War of the Worlds - Bk1, Ch2 (The War of the Worlds)

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04War of the Worlds by H.

05G.

06Wells Book 1.

07Chapter 2.

08The Falling Star Then came the night of the first falling star.

09It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester, eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere.

10Hundreds must have seen it and taken it for an ordinary falling star.

11Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds.

12Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about 90 or 100 miles.

13It seemed to him that it fell to earth about 100 miles east of him.

14I was at home that hour and writing in my study, and although my French windows face towards Otter Shore, and the blind was up, for I loved in those days to look up at the night sky, I saw nothing of it.

15Yet the 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.

16Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound.

17I myself heard nothing of that.

18Many people in Berkshire, Surrey and Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended.

19No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.

20But very early in the morning, poor Ogilvie, who had seen the shooting star, and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsall, Otter Shore and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it.

21Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits.

22An 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.

23The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against the dawn.

24The thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its descent.

25The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by the thick, scaly, dun-coloured incrustation.

26It had a diameter of about thirty yards.

27He approached the mass, surprised at the size, and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely.

28It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach.

29A 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.

30He 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.

31The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm.

32He did not remember hearing any birds that morning.

33There was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder.

34He was all alone on the common.

35Then 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.

36It was dropping off in flakes, and raining down upon the sand.

37A large piece suddenly came off, and fell with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth.

38For 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.

39He 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.

40And then he perceived that very slowly the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body.

41It 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.

42Even 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.

43Then the thing came upon him in a flash.

44The cylinder was artificial, hollow, with an end that screwed out.

45Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top.

46Good heavens!

47said Ogilvy.

48There's a man in it!

49Men in it!

50Half roasted to death!

51Trying to escape!

52At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the thing with the flash on Mars.

53The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn.

54But luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands on the still glowing metal.

55At that, he stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into Woking.

56The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock.

57He met a wagoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance was so wild, his hat had fallen off in the pit, that the man simply drove on.

58He was equally unsuccessful with the pot man, who was just unlocking the doors of the public house by Horsall Bridge.

59The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large, and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom.

60That sobered him a little, and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist in the garden, he called over the palings, and made himself understood.

61Henderson, he called, you saw the shooting star last night?

62Well, said Henderson, it's out on Horsall Common, now.

63Good Lord, said Henderson, fall a meteorite, that's good.

64But it's something more than a meteorite.

65It's a cylinder, an artificial cylinder man, and there's something inside.

66Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand.

67What's that?

68he said.

69He was deaf in one ear.

70Ogilvy told him all that he had seen.

71Henderson was a minute or so taking it in.

72Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and came out into the road.

73The two men hurried back at once to the common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position.

74But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder.

75Air was either entering or escaping at the rim, with a thin, sizzling sound.

76They listened, wrapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and meeting with no response, they concluded the man, or men inside, must be insensible or dead.

77Of course, the two were quite unable to do anything.

78They shouted consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get help.

79One 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.

80Henderson went into the railway station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London.

81The newspaper articles had prepared men's mind for the reception of the idea.

82By eight o'clock, a number of boys and unemployed men had already started for the common, to see the dead men from Mars.

83That was the form the story took.

84I heard of it first from my newspaper boy, about a quarter to nine, when I went out to get my daily chronicle.

85I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw Bridge, to the sand pits.

86End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two End of chapter two