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20 - The Days of Imprisonment - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Days of imprisonment. The arrival of a
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  Speaker 1: second fighting machine drove us from our people into the scullery,
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  Speaker 1: for we feared that from his elevation, the Martian might
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  Speaker 1: see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later
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  Speaker 1: date we began to feel less in danger of their eyes,
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  Speaker 1: for to an eye in the dazzle of the sunlight
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  Speaker 1: outside our refuge must have been blank blackness. But at
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  Speaker 1: first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the
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  Speaker 1: scullery in heart throbbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the
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  Speaker 1: danger we incurred, the attraction of peeping was for both
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  Speaker 1: of us irresistible. And I recall now with a sort
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  Speaker 1: of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in
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  Speaker 1: which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death,
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  Speaker 1: we could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight.
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  Speaker 1: We would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way,
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  Speaker 1: between eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and
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  Speaker 1: strike each other and thrust and kick within a few
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  Speaker 1: inches of exposure. The fact is that we had absolutely
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  Speaker 1: incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our
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  Speaker 1: danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility at Halliford. I
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  Speaker 1: had already come to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation,
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  Speaker 1: his stupid rigidity of mind, his endless muttering monologue vitiated
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  Speaker 1: every effort I made to think out a line of action,
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  Speaker 1: and drove me at times. Thus pent up and intensified,
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  Speaker 1: almost to the verge of craziness, he was as lacking
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  Speaker 1: in restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for
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  Speaker 1: hours together, and I verily believe that to the very end,
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  Speaker 1: this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears in
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  Speaker 1: some way efficacious, and I would sit in the darkness,
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  Speaker 1: unable to keep my mind off him. By reason of
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  Speaker 1: his importunities. He ate more than I did, and it
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  Speaker 1: was in vain. I pointed out that our only chance
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  Speaker 1: of life was to stop in the house until the
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  Speaker 1: Martians had done with their pit, that in that long
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  Speaker 1: patience a time might presently come when we should need food.
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  Speaker 1: He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals.
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  Speaker 1: He slept little as the days wore on. His utter
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  Speaker 1: carelessness of any consideration so intensified our distress and danger
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  Speaker 1: that I had much as I loathed doing it, to
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  Speaker 1: retort to threats and at last to blows that brought
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  Speaker 1: him to reason for a time. But he was one
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  Speaker 1: of those weak souls, void of pride, timorous, anemic, hateful souls,
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  Speaker 1: full of shifty cunning, who faced neither God nor man,
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  Speaker 1: who face not even themselves. It is disagreeable for me
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  Speaker 1: to recall and write these things, but I set them
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  Speaker 1: down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have
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  Speaker 1: escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find
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  Speaker 1: my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy,
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  Speaker 1: easy enough to blame for they know what is wrong
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  Speaker 1: as well as any but not what is possible to
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  Speaker 1: tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow,
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  Speaker 1: who have gone down at last to elemental things, will
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  Speaker 1: have a wider charity. And while within we fought out
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  Speaker 1: our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food and drink
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  Speaker 1: and gripping hands and blows without in the pitiless sunlight
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  Speaker 1: of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the unfamiliar
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  Speaker 1: routine of the Martians in the pit. Let me return
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  Speaker 1: to those first new experiences of mine. After a long time,
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  Speaker 1: I ventured back to the people to find that the
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  Speaker 1: newcomers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer
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  Speaker 1: than three of the fighting machines. These last had brought
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  Speaker 1: with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly
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  Speaker 1: manner about the cylinder. The second handling machine was now
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  Speaker 1: completed and was busied in serving one of the novel
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  Speaker 1: contrivances the big machine had brought. This was a body
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  Speaker 1: resembling a milk can in its general form, above which
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  Speaker 1: oscillated a pear shaped receptacle, and from which a stream
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  Speaker 1: of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. The
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  Speaker 1: oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of
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  Speaker 1: the handling machine. With two spatulate hands, the handling machine
