hills. On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across -the sea, made its way through the swarming country towards Colchester. -The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of -London was confirmed. They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it was -said, at Neasden. But they did not come into my brother’s view until -the morrow. - -That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need of -provisions. As they grew hungry the rights of property ceased to be -regarded. Farmers were out to defend their cattle-sheds, granaries, and -ripening root crops with arms in their hands. A number of people now, -like my brother, had their faces eastward, and there were some -desperate souls even going back towards London to get food. These were -chiefly people from the northern suburbs, whose knowledge of the Black -Smoke came by hearsay. He heard that about half the members of the -government had gathered at Birmingham, and that enormous quantities of -high explosives were being prepared to be used in automatic mines -across the Midland counties. - -He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the -desertions of the first day’s panic, had resumed traffic, and was -running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of -the home counties. There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar -announcing that large stores of flour were available in the northern -towns and that within twenty-four hours bread would be distributed -among the starving people in the neighbourhood. But this intelligence -did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three -pressed eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution -than this promise. Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone else hear more -of it. That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose Hill. It -fell while Miss Elphinstone was watching, for she took that duty -alternately with my brother. She saw it. - -On Wednesday the three fugitives—they had passed the night in a field -of unripe wheat—reached Chelmsford, and there a body of the -inhabitants, calling itself the Committee of Public Supply, seized the -pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the -promise of a share in it the next day. Here there were rumours of -Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey Powder -Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders. - -People were watching for Martians here from the church towers. My -brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at -once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of them -were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, -strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a -few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly -came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all -sorts that it is possible to imagine. - -For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on -to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards -to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a huge -sickle-shaped curve that vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. -Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks—English, Scotch, -French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, -electric boats; and beyond were ships of larger burden, a multitude of -filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, -petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport even, neat white -and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and along the blue coast -across the Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of -boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which also -extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon. - -About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, -almost, to my brother’s perception, like a water-logged ship. This was -the ram _Thunder Child_. It was the only warship in sight, but far away -to the right over the smooth surface of the sea—for that day there was -a dead calm—lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of -the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and -ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the -Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it. - -At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the assurances -of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic. She had never been out of -England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a -foreign country, and so forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that -the French and the Martians might prove very similar. She had been -growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two -days’ journeyings. Her great idea was to return to Stanmore. Things had -been always well and safe at Stanmore. They would find George at -Stanmore.... - -It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down to the -beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the attention -of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and -drove a bargain for thirty-six pounds for the three. The steamer was -going, these men said, to Ostend. - -It was about two o’clock when my brother, having paid their fares at -the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his -charges. There was food aboard, albeit at exorbitant prices, and the -three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward. - -There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard, some of whom -had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the captain -lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up -passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously crowded. He -would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of -guns that began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the -ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags. A jet -of smoke sprang out of her funnels. - -Some of the passengers were of opinion that this firing came from -Shoeburyness, until it was noticed that it was growing louder. At the -same time, far away in the southeast the masts and upperworks of three -ironclads rose one after the other out of the sea, beneath clouds of -black smoke. But my brother’s attention speedily reverted to the -distant firing in the south. He fancied he saw a column of smoke rising -out of the distant grey haze. - -The little steamer was already flapping her way eastward of the big -crescent of shipping, and the low Essex coast was growing blue and -hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance, -advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness. At that -the captain on the bridge swore at the top of his voice with fear and -anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed infected with his -terror. Every soul aboard stood at the bulwarks or on the seats of the -steamer and stared at that distant shape, higher than the trees or -church towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human -stride. - -It was the first Martian my brother had seen, and he stood, more amazed -than terrified, watching this Titan advancing deliberately towards the -shipping, wading farther and farther into the water as the coast fell -away. Then, far away beyond the Crouch, came another, striding over -some stunted trees, and then yet another, still farther off, wading -deeply through a shiny mudflat that seemed to hang halfway up between -sea and sky. They were all stalking seaward, as if to intercept the -escape of the multitudinous vessels that were crowded between Foulness -and the Naze. In spite of the throbbing exertions of the engines of the -little paddle-boat, and the pouring foam that her wheels flung behind -her, she receded with terrifying slowness from this ominous advance. - -Glancing northwestward, my brother saw the large crescent of shipping -already writhing with the approaching terror; one ship passing behind -another, another coming round from broadside to end on, steamships -whistling and giving off volumes of steam, sails being let out, -launches rushing hither and thither. He was so fascinated by this and -by the creeping danger away to the left that he had no eyes for -anything seaward. And then a swift movement of the steamboat (she had -suddenly come round to avoid being run down) flung him headlong from -the seat upon which he was standing. There was a shouting all about -him, a trampling of feet, and a cheer that seemed to be answered -faintly. The steamboat lurched and rolled him over upon his hands. - -He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards -from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a -plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge -waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles -helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the -waterline. - -A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were -clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big -iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin -funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the -torpedo ram, _Thunder Child_, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue -of the threatened shipping. - -Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my -brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and -he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to -sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus -sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less -formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was -pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new -antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the -giant was even such another as themselves. The _Thunder Child_ fired no -gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not -firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did -not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her -to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray. - -She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway -between the steamboat and the Martians—a diminishing black bulk against -the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast. - -Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a -canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and -glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding -torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the -watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their -eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians. - -They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as -they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like -generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and -a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven -through the iron of the ship’s side like a white-hot iron rod through -paper. - -A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the -Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a -great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the -_Thunder Child_ sounded through the reek, going off one after the -other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer, -ricocheted towards the other flying ships to the north, and smashed a -smack to matchwood. - -But no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian’s -collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the -crowding passengers on the steamer’s stern shouted together. And then -they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove -something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, -its ventilators and funnels spouting fire. - -She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her -engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was -within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with -a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped -upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and -in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the -impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of -cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam -hid everything again. - -“Two!” yelled the captain. - -Everyone was shouting. The whole steamer from end to end rang with -frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the -crowding multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea. - -The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third -Martian and the coast altogether. And all this time the boat was -paddling steadily out to sea and away from the fight; and when at last -the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, -and nothing of the _Thunder Child_ could be made out, nor could the -third Martian be seen. But the ironclads to seaward were now quite -close and standing in towards shore past the steamboat. - -The little vessel continued to beat its way seaward, and the ironclads -receded slowly towards the coast, which was hidden still by a marbled -bank of vapour, part steam, part black gas, eddying and combining in -the strangest way. The fleet of refugees was scattering to the -northeast; several smacks were sailing between the ironclads and the -steamboat. After a time, and before they reached the sinking cloud -bank, the warships turned northward, and then abruptly went about and -passed into the thickening haze of evening southward. The coast grew -faint, and at last indistinguishable amid the low banks of clouds that -were gathering about the sinking sun. - -Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the vibration -of guns, and a form of black shadows moving. Everyone struggled to the -rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding furnace of the west, -but nothing was to be distinguished clearly. A mass of smoke rose -slanting and barred the face of the sun. The steamboat throbbed on its -way through an interminable suspense. - -The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the -evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain -cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed -up into the sky out of the greyness—rushed slantingly upward and very -swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western -sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a -vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey -mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the -land. - - - - -BOOK TWO -THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS. - - - - -I. -UNDER FOOT. - - -In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to -tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two -chapters I and the curate have been lurking in the empty house at -Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke. There I will -resume. We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next day—the day -of the panic—in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke -from the rest of the world. We could do nothing but wait in aching -inactivity during those two weary days. - -My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife. I figured her at -Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man. I -paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off -from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence. My cousin I -knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of man -to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly. What was needed now was -not bravery, but circumspection. My only consolation was to believe -that the Martians were moving Londonward and away from her. Such vague -anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful. I grew very weary and -irritable with the curate’s perpetual ejaculations; I tired of the -sight of his selfish despair. After some ineffectual remonstrance I -kept away from him, staying in a room—evidently a children’s -schoolroom—containing globes, forms, and copybooks. When he followed me -thither, I went to a box room at the top of the house and, in order to -be alone with my aching miseries, locked myself in. - -We were hopelessly hemmed in by the Black Smoke all that day and the -morning of the next. There were signs of people in the next house on -Sunday evening—a face at a window and moving lights, and later the -slamming of a door. But I do not know who these people were, nor what -became of them. We saw nothing of them next day. The Black Smoke -drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer -and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house -that hid us. - -A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff with a -jet of superheated steam that hissed against the walls, smashed all the -windows it touched, and scalded the curate’s hand as he fled out of the -front room. When at last we crept across the sodden rooms and looked -out again, the country northward was as though a black snowstorm had -passed over it. Looking towards the river, we were astonished to see an -unaccountable redness mingling with the black of the scorched meadows. - -For a time we did not see how this change affected our position, save -that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke. But later I -perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get away. -So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream of -action returned. But the curate was lethargic, unreasonable. - -“We are safe here,” he repeated; “safe here.” - -I resolved to leave him—would that I had! Wiser now for the -artilleryman’s teaching, I sought out food and drink. I had found oil -and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel shirt that I -found in one of the bedrooms. When it was clear to him that I meant to -go alone—had reconciled myself to going