The war of the worlds
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.