War of the Worlds - Bk1, Ch3 (The War of the Worlds)

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04War of the Worlds by H.

05G.

06Wells Book 1.

07Chapter 3.

08On Horsall Common I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay.

09I have already described the appearance of that colossal bulk embedded in the ground.

10The turf and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion.

11No doubt its impact had caused a flash of fire.

12Henderson and Ogilvie were not there.

13I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for present, and had gone away to breakfast at Henderson's house.

14There 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.

15After I had spoken to them about it, they began playing at touch in and out of the group of bystanders.

16Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Greg the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway station.

17There was very little talking.

18Few of the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical ideas in those days.

19Most of them were staring quietly at the big table-like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvie and Henderson had left it.

20I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at this inanimate bulk.

21Some went away while I was there and other people came.

22I clambered into the pit and fancied I heard a faint movement under my feet.

23The top had certainly ceased to rotate.

24It was only when I got close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me.

25At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road.

26Not so much so, indeed.

27It looked like a rusty gas float.

28It 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.

29Extraterrestrial had no meaning for most of the unlockers.

30At 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.

31I thought the unscrewing might be automatic.

32In spite of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men in Mars.

33My mind ran fancifully on the possibilities of it 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.

34I felt an impatience to see it opened.

35About eleven, as nothing seemed happening, I walked back, full of such thought, to my home in Maybury.

36But I found it difficult to get to work upon my abstract investigations.

37In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much.

38The early editions of the evening papers had startled London with enormous headlines.

39A message received from Mars Remarkable story from Woking And so forth.

40In addition, Ogilvy's wire to the astronomical exchange had roused every observatory in the Three Kingdoms.

41There were half a dozen flies or more from the Woking station standing in the road by the sandpits, a basket shares from Cobham, and a rather lordly carriage.

42Beside that there were quite a heap of bicycles.

43In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there were altogether quite a considerable crowd, one or two gaily dressed ladies among the others.

44It 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.

45The burning heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards Ottershore was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off vertical streamers of smoke.

46An enterprising sweet-stuff dealer in the Cobham Road had sent up his son with a barrel load of green apples and ginger beer.

47Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of about half a dozen men, Henderson, Ogilvie, and a tall fair-haired man that I afterwards learnt was Stent, the astronomer royal, with several workmen wielding spades and pickaxes.

48Stent was giving directions in a clear, high-pitched voice.

49He was standing on the cylinder, which was now evidently much cooler.

50His face was crimson and streaming with perspiration, and something seemed to have irritated him.

51A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its lower end was still embedded.

52As soon as Ogilvie 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.

53The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their excavations, especially the boys.

54They wanted a light railing put up, and help to keep the people back.

55He 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.

56The case appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior.

57I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the privileged spectators within the contemplated enclosure.

58I 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 quarter past five, I went home and had some tea, and walked up to the station to waylay him.

59End of chapter three