War of the Worlds - Bk1, Ch6 (The War of the Worlds)

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04War of the Worlds by H.

05G.

06Wells Book 1 Chapter 6 The Heat-Ray in the Cobham Road It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently.

07Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity.

08This 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.

09But no one has absolutely proved these details.

10However, it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter.

11Heat and invisible instead of visible light.

12Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch.

13Lead runs like water.

14It softens iron.

15Cracks and melts glass.

16And when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.

17That night, nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition.

18And all night long, the common from Horsall to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze.

19The news of the massacre probably reached Cobham, Woking and Ottoshaw about the same time.

20In 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 Horsall Bridge, and along the road between the hedges that run out at last upon the common.

21You 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.

22You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road in the gloaming.

23As 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.

24As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the common, they found little knots of people talking excitingly and peering at the spinning mirror over the sandpits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon infected by the excitement of the occasion.

25By 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.

26There 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.

27There was some booing from those more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an occasion for noise and horseplay.

28Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibility of a collision, had telegraphed from Horsall to the barracks as soon as the Martians emerged, for the help of the company of soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence.

29After that, they returned to lead that ill-fated advance.

30The description of their death, as it was seen by the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions.

31The three puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame.

32But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine.

33Only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the heat-ray saved them.

34Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale.

35They 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.

36Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beams swung close above 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.

37In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the panic-stritten crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for a moment.

38Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame.

39Hats and dresses caught fire.

40Then came crying from the common.

41There were shrieks and shouts, and suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion, with his hands clasped over his head, screaming.

42They're coming!

43a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to Woking again.

44They must have bolted as blindingly as a flock of sheep.

45Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks, the crowd jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred.

46All that crowd did not escape.

47Three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the darkness.

48End of chapter 6 End of chapter 6 End of chapter 6