By eight oclock many boys and unemployed men already started to talk about the dead men from Mars. I went out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the sand-pits.
Chapter 3
The Cylinder
I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people. The cylinder lay in the huge hole. The turf and gravel about it were charred. Henderson and Ogilvy were not there.
There were four or five boys on the edge of the Pit. They were throwing stones at the giant mass until I stopped them.
When I got close to it, the strangeness of this object was evident to me. It looked like a rusty gas float[7]. But the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue.
The Thing came from the planet Mars. But I did not think it contained any living creature. I thought the unscrewing was automatic. About eleven, as nothing happened, I walked back to my home in Maybury.
The evening papers startled London with enormous headlines:
A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS.
REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,
and so forth. In addition, Ogilvys wire to the Astronomical Exchange[8] provoked curiosity.
There were half a dozen flys[9] or more from the Woking station in the road by the sand-pits, a basket-chaise from Chobham, and a lordly carriage. Besides that, there were many bicycles there. In addition, a large number of people walked, in spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there was quite a considerable crowd.
It was very hot. Not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind. The only shadow was near pine-trees. A clever salesman in the Chobham Road sent up his son to sell green apples and ginger beer.
I went to the edge of the pit. There I found a group of about half a dozen men. Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man were among them. It was Stent, the Astronomer. Stent was giving directions. He was standing on the cylinder. His face was crimson and streaming with perspiration. Something irritated him.
A large portion of the cylinder was uncovered, though its lower end was still stuck in earth. The workmen failed to unscrew the top. The case was enormously thick.
Ogilvy saw me and called to me to come down. He asked me to go over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor. He could help to keep the crowd at a distance.
Lord Hilton was not at home. He was expected to return from London by the six oclock train. I went home. I had some tea, and walked up to the station to waylay him[10].
Chapter 4
The Cylinder Opens
When I returned, the sun was setting. People were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and very few persons were returning. The crowd about the pit grew bigger, and stood out against the lemon yellow of the sky a couple of hundred people, perhaps. As I drew nearer I heard Stents voice:
Keep back! Keep back!
Its moving, a boy said to me; screwing and screwing. I dont like it. Ill go home.
I went on to the crowd. There were two or three hundred people there.
Hes fallen in the pit! cried someone.
Keep back!
Everyone was greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking. He was standing on the cylinder and trying to get out of the hole. Suddenly the screw came out. For a moment the circular cavity seemed perfectly black.
A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I saw horror on the faces of the people. The crowd moved backwards.
Tentacles were now projecting from the cylinder. The shopman was still on the edge of the pit. The people on the other side of the pit ran off. Stent was among them. I looked again at the cylinder in terror.
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.
The head of the thing was rounded and had a face. Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim that 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 its strange and horrible appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the lower lip, the quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes were vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.
Suddenly the monster vanished. It toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fell into the pit. Soon another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture[11].
I turned and ran madly to the trees. There, among some young pine-trees and bushes, I stopped. What will follow next? The people were standing like myself in terror, and staring at these creatures. And then I saw a round, black object. It was bobbing up and down on the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman. Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he slipped back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I heard a faint shriek. I had a momentary impulse to go back and help him.
The deep pit and the heap of sand hid the cylinder and we could not see what was going on.
Chapter 5
The Heat-Ray
The Martians were emerging from the cylinder, and a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I was staring at the edge of the pit.
I did not dare to go back, but I wanted to peer into it. I began to look at the sand-heaps. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across. Afterwards a thin rod rose up. It was bearing at its apex a circular disk.
Most of the spectators gathered in one or two groups one little crowd in direction of Woking, the other in the direction of Chobham. There were few people near me. One man was a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name.
The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. It gave people courage. I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. As the dusk came on, a slow movement upon the sand-pits began. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.
Suddenly there was a flash of light. Some luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs. They drove up, one after the other, straight into the air. This smoke (or flame, perhaps) was very bright. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.
Beyond the pit stood the little group of people with a white flag. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a long, loud noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light flickered out from it. A bright glare sprang from the scattered group of men. Each of them was suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.
The people were staggering and falling down. The death was leaping from man to man in that little crowd. An almost noiseless flash of light and a man fell headlong and lay still.
This flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat was coming towards me. But I was too astounded and stupefied to move. The dark ground smoked and crackled. Then the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.
All this happened with such swiftness that I stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. I was helpless, unprotected, and alone. With an effort I turned and began to run through the heather.