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"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 `
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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. `
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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. `
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`
`
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 `
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the wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for `
`
the first time. `
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`
`
The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which `
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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 `
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vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, `
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pale green, and with a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the `
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wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured `
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supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range. `
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`
`
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. `
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`
`
"The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from Mars, has `
`
struck this house and buried us under the ruins!" `
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`
`
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 `
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vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the `
`
light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely `
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dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and `
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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. `
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`
`
`
`
`
`
CHAPTER TWO `
`
`
`
WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE `
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`
`
`
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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 `
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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. `
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`
`
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 `
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