alone—he suddenly roused -himself to come. And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we -started about five o’clock, as I should judge, along the blackened road -to Sunbury. - -In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying in -contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and -luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall of cindery -powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. -We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange -and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved -to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating drift. We -went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro under the -chestnuts, and some men and women hurrying in the distance towards -Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham. These were the first people we -saw. - -Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still -afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke, and -there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For -the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull to -shift their quarters. I have an impression that many of the houses here -were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for -flight. Here too the evidence of a hasty rout was abundant along the -road. I remember most vividly three smashed bicycles in a heap, pounded -into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts. We crossed Richmond -Bridge about half past eight. We hurried across the exposed bridge, of -course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, -some many feet across. I did not know what these were—there was no time -for scrutiny—and I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they -deserved. Here again on the Surrey side were black dust that had once -been smoke, and dead bodies—a heap near the approach to the station; -but we had no glimpse of the Martians until we were some way towards -Barnes. - -We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running down a -side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed deserted. Up the -hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the town of Richmond -there was no trace of the Black Smoke. - -Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people running, -and the upperworks of a Martian fighting-machine loomed in sight over -the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us. We stood aghast at our -danger, and had the Martian looked down we must immediately have -perished. We were so terrified that we dared not go on, but turned -aside and hid in a shed in a garden. There the curate crouched, weeping -silently, and refusing to stir again. - -But my fixed idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest, and in -the twilight I ventured out again. I went through a shrubbery, and -along a passage beside a big house standing in its own grounds, and so -emerged upon the road towards Kew. The curate I left in the shed, but -he came hurrying after me. - -That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did. For it was -manifest the Martians were about us. No sooner had the curate overtaken -me than we saw either the fighting-machine we had seen before or -another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew Lodge. -Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the -green-grey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian -pursued them. In three strides he was among them, and they ran -radiating from his feet in all directions. He used no Heat-Ray to -destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently he tossed them -into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a -workman’s basket hangs over his shoulder. - -It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other -purpose than destruction with defeated humanity. We stood for a moment -petrified, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled -garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and lay there, -scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out. - -I suppose it was nearly eleven o’clock before we gathered courage to -start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking along -hedgerows and through plantations, and watching keenly through the -darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who -seemed to be all about us. In one place we blundered upon a scorched -and blackened area, now cooling and ashen, and a number of scattered -dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with -their legs and boots mostly intact; and of dead horses, fifty feet, -perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages. - -Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent and -deserted. Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark -for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion -suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided to try one -of the houses. - -The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the window, -was a small semi-detached villa, and I found nothing eatable left in -the place but some mouldy cheese. There was, however, water to drink; -and I took a hatchet, which promised to be useful in our next -house-breaking. - -We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here -there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of -this domicile we found a store of food—two loaves of bread in a pan, an -uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so -precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to subsist upon -this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, -and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces. This -pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in this was firewood; -there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of -burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of biscuits. - -We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the dark—for we dared not strike a -light—and ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle. The -curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly enough, for -pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when -the thing happened that was to imprison us. - -“It can’t be midnight yet,” I said, and then came a blinding glare of -vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly -visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such -a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the -heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash -of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the -plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of -fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor -against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, -the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and -he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut -forehead, was dabbing water over me. - -For some time I could not recollect what had happened. Then things came -to me slowly. A bruise on my temple asserted itself. - -“Are you better?” asked the curate in a whisper. - -At last I answered him. I sat up. - -“Don’t move,” he said. “The floor is covered with smashed crockery from -the dresser. You can’t possibly move without making a noise, and I -fancy _they_ are outside.” - -We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other -breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, -some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound. -Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle. - -“That!” said the curate, when presently it happened again. - -“Yes,” I said. “But what is it?” - -“A Martian!” said the curate. - -I listened again. - -“It was not like the Heat-Ray,” I said, and for a time I was inclined -to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled against the -house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton -Church. - -Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or -four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light -filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through -a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the -wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the -first time. - -The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed -over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. -Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the -window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe. The floor was littered -with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the house was -broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the -greater part of the house had collapsed. Contrasting vividly with this -ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with -a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the wallpaper imitating -blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering -from the walls above the kitchen range. - -As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body -of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing -cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as possible -out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery. - -Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind. - -“The fifth cylinder,” I whispered, “the fifth shot from Mars, has -struck this house and buried us under the ruins!” - -For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered: - -“God have mercy upon us!” - -I heard him presently whimpering to himself. - -Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my part -scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of -the kitchen door. I could just see the curate’s face, a dim, oval -shape, and his collar and cuffs. Outside there began a metallic -hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet -interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for -the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if -anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured -thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the -vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the -light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely -dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, -until our tired attention failed. . . . - -At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe -we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening. -My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to action. I -told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the -pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the faint -noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me. - - - - -II. -WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE. - - -After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed -again, for when presently I looked round I was alone. The thudding -vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the -curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the -kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, -lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. -His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden from me. - -I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine shed; -and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture in -the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold and the warm -blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so I remained watching -the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and stepping with extreme -care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor. - -I touched the curate’s leg, and he started so violently that a mass of -plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I -gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we -crouched motionless. Then I turned to see how much of our rampart -remained. The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open -in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was -able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet -suburban roadway. Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld. - -The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house -we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, -pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath -the original foundations—deep in a hole, already vastly larger than the -pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed -under that tremendous impact—“splashed” is the only word—and lay in -heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved -exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had -collapsed backward; the front portion, even on the ground floor, had -been destroyed completely; by a chance the kitchen and scullery had -escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons -of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. Over that aspect we -hung now on the very edge of the great circular pit the Martians were -engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was evidently just behind -us, and ever and again a bright green vapour drove up like a veil -across our peephole. - -The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on the -farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravel-heaped shrubbery, -one of the great fighting-machines, deserted by its occupant, stood -stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first I scarcely noticed the -pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them -first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy -in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were -crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it. - -The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one -of those complicated fabrics that have since been called -handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an -enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, -it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, -and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching -and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were -retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of -rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently -strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These, as it extracted them, -were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of earth behind it. - -Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not -see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The -fighting-machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary -pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen -these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or -the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, -scarcely realise that living quality. - -I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to -give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a -hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge -ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either -flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of -effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable -vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the -impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I -saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the -pamphlet would have been much better without them. - -At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a machine, -but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the -controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements -seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab’s cerebral portion. But -then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny, leathery -integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true -nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. With that realisation -my interest shifted to those other creatures, the real Martians. -Already I had had a transient impression of these, and the first nausea -no longer obscured my observation. Moreover, I was concealed and -motionless, and under no urgency of action. - -They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to -conceive. They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet -in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no -nostrils—indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of -smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just -beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body—I -scarcely know how to speak of it—was the single tight tympanic surface, -since known to be anatomically an ear, though it must have been almost -useless in our dense air. In a group round the mouth were sixteen -slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight -each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that -distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the _hands_. Even as I saw -these Martians for the first time they seemed to be endeavouring to -raise themselves on these hands, but of course, with the increased -weight of terrestrial conditions, this was impossible. There is reason -to suppose that on Mars they may have progressed upon them with some -facility. - -The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since shown, -was almost equally simple. The greater part of the structure was the -brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. -Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth opened, and the -heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by the denser -atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in -the convulsive movements of the outer skin. - -And this was the sum of the Martian organs. Strange as it may seem to a -human being, all the complex apparatus of digestion, which makes up the -bulk of our bodies, did not exist in the Martians. They were -heads—merely heads. Entrails they had none. They did not eat, much less -digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, -and _injected_ it into their own veins. I have myself seen this being -done, as I shall mention in its place. But, squeamish as I may seem, I -cannot bring myself to describe what I could not endure even to -continue watching. Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from a still -living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by -means of a little pipette into the recipient canal. . . . - -The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the -same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous -habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit. - -The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are -undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and -energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are -half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning -heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and their -reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. -Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers, or -sound gastric glands. But the Martians were lifted above all these -organic fluctuations of mood and emotion. - -Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment is -partly explained by the nature of the remains of the victims they had -brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge -from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were -bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the -silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high -and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or -three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were -killed before earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the -mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every -bone in their bodies. - -And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place -certain further details which, although they were not all evident to us -at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them to -form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures. - -In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. -Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. -Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that -periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense -of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without -effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty-four hours -they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the -case with the ants. - -In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the -Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore without any of the -tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men. A young -Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon earth during -the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially _budded_ -off, just as young lilybulbs bud off, or like the young animals in the -fresh-water polyp. - -In man, in all the higher terrestrial animals, such a method of -increase has disappeared; but even on this earth it was certainly the -primitive method. Among the lower animals, up even to those first -cousins of the vertebrated animals, the Tunicates, the two processes -occur side by side, but finally the sexual method superseded its -competitor altogether. On Mars, however, just the reverse has -apparently been the case. - -It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of -quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did -forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian -condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December, -1893, in a long-defunct publication, the _Pall Mall Budget_, and I -recall a caricature of it in a pre-Martian periodical called _Punch_. -He pointed out—writing in a foolish, facetious tone—that the perfection -of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs; the -perfection of chemical devices, digestion; that such organs as hair, -external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential parts of -the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection would lie -in the direction of their steady diminution through the coming ages. -The brain alone remained a cardinal necessity. Only one other part of -the body had a strong case for survival, and that was the hand, -“teacher and agent of the brain.” While the rest of the body dwindled, -the hands would grow larger. - -There is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians we -have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression of -the animal side of the organism by the intelligence. To me it is quite -credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike -ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the latter -giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last) at the -expense of the rest of the body. Without the body the brain would, of -course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of the -emotional substratum of the human being. - -The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed -from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. -Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have -either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated -them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of -human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never -enter the scheme of their life. And speaking of the differences between -the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may allude here to the curious -suggestions of the red weed. - -Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a -dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint. At any rate, the seeds -which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with them -gave rise in all cases to red-coloured growths. Only that known -popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition -with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, -and few people have seen it growing. For a time, however, the red weed -grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance. It spread up the sides of -the pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its -cactus-like branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of our -triangular window. And afterwards I found it broadcast throughout the -country, and especially wherever there was a stream of water. - -The Martians had what appears to have been an auditory organ, a single -round drum at the back of the head-body, and eyes with a visual range -not very different from ours except that, according to Philips, blue -and violet were as black to them. It is commonly supposed that they -communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations; this is asserted, -for instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet (written -evidently by someone not an eye-witness of Martian actions) to which I -have already alluded, and which, so far, has been the chief source of -information concerning them. Now no surviving human being saw so much -of the Martians in action as I did. I take no credit to myself for an -accident, but the fact is so. And I assert that I watched them closely -time after time, and that I have seen four, five, and (once) six of -them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations -together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting -invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, -in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to -the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an -elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I am -convinced—as firmly as I am convinced of anything—that the Martians -interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation. And I have -been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions. Before the -Martian invasion, as an occasional reader here or there may remember, I -had written with some little vehemence against the telepathic theory. - -The Martians wore no clothing. Their conceptions of ornament and -decorum were necessarily different from ours; and not only were they -evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are, but -changes of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at all -seriously. Yet though they wore no clothing, it was in the other -artificial additions to their bodily resources that their great -superiority over man lay. We men, with our bicycles and road-skates, -our Lilienthal soaring-machines, our guns and sticks and so forth, are -just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked -out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies -according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a -bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet. And of their appliances, -perhaps nothing is more wonderful to a man than the curious fact that -what is the dominant feature of almost all human devices in mechanism -is absent—the _wheel_ is absent; among all the things they brought to -earth there is no trace or suggestion of their use of wheels. One would -have at least expected it in locomotion. And in this connection it is -curious to remark that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the -wheel, or has preferred other expedients to its development. And not -only did the Martians either not know of (which is incredible), or -abstain from, the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly little use -is made of the fixed pivot or relatively fixed pivot, with circular -motions thereabout confined to one plane. Almost all the joints of the -machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over -small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this -matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their -machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of -the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn -closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of -electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, -which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was -attained. Such quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling-machine -which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the -cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians -lying beyond it in the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual -tentacles, and moving feebly after their vast journey across space. - -While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight, and -noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me of his -presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face, -and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one -of us to peep through; and so I had to forego watching them for a time -while he enjoyed that privilege. - -When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together -several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder -into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on -the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting -jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and -embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which -had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had -kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. -So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at -all. - - - - -III. -THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT. - - -The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole -into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian -might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later date we began to -feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of the -sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at -first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery -in heart-throbbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, -the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall -now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in -which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we -could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight. We -would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between eagerness and -the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and thrust and -kick, within a few inches of exposure. - -The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits -of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated -the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the -curate’s trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. -His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think -out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and -intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in -restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I -verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought -his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the darkness -unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate -more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed out that our only chance -of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their -pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we -should need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long -intervals. He slept little. - -As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so -intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing -it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him to -reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of -pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who -face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves. - -It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set -them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the -dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of -rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is -wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But -those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to -elemental things, will have a wider charity. - -And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest of whispers, -snatched food and drink, and gripping hands and blows, without, in the -pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the -unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit. Let me return to those -first new experiences of mine. After a long time I ventured back to the -peephole, to find that the new-comers had been reinforced by the -occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines. These last -had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly -manner about the cylinder. The second handling-machine was now -completed, and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the -big machine had brought. This was a body resembling a milk can in its -general form, above which oscillated a pear-shaped receptacle, and from -which a stream of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. - -The oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of the -handling-machine. With two spatulate hands the handling-machine was -digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pear-shaped receptacle -above, while with another arm it periodically opened a door and removed -rusty and blackened clinkers from the middle part of the machine. -Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin along a -ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me by the -mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver a little thread of -green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the -handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended, -telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere -blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay. In -another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, -untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a -growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit. Between sunset -and starlight this dexterous machine must have made more than a hundred -such bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose -steadily until it topped the side of the pit. - -The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these -contrivances and the inert panting clumsiness of their masters was -acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter -were indeed the living of the two things. - -The curate had possession of the slit when the first men were brought -to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with all my -ears. He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that we were -observed, crouched in a spasm of terror. He came sliding down the -rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, -gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture -suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my -curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and -clambered up to it. At first I could see no reason for his frantic -behaviour. The twilight had now come, the stars were little and faint, -but the pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from -the aluminium-making. The whole picture was a flickering scheme of -green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows, strangely trying to the -eyes. Over and through it all went the bats, heeding it not at all. The -sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen, the mound of blue-green -powder had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting-machine, with -its legs contracted, crumpled, and abbreviated, stood across the corner -of the pit. And then, amid the clangour of the machinery, came a -drifting suspicion of human voices, that I entertained at first only to -dismiss. - -I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, satisfying myself -now for the first time that the hood did indeed contain a Martian. As -the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of his integument -and the brightness of his eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a -long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little -cage that hunched upon its back. Then something—something struggling -violently—was lifted high against the sky, a black, vague enigma -against the starlight; and as this black object came down again, I saw -by the green brightness that it was a man. For an instant he was -clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middle-aged man, well dressed; -three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of -considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of -light on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and -for a moment there was silence. And then began a shrieking and a -sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians. - -I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my -ears, and bolted into the scullery. The curate, who had been crouching -silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed, cried out -quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after me. - -That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror -and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an -urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape; -but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider our -position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable -of discussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all -vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to -the level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with -both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could face the facts, that -terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for -absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the possibility of the -Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment. Or -even if they kept it permanently, they might not consider it necessary -to guard it, and a chance of escape might be afforded us. I also -weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging a way out in a -direction away from the pit, but the chances of our emerging within -sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at first too great. And -I should have had to do all the digging myself. The curate would -certainly have failed me. - -It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the -lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the -Martians feed. After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall for -the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the door, -and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible; -but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth -collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost heart, and lay -down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to -move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by -excavation. - -It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that at -first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about -by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth or fifth -night I heard a sound like heavy guns. - -It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The -Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a -fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a -handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit -immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them. Except -for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and patches of -white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking -of the handling-machine, quite still. That night was a beautiful -serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to -herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that -made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly like -the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a -long interval six again. And that was all. - - - - -IV. -THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. - - -It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last -time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me -and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the -scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and -quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking. -I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of burgundy. - -For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and -broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each -other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told -him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in -the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let him eat -any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at -the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day and -all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and -complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day, -but to me it seemed—it seems now—an interminable length of time. - -And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For -two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There -were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and -persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of -burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could get water. -But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed beyond reason. He -would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy -babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our -imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise -the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole -companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane. - -From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered -at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds -paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity -of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man. - -On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and -nothing I could do would moderate his speech. - -“It is just, O God!” he would say, over and over again. “It is just. On -me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen -short. There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust, -and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly—my God, what -folly!—when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called -upon them to repent—repent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and needy . . -. ! The wine press of God!” - -Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld from -him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise -his voice—I prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on me—he threatened -he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared -me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of escape beyond -estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might -not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked -with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part of the eighth -and ninth days—threats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half-sane -and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham of God’s service, such -as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed -strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist. - -“Be still!” I implored. - -He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the -copper. - -“I have been still too long,” he said, in a tone that must have reached -the pit, “and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful -city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of the earth by -reason of the other voices of the trumpet——” - -“Shut up!” I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the Martians -should hear us. “For God’s sake——” - -“Nay,” shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing likewise -and extending his arms. “Speak! The word of the Lord is upon me!” - -In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen. - -“I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long delayed.” - -I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a -flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was halfway -across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity -I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong -forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood -panting. He lay still. - -Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping -plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I looked -up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming slowly across -the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris; another -limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood -petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near the -edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large dark eyes -of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of tentacle came -feeling slowly through the hole. - -I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the -scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the -room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way -and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance. -Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I -trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door -of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the -faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening. Had the Martian -seen me? What was it doing now? - -Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and then -it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint -metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring. Then a -heavy body—I knew too well what—was dragged across the floor of the -kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept to the -door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer -sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine, -scrutinizing the curate’s head. I thought at once that it would infer -my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him. - -I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover -myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the -darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I -paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through -the opening again. - -Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly feeling -over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearer—in the scullery, as I -judged. I thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me. I -prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door. -An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened; then I heard it -fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood -doors! - -It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door -opened. - -In the darkness I could just see the thing—like an elephant’s trunk -more than anything else—waving towards me and touching and examining -the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm swaying its -blind head to and fro. - -Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of -screaming; I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I could -have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click, it -gripped something—I thought it had me!—and seemed to go out of the -cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it had taken a -lump of coal to examine. - -I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which had -become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers for -safety. - -Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. -Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping -the furniture. - -While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door -and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins -rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against the -cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense. - -Had it gone? - -At last I decided that it had. - -It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in the -close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to -crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day -before I ventured so far from my security. - - - - -V. -THE STILLNESS. - - -My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door -between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every -scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the -previous day. At that discovery I despaired for the first time. I took -no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day. - -At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed -sensibly. I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of -despondent wretchedness. My mind ran on eating. I thought I had become -deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear from the -pit had ceased absolutely. I did not feel strong enough to crawl -noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there. - -On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance of -alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rain-water pump that -stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and -tainted rain water. I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened by -the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my pumping. - -During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much of -the curate and of the manner of his death. - -On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought -disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of escape. -Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death of the -curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a keen -pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came into -the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered imagination -it seemed the colour of blood. - -On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to -find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in -the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured -obscurity. - -It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar -sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the -snuffing and scratching of a dog. Going into the kitchen, I saw a dog’s -nose peering in through a break among the ruddy fronds. This greatly -surprised me. At the scent of me he barked shortly. - -I thought if I could induce him to come into the place quietly I should -be able, perhaps, to kill and eat him; and in any case, it would be -advisable to kill him, lest his actions attracted the attention of the -Martians. - -I crept forward, saying “Good dog!” very softly; but he suddenly -withdrew his head and disappeared. - -I listened—I was not deaf—but certainly the pit was still. I heard a -sound like the flutter of a bird’s wings, and a hoarse croaking, but -that was all. - -For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to move -aside the red plants that obscured it. Once or twice I heard a faint -pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither on the -sand far below me, and there were more birdlike sounds, but that was -all. At length, encouraged by the silence, I looked out. - -Except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought over -the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, there was not a -living thing in the pit. - -I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes. All the machinery had -gone. Save for the big mound of greyish-blue powder in one corner, -certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the -skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in -the sand. - -Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the -mound of rubble. I could see in any direction save behind me, to the -north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen. The -pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish -afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins. My chance of -escape had come. I began to tremble. - -I hesitated for some time, and then, in a gust of desperate resolution, -and with a heart that throbbed violently, I scrambled to the top of the -mound in which I had been buried so long. - -I looked about again. To the northward, too, no Martian was visible. - -When I had last seen this part of Sheen in the daylight it had been a -straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed -with abundant shady trees. Now I stood on a mound of smashed brickwork, -clay, and gravel, over which spread a multitude of red cactus-shaped -plants, knee-high, without a solitary terrestrial growth to dispute -their footing. The trees near me were dead and brown, but further a -network of red thread scaled the still living stems. - -The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been burned; -their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows -and shattered doors. The red weed grew tumultuously in their roofless -rooms. Below me was the great pit, with the crows struggling for its -refuse. A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins. Far away -I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men -there were none. - -The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly -bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that -covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the -sweetness of the air! - - - - -VI. -THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS. - - -For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. -Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a -narrow intensity only of our immediate security. I had not realised -what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated this -startling vision of unfamiliar things. I had expected to see Sheen in -ruins—I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another -planet. - -For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, -yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as -a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by -the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I -felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my -mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a -persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the -animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to -lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed -away. - -But so soon as this strangeness had been realised it passed, and my -dominant motive became the hunger of my long and dismal fast. In the -direction away from the pit I saw, beyond a red-covered wall, a patch -of garden ground unburied. This gave me a hint, and I went knee-deep, -and sometimes neck-deep, in the red weed. The density of the weed gave -me a reassuring sense of hiding. The wall was some six feet high, and -when I attempted to clamber it I found I could not lift my feet to the -crest. So I went along by the side of it, and came to a corner and a -rockwork that enabled me to get to the top, and tumble into the garden -I coveted. Here I found some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, -and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which I secured, and, -scrambling over a ruined wall, went on my way through scarlet and -crimson trees towards Kew—it was like walking through an avenue of -gigantic blood drops—possessed with two ideas: to get more food, and to -limp, as soon and as far as my strength permitted, out of this accursed -unearthly region of the pit. - -Some way farther, in a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which -also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow -water, where meadows used to be. These fragments of nourishment served -only to whet my hunger. At first I was surprised at this flood in a -hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the -tropical exuberance of the red weed. Directly this extraordinary growth -encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled -fecundity. Its seeds were simply poured down into the water of the Wey -and Thames, and its swiftly growing and Titanic water fronds speedily -choked both those rivers. - -At Putney, as I afterwards saw, the bridge was almost lost in a tangle -of this weed, and at Richmond, too, the Thames water poured in a broad -and shallow stream across the meadows of Hampton and Twickenham. As the -water spread the weed followed them, until the ruined villas of the -Thames valley were for a time lost in this red swamp, whose margin I -explored, and much of the desolation the Martians had caused was -concealed. - -In the end the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had spread. A -cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of certain -bacteria, presently seized upon it. Now by the action of natural -selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power -against bacterial diseases—they never succumb without a severe -struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead. The fronds -became bleached, and then shrivelled and brittle. They broke off at the -least touch, and the waters that had stimulated their early growth -carried their last vestiges out to sea. - -My first act on coming to this water was, of course, to slake my -thirst. I drank a great deal of it and, moved by an impulse, gnawed -some fronds of red weed; but they were watery, and had a sickly, -metallic taste. I found the water was sufficiently shallow for me to -wade securely, although the red weed impeded my feet a little; but the -flood evidently got deeper towards the river, and I turned back to -Mortlake. I managed to make out the road by means of occasional ruins -of its villas and fences and lamps, and so presently I got out of this -spate and made my way to the hill going up towards Roehampton and came -out on Putney Common. - -Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the -wreckage of the familiar: patches of ground exhibited the devastation -of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly -undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors -closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if -their inhabitants slept within. The red weed was less abundant; the -tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper. I hunted for -food among the trees, finding nothing, and I also raided a couple of -silent houses, but they had already been broken into and ransacked. I -rested for the remainder of the daylight in a shrubbery, being, in my -enfeebled condition, too fatigued to push on. - -All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians. I -encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried -circuitously away from the advances I made them. Near Roehampton I had -seen two human skeletons—not bodies, but skeletons, picked clean—and in -the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats -and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. But though I gnawed parts of -these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from them. - -After sunset I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I -think the Heat-Ray must have been used for some reason. And in the -garden beyond Roehampton I got a quantity of immature potatoes, -sufficient to stay my hunger. From this garden one looked down upon -Putney and the river. The aspect of the place in the dusk was -singularly desolate: blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and -down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, red-tinged with the -weed. And over all—silence. It filled me with indescribable terror to -think how swiftly that desolating change had come. - -For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and -that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. Hard by the top of -Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and -removed several yards from the rest of the body. As I proceeded I -became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, -save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished in this part -of the world. The Martians, I thought, had gone on and left the country -desolated, seeking food elsewhere. Perhaps even now they were -destroying Berlin or Paris, or it might be they had gone northward. - - - - -VII. -THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL. - - -I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, -sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to -Leatherhead. I will not tell the needless trouble I had breaking into -that house—afterwards I found the front door was on the latch—nor how I -ransacked every room for food, until just on the verge of despair, in -what seemed to me to be a servant’s bedroom, I found a rat-gnawed crust -and two tins of pineapple. The place had been already searched and -emptied. In the bar I afterwards found some biscuits and sandwiches -that had been overlooked. The latter I could not eat, they were too -rotten, but the former not only stayed my hunger, but filled my -pockets. I lit no lamps, fearing some Martian might come beating that -part of London for food in the night. Before I went to bed I had an -interval of restlessness, and prowled from window to window, peering -out for some sign of these monsters. I slept little. As I lay in bed I -found myself thinking consecutively—a thing I do not remember to have -done since my last argument with the curate. During all the intervening -time my mental condition had been a hurrying succession of vague -emotional states or a sort of stupid receptivity. But in the night my -brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the food I had eaten, grew clear -again, and I thought. - -Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of the -curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of my -wife. The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall; I -saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but -quite without the quality of remorse. I saw myself then as I see myself -now, driven step by step towards that hasty blow, the creature of a -sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that. I felt no -condemnation; yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me. In the -silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of God that -sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, -my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear. I retraced every step -of our conversation from the moment when I had found him crouching -beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the fire and smoke -that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge. We had been incapable of -co-operation—grim chance had taken no heed of that. Had I foreseen, I -should have left him at Halliford. But I did not foresee; and crime is -to foresee and do. And I set this down as I have set all this story -down, as it was. There were no witnesses—all these things I might have -concealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his judgment as -he will. - -And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate -body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For -the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, -unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became -terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I -found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and -painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from -Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, -had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I -prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the -darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn -had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat -leaving its hiding place—a creature scarcely larger, an inferior -animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be -hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, -if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for -those witless souls that suffer our dominion. - -The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink, and -was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from the -top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of the -panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night -after the fighting began. There was a little two-wheeled cart inscribed -with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with a smashed -wheel and an abandoned tin trunk; there was a straw hat trampled into -the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot of -blood-stained glass about the overturned water trough. My movements -were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of going to -Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest chance of -finding my wife. Certainly, unless death had overtaken them suddenly, -my cousins and she would have fled thence; but it seemed to me I might -find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled. I knew I wanted -to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the world of men, but -I had no clear idea how the finding might be done. I was also sharply -aware now of my intense loneliness. From the corner I went, under cover -of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of Wimbledon Common, -stretching wide and far. - -That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom; there -was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the verge -of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and vitality. I -came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place among the -trees. I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from their stout -resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling -of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a clump of bushes. -I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it, and it rose up and -became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly. He stood -silent and motionless, regarding me. - -As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and -filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged -through a culvert. Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches -mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His -black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and -sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut -across the lower part of his face. - -“Stop!” he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I stopped. -His voice was hoarse. “Where do you come from?” he said. - -I thought, surveying him. - -“I come from Mortlake,” I said. “I was buried near the pit the Martians -made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and escaped.” - -“There is no food about here,” he said. “This is my country. All this -hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge of the -common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going?” - -I answered slowly. - -“I don’t know,” I said. “I have been buried in the ruins of a house -thirteen or fourteen days. I don’t know what has happened.” - -He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed -expression. - -“I’ve no wish to stop about here,” said I. “I think I shall go to -Leatherhead, for my wife was there.” - -He shot out a pointing finger. - -“It is you,” said he; “the man from Woking. And you weren’t killed at -Weybridge?” - -I recognised him at the same moment. - -“You are the artilleryman who came into my garden.” - -“Good luck!” he said. “We are lucky ones! Fancy _you_!” He put out a -hand, and I took it. “I crawled up a drain,” he said. “But they didn’t -kill everyone. And after they went away I got off towards Walton across -the fields. But—— It’s not sixteen days altogether—and your hair is -grey.” He looked over his shoulder suddenly. “Only a rook,” he said. -“One gets to know that birds have shadows these days. This is a bit -open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk.” - -“Have you seen any Martians?” I said. “Since I crawled out——” - -“They’ve gone away across London,” he said. “I guess they’ve got a -bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky -is alive with their lights. It’s like a great city, and in the glare -you can just see them moving. By daylight you can’t. But nearer—I -haven’t seen them—” (he counted on his fingers) “five days. Then I saw -a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night -before last”—he stopped and spoke impressively—“it was just a matter of -lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they’ve built a -flying-machine, and are learning to fly.” - -I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes. - -“Fly!” - -“Yes,” he said, “fly.” - -I went on into a little bower, and sat down. - -“It is all over with humanity,” I said. “If they can do that they will -simply go round the world.” - -He nodded. - -“They will. But—— It will relieve things over here a bit. And -besides——” He looked at me. “Aren’t you satisfied it _is_ up with -humanity? I am. We’re down; we’re beat.” - -I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact—a fact -perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope; -rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words, -“We’re beat.” They carried absolute conviction. - -“It’s all over,” he said. “They’ve lost _one_—just _one_. And they’ve -made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world. -They’ve walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an -accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These green -stars—I’ve seen none these five or six days, but I’ve no doubt they’re -falling somewhere every night. Nothing’s to be done. We’re under! We’re -beat!” - -I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to devise -some countervailing thought. - -“This isn’t a war,” said the artilleryman. “It never was a war, any -more than there’s war between man and ants.” - -Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory. - -“After the tenth shot they fired no more—at least, until the first -cylinder came.” - -“How do you know?” said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. -“Something wrong with the gun,” he said. “But what if there is? They’ll -get it right again. And even if there’s a delay, how can it alter the -end? It’s just men and ants. There’s the ants builds their cities, live -their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the -way, and then they go out of the way. That’s what we are now—just ants. -Only——” - -“Yes,” I said. - -“We’re eatable ants.” - -We sat looking at each other. - -“And what will they do with us?” I said. - -“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said; “that’s what I’ve been -thinking. After Weybridge I went south—thinking. I saw what was up. -Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. -But I’m not so fond of squealing. I’ve been in sight of death once or -twice; I’m not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, -death—it’s just death. And it’s the man that keeps on thinking comes -through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, ‘Food won’t last -this way,’ and I turned right back. I went for the Martians like a -sparrow goes for man. All round”—he waved a hand to the -horizon—“they’re starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. . -. .” - -He saw my face, and halted awkwardly. - -“No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France,” he said. He -seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on: -“There’s food all about here. Canned things in shops; wines, spirits, -mineral waters; and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was -telling you what I was thinking. ‘Here’s intelligent things,’ I said, -‘and it seems they want us for food. First, they’ll smash us up—ships, -machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All that will -go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we’re not. -It’s all too bulky to stop. That’s the first certainty.’ Eh?” - -I assented. - -“It is; I’ve thought it out. Very well, then—next; at present we’re -caught as we’re wanted. A Martian has only to go a few miles to get a -crowd on the run. And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth, picking -houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. But they won’t keep on -doing that. So soon as they’ve settled all our guns and ships, and -smashed our railways, and done all the things they are doing over -there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the best and -storing us in cages and things. That’s what they will start doing in a -bit. Lord! They haven’t begun on us yet. Don’t you see that?” - -“Not begun!” I exclaimed. - -“Not begun. All that’s happened so far is through our not having the -sense to keep quiet—worrying them with guns and such foolery. And -losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn’t any -more safety than where we were. They don’t want to bother us yet. -They’re making their things—making all the things they couldn’t bring -with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people. Very -likely that’s why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of -hitting those who are here. And instead of our rushing about blind, on -the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up, we’ve -got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs. That’s -how I figure it out. It isn’t quite according to what a man wants for -his species, but it’s about what the facts point to. And that’s the -principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation, progress—it’s -all over. That game’s up. We’re beat.” - -“But if that is so, what is there to live for?” - -The artilleryman looked at me for a moment. - -“There won’t be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; -there won’t be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at -restaurants. If it’s amusement you’re after, I reckon the game is up. -If you’ve got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating peas with -a knife or dropping aitches, you’d better chuck ’em away. They ain’t no -further use.” - -“You mean——” - -“I mean that men like me are going on living—for the sake of the breed. -I tell you, I’m grim set on living. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ll -show what insides _you’ve_ got, too, before long. We aren’t going to be -exterminated. And I don’t mean to be caught either, and tamed and -fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those brown -creepers!” - -“You don’t mean to say——” - -“I do. I’m going on, under their feet. I’ve got it planned; I’ve -thought it out. We men are beat. We don’t know enough. We’ve got to -learn before we’ve got a chance. And we’ve got to live and keep -independent while we learn. See! That’s what has to be done.” - -I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man’s resolution. - -“Great God!” cried I. “But you are a man indeed!” And suddenly I -gripped his hand. - -“Eh!” he said, with his eyes shining. “I’ve thought it out, eh?” - -“Go on,” I said. - -“Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I’m -getting ready. Mind you, it isn’t all of us that are made for wild -beasts; and that’s what it’s got to be. That’s why I watched you. I had -my doubts. You’re slender. I didn’t know that it was you, you see, or -just how you’d been buried. All these—the sort of people that lived in -these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down -_that_ way—they’d be no good. They haven’t any spirit in them—no proud -dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn’t one or the other—Lord! -What is he but funk and precautions? They just used to skedaddle off to -work—I’ve seen hundreds of ’em, bit of breakfast in hand, running wild -and shining to catch their little season-ticket train, for fear they’d -get dismissed if they didn’t; working at businesses they were afraid to -take the trouble to understand; skedaddling back for fear they wouldn’t -be in time for dinner; keeping indoors after dinner for fear of the -back streets, and sleeping with the wives they married, not because -they wanted them, but because they had a bit of money that would make -for safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world. -Lives insured and a bit invested for fear of accidents. And on -Sundays—fear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, -the Martians will just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, -fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing -about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they’ll come and be -caught cheerful. They’ll be quite glad after a bit. They’ll wonder what -people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar -loafers, and mashers, and singers—I can imagine them. I can imagine -them,” he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. “There’ll be any -amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There’s hundreds of -things I saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these -last few days. There’s lots will take things as they are—fat and -stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it’s all -wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things -are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the -weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always -make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and -submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you’ve seen -the same thing. It’s energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside -out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those -of a less simple sort will work in a bit of—what is it?—eroticism.” - -He paused. - -“Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train them -to do tricks—who knows?—get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up -and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us.” - -“No,” I cried, “that’s impossible! No human being——” - -“What’s the good of going on with such lies?” said the artilleryman. -“There’s men who’d do it cheerful. What nonsense to pretend there -isn’t!” - -And I succumbed to his conviction. - -“If they come after me,” he said; “Lord, if they come after me!” and -subsided into a grim meditation. - -I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against -this man’s reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have -questioned my intellectual superiority to his—I, a professed and -recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier; -and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely -realised. - -“What are you doing?” I said presently. “What plans have you made?” - -He hesitated. - -“Well, it’s like this,” he said. “What have we to do? We have to invent -a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure -to bring the children up. Yes—wait a bit, and I’ll make it clearer what -I think ought to be done. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts; -in a few generations they’ll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, -stupid—rubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go -savage—degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . . You see, how I -mean to live is underground. I’ve been thinking about the drains. Of -course those who don’t know drains think horrible things; but under -this London are miles and miles—hundreds of miles—and a few days rain -and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are -big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there’s cellars, vaults, -stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the -railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a -band—able-bodied, clean-minded men. We’re not going to pick up any -rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again.” - -“As you meant me to go?” - -“Well—I parleyed, didn’t I?” - -“We won’t quarrel about that. Go on.” - -“Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want -also—mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies—no blasted rolling -eyes. We can’t have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the -useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. -They ought to be willing to die. It’s a sort of disloyalty, after all, -to live and taint the race. And they can’t be happy. Moreover, dying’s -none so dreadful; it’s the funking makes it bad. And in all those -places we shall gather. Our district will be London. And we may even be -able to keep a watch, and run about in the open when the Martians keep -away. Play cricket, perhaps. That’s how we shall save the race. Eh? -It’s a possible thing? But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I -say, that’s only being rats. It’s saving our knowledge and adding to it -is the thing. There men like you come in. There’s books, there’s -models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books -we can; not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. That’s -where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick -all those books through. Especially we must keep up our science—learn -more. We must watch these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When -it’s all working, perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great -thing is, we must leave the Martians alone. We mustn’t even steal. If -we get in their way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. -Yes, I know. But they’re intelligent things, and they won’t hunt us -down if they have all they want, and think we’re just harmless vermin.” - -The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm. - -“After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before—Just -imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting -off—Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in ’em. Not a Martian -in ’em, but men—men who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, -even—those men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its -Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control! What would it -matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a -bust like that? I reckon the Martians’ll open their beautiful eyes! -Can’t you see them, man? Can’t you see them hurrying, hurrying—puffing -and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something -out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they -are fumbling over it, _swish_ comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has -come back to his own.” - -For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of -assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I -believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in -the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks -me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily -with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully -in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked in -this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the -bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately -to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the coal -cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week -upon—it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to -reach to the main drain on Putney Hill—I had my first inkling of the -gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in -a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that -morning until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and -shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed -ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring -pantry. I found a curious relief from the aching strangeness of the -world in this steady labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in -my mind, and presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I -worked there all the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a -purpose again. After working an hour I began to speculate on the -distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached, the chances we -had of missing it altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should -dig this long tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at -once down one of the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to -me, too, that the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a -needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these -things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me. - -“We’re working well,” he said. He put down his spade. “Let us knock off -a bit” he said. “I think it’s time we reconnoitred from the roof of the -house.” - -I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his spade; -and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he -at once. - -“Why were you walking about the common,” I said, “instead of being -here?” - -“Taking the air,” he said. “I was coming back. It’s safer by night.” - -“But the work?” - -“Oh, one can’t always work,” he said, and in a flash I saw the man -plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. “We ought to reconnoitre now,” -he said, “because if any come near they may hear the spades and drop -upon us unawares.” - -I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and -stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be -seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under shelter -of the parapet. - -From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but -we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low -parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees -about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and -set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was strange how -entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their -propagation. About us neither had gained a footing; laburnums, pink -mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of laurels and -hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington -dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the northward -hills. - -The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still -remained in London. - -“One night last week,” he said, “some fools got the electric light in -order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze, crowded -with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting -till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came they became -aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking -down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have -given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road towards them, -and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away.” - -Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe! - -From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose -plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the -possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than half -believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand -something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on doing -nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that -he personally was to capture and fight the great machine. - -After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed -to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. -He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away -and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism -glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great occasion. - -“There’s some champagne in the cellar,” he said. - -“We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy,” said I. - -“No,” said he; “I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We’ve a heavy -enough task before us! Let us take a rest and gather strength while we -may. Look at these blistered hands!” - -And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards -after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London -between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we played -for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober -reader, it is absolutely true, and what is more remarkable, I found the -card game and several others we played extremely interesting. - -Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of -extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before -us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the -chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the “joker” with vivid -delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough -chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a -lamp. - -After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the artilleryman -finished the champagne. We went on smoking the cigars. He was no longer -the energetic regenerator of his species I had encountered in the -morning. He was still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more -thoughtful optimism. I remember he wound up with my health, proposed in -a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence. I took a -cigar, and went upstairs to look at the lights of which he had spoken -that blazed so greenly along the Highgate hills. - -At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley. The -northern hills were shrouded in darkness; the fires near Kensington -glowed redly, and now and then an orange-red tongue of flame flashed up -and vanished in the deep blue night. All the rest of London was black. -Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale, violet-purple -fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze. For a space I could -not understand it, and then I knew that it must be the red weed from -which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realisation my -dormant sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of things, awoke -again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear, glowing high in the -west, and then gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead -and Highgate. - -I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the grotesque -changes of the day. I recalled my mental states from the midnight -prayer to the foolish card-playing. I had a violent revulsion of -feeling. I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful -symbolism. My folly came to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a -traitor to my wife and to my kind; I was filled with remorse. I -resolved to leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to -his drink and gluttony, and to go on into London. There, it seemed to -me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my -fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof when the late moon -rose. - - - - -VIII. -DEAD LONDON. - - -After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and by -the High Street across the bridge to Fulham. The red weed was -tumultuous at that time, and nearly choked the bridge roadway; but its -fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that -presently removed it so swiftly. - -At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I found a -man lying. He was as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but -helplessly and speechlessly drunk. I could get nothing from him but -curses and furious lunges at my head. I think I should have stayed by -him but for the brutal expression of his face. - -There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and it -grew thicker in Fulham. The streets were horribly quiet. I got -food—sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable—in a baker’s shop here. -Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder, and I -passed a white terrace of houses on fire; the noise of the burning was -an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet -again. - -Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon -dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham -Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past -them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. -One or two had been disturbed by dogs. - -Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in the -City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds drawn, -the desertion, and the stillness. In some places plunderers had been at -work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine shops. A -jeweller’s window had been broken open in one place, but apparently the -thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains and a watch lay -scattered on the pavement. I did not trouble to touch them. Farther on -was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the hand that hung over -her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed -magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed -asleep, but she was dead. - -The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the -stillness. But it was not so much the stillness of death—it was the -stillness of suspense, of expectation. At any time the destruction that -had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had -annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses and -leave them smoking ruins. It was a city condemned and derelict. . . . - -In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. -It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept -almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of -two notes, “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” keeping on perpetually. When I -passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and -buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide -down Exhibition Road. I stopped, staring towards Kensington Gardens, -wondering at this strange, remote wailing. It was as if that mighty -desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude. - -“Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” wailed that superhuman note—great waves of -sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall -buildings on each side. I turned northwards, marvelling, towards the -iron gates of Hyde Park. I had half a mind to break into the Natural -History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in -order to see across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, -where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road. -All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and still, -and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses. At the top, -near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight—a bus overturned, and -the skeleton of a horse picked clean. I puzzled over this for a time, -and then went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew -stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the housetops -on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to the northwest. - -“Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” cried the voice, coming, as it seemed to me, -from the district about Regent’s Park. The desolating cry worked upon -my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took -possession of me. I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now -again hungry and thirsty. - -It was already past noon. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the -dead? Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and in its -black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely. My mind ran on old friends -that I had forgotten for years. I thought of the poisons in the -chemists’ shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored; I recalled -the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew, shared the -city with myself. . . . - -I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were black -powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings -of the cellars of some of the houses. I grew very thirsty after the -heat of my long walk. With infinite trouble I managed to break into a -public-house and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went -into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I -found there. - -I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, “Ulla, ulla, -ulla, ulla.” It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some biscuits -and a cheese in the bar—there was a meat safe, but it contained nothing -but maggots—I wandered on through the silent residential squares to -Baker Street—Portman Square is the only one I can name—and so came out -at last upon Regent’s Park. And as I emerged from the top of Baker -Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset -the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. I was -not terrified. I came upon him as if it were a matter of course. I -watched him for some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be -standing and yelling, for no reason that I could discover. - -I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound of “Ulla, -ulla, ulla, ulla,” confused my mind. Perhaps I was too tired to be very -fearful. Certainly I was more curious to know the reason of this -monotonous crying than afraid. I turned back away from the park and -struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under -the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling -Martian from the direction of St. John’s Wood. A couple of hundred -yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a -dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong -towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He -made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a -fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the -wailing sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” reasserted itself. - -I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to St. John’s Wood -station. At first I thought a house had fallen across the road. It was -only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this -mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and -twisted, among the ruins it had made. The forepart was shattered. It -seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been -overwhelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this might have -happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its -Martian. I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the -twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat was -smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, -were invisible to me. - -Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on towards -Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second -Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the -Zoological Gardens, and silent. A little beyond the ruins about the -smashed handling-machine I came upon the red weed again, and found the -Regent’s Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation. - -As I crossed the bridge, the sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” ceased. -It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came like a thunderclap. - -The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees -towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed -clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. -Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while -that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by -virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about -me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the passing of something—I -knew not what—and then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this -gaunt quiet. - -London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses -were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a -thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my -temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was -tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could -not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John’s Wood Road, and ran -headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from -the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen’s -shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and -while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards -Regent’s Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw -down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of -Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars, was a -third Martian, erect and motionless like the others. - -An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would -save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly -towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I -saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about -the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the -road. - -I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund’s Terrace (I -waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from -the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass -before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the -crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it—it was the final and -largest place the Martians had made—and from behind these heaps there -rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog -ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew -real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, -as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood -hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore. - -In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon -its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space -it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of -material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in -their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, -and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the -Martians—_dead_!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against -which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being -slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest -things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. - -For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen -had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease -have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things—taken toll of -our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this -natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no -germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many—those that cause -putrefaction in dead matter, for instance—our living frames are -altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly -these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic -allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they -were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and -fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought -his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would -still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For -neither do men live nor die in vain. - -Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in that -great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have seemed to -them as incomprehensible as any death could be. To me also at that time -this death was incomprehensible. All I knew was that these things that -had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I -believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that -God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night. - -I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even -as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The -pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful -in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, -rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. -A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay -darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me. Across the pit on its -farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine -with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when -decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon. At -the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the huge fighting-machine -that would fight no more for ever, at the tattered red shreds of flesh -that dripped down upon the overturned seats on the summit of Primrose -Hill. - -I turned and looked down the slope of the hill to where, enhaloed now -in birds, stood those other two Martians that I had seen overnight, -just as death had overtaken them. The one had died, even as it had been -crying to its companions; perhaps it was the last to die, and its voice -had gone on perpetually until the force of its machinery was exhausted. -They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the -brightness of the rising sun. - -All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting -destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities. Those who have only -seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine -the naked clearness and beauty of the silent wilderness of houses. - -Eastward, over the blackened ruins of the Albert Terrace and the -splintered spire of the church, the sun blazed dazzling in a clear sky, -and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs caught -the light and glared with a white intensity. - -Northward were Kilburn and Hampsted, blue and crowded with houses; -westward the great city was dimmed; and southward, beyond the Martians, -the green waves of Regent’s Park, the Langham Hotel, the dome of the -Albert Hall, the Imperial Institute, and the giant mansions of the -Brompton Road came out clear and little in the sunrise, the jagged -ruins of Westminster rising hazily beyond. Far away and blue were the -Surrey hills, and the towers of the Crystal Palace glittered like two -silver rods. The dome of St. Paul’s was dark against the sunrise, and -injured, I saw for the first time, by a huge gaping cavity on its -western side. - -And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and -churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous hopes -and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this -human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung -over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and -that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city -of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that -was near akin to tears. - -The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin. The -survivors of the people scattered over the country—leaderless, lawless, -foodless, like sheep without a shepherd—the thousands who had fled by -sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing stronger and -stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour across the -vacant squares. Whatever destruction was done, the hand of the -destroyer was stayed. All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of -houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would -presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with -the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands -towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought I—in a year. -. . . - -With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and the -old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever. - - - - -IX. -WRECKAGE. - - -And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not -altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly, all -that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising -God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget. - -Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that, so -far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, -several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the -previous night. One man—the first—had gone to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, -and, while I sheltered in the cabmen’s hut, had contrived to telegraph -to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world; a -thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flashed -into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, -Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the verge of the -pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard, shouting and -staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, -even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells that -had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news, until all -England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched -along every country lane shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to -gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for the food! Across the -Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and -meat were tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed -going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no memory. I -drifted—a demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly people, who -had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through -the streets of St. John’s Wood. They have told me since that I was -singing some insane doggerel about “The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! -The Last Man Left Alive!” Troubled as they were with their own affairs, -these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude -to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves -with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they -had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse. - -Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me what -they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was -imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. -He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any -provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness -of power. - -I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely man -and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four days -after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to -look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so -happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast -upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me -from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, -and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will -confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I went out again into -the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty. - -Already they were busy with returning people; in places even there were -shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water. - -I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my -melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the -streets and vivid the moving life about me. So many people were abroad -everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible -that any great proportion of the population could have been slain. But -then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I met, how -shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that -every other man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all with -one of two expressions—a leaping exultation and energy or a grim -resolution. Save for the expression of the faces, London seemed a city -of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately distributing bread sent -us by the French government. The ribs of the few horses showed -dismally. Haggard special constables with white badges stood at the -corners of every street. I saw little of the mischief wrought by the -Martians until I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red -weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. - -At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of -that grotesque time—a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the -red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the -placard of the first newspaper to resume publication—the _Daily Mail_. -I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of -it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had -amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on -the back page. The matter he printed was emotional; the news -organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh -except that already in one week the examination of the Martian -mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the -article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the “Secret -of Flying,” was discovered. At Waterloo I found the free trains that -were taking people to their homes. The first rush was already over. -There were few people in the train, and I was in no mood for casual -conversation. I got a compartment to myself, and sat with folded arms, -looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. -And just outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, -and on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins. To -Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy with powder of the Black -Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms and rain, and at Clapham -Junction the line had been wrecked again; there were hundreds of -out-of-work clerks and shopmen working side by side with the customary -navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying. - -All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt and -unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of -its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the -line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of -red weed, in appearance between butcher’s meat and pickled cabbage. The -Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red -climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery -grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A -number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in -the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in -the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson with -the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut with purple shadows, and -very painful to the eye. One’s gaze went with infinite relief from the -scorched greys and sullen reds of the foreground to the blue-green -softness of the eastward hills. - -The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing -repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to Maybury, -past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, -and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the -thunderstorm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a -tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the whitened -bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding -these vestiges. . . . - -Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here and -there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found -burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an -open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed. - -I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. -The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening slowly as I -approached. - -It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open -window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one -had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them -nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt -empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had -crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the -catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs. - -I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table still, -with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on -the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood -reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable -development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising -process; and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy: “In about -two hundred years,” I had written, “we may expect——” The sentence ended -abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, -scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my _Daily -Chronicle_ from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden -gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of “Men -from Mars.” - -I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and -the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, -just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I -perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then -a strange thing occurred. “It is no use,” said a voice. “The house is -deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to -torment yourself. No one escaped but you.” - -I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French -window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out. - -And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were -my cousin and my wife—my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry. - -“I came,” she said. “I knew—knew——” - -She put her hand to her throat—swayed. I made a step forward, and -caught her in my arms. - - - - -X. -THE EPILOGUE. - - -I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I am -able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions -which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke -criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My -knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but -it seems to me that Carver’s suggestions as to the reason of the rapid -death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a -proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative. - -At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after -the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species -were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless -slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the -putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a -proven conclusion. - -Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians -used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays -remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South -Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further -investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder -points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a -brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it -combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly -effect upon some constituent in the blood. But such unproven -speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to -whom this story is addressed. None of the brown scum that drifted down -the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the -time, and now none is forthcoming. - -The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far as the -prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have already -given. But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and almost -complete specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and the -countless drawings that have been made from it; and beyond that the -interest of their physiology and structure is purely scientific. - -A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of -another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough -attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the -planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, -for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we -should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define -the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a -sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the -arrival of the next attack. - -In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or artillery -before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge, or they -might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw opened. It -seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the failure of -their first surprise. Possibly they see it in the same light. - -Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the Martians -have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet Venus. -Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with the sun; -that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view of an -observer on Venus. Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous marking -appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and almost -simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character was -detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk. One needs to see the -drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their -remarkable resemblance in character. - -At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of -the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have -learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a -secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good -or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in -the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not -without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene -confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of -decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and -it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of -mankind. It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have -watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, -and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be -that as it may, for many years yet there will certainly be no -relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery -darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall -an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men. - -The broadening of men’s views that has resulted can scarcely be -exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion -that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty -surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. If the Martians can -reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible -for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth -uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life -that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet -within its toils. - -Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life -spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system -throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a -remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the -Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the -future ordained. - -I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding -sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by -lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with -writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and -desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a -butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle, -children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, -and I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot, brooding -silence. Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent -streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer; they rise -upon me tattered and dog-bitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, -uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and -wretched, in the darkness of the night. - -I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the -Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the -past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going -to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a -galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as -I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great -province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and -mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people -walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the -sight-seers about the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear -the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it -all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last -great day. . . . - -And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again, and to think -that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead. - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR OF THE WORLDS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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