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  Speaker 1: was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the
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  Speaker 1: pear shaped receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically
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  Speaker 1: opened a door and removed rusty and blackened clinkers from
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  Speaker 1: the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed
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  Speaker 1: the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards
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  Speaker 1: some receiver that was hidden from me by the mound
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  Speaker 1: of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver A little thread
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  Speaker 1: of green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As
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  Speaker 1: I looked, the handling machine with a faint and musical clicking,
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  Speaker 1: extended telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment
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  Speaker 1: before a mere blunt projection until its end was hidden
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  Speaker 1: behind the mound of clay. In another second, it had
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  Speaker 1: lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as
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  Speaker 1: yet and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing
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  Speaker 1: stack of bars that stood at the side of the
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  Speaker 1: pit between sunset and starlight. This dexterous machine must have
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  Speaker 1: made more than a hundred such bars out of the
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  Speaker 1: crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily
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  Speaker 1: until it topped the side of the pit. The contrast
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  Speaker 1: between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and
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  Speaker 1: the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and
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  Speaker 1: for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these
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  Speaker 1: latter were indeed the living of the two things. The
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  Speaker 1: curate had possession of the slit when the first men
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  Speaker 1: were brought to the pit, I was sitting below, huddled up,
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  Speaker 1: listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backward,
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  Speaker 1: and I fearful that we were observed, crouched in a
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  Speaker 1: spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and
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  Speaker 1: crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for
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  Speaker 1: a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a
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  Speaker 1: resignation of the slit, and after a little while my
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  Speaker 1: curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him,
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  Speaker 1: and clambered up to it. At first I could see
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  Speaker 1: no reason for his frantic behavior. The twilight had now come.
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  Speaker 1: The stars were little and faint, but the pit was
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  Speaker 1: illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the
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  Speaker 1: aluminium making The whole picture was a flickering scheme of
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  Speaker 1: green gleams and shifting, rusty black shadows, strangely trying to
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  Speaker 1: the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats,
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  Speaker 1: heeding it not at all. The sprawling martians were no
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  Speaker 1: longer to be seen. The mound of blue green powder
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  Speaker 1: had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting
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  Speaker 1: machine with its legs contracted, crumpled and abbreviated, stood across
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  Speaker 1: the corner of the pit, and then amid the clangor
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  Speaker 1: of the machinery came a drifting suspicion of human voices
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  Speaker 1: that I entertained at first only to dismiss. I crouched
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  Speaker 1: watching this fighting machine closely, satisfying myself now for the
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  Speaker 1: first time that the hood did indeed contain a martian.
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  Speaker 1: As the green flames lifted, I could see the oily
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  Speaker 1: gleam of his integument and the brightness of his eyes.
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  Speaker 1: And suddenly I heard a yell and saw a long
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  Speaker 1: tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the
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  Speaker 1: little cage that hunched upon its back. Then something, something
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  Speaker 1: struggling violently, was lifted high against the sky, a black,
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  Speaker 1: vague enigma against the starlight. And as this black object
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  Speaker 1: came down again, I saw by the green brightness that
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  Speaker 1: it was a man. For an instant he was clearly visible.
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  Speaker 1: He was a stout, ruddy, middle aged man, well dressed
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  Speaker 1: three days before he must have been walking the world,
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  Speaker 1: a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring
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  Speaker 1: eyes and gleams of light on his stud and watch chain.
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  Speaker 1: He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there
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  Speaker 1: was silence, and then began a shrieking and a sustained
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  Speaker 1: and cheerful hooting from the martians, I slid down the rubbish,
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  Speaker 1: struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears,
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  Speaker 1: and bolted into the scullery. The Curate, who had been
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  Speaker 1: crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up
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  Speaker 1: as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion
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  Speaker 1: of him, and came running after me. That night, as
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  Speaker 1: we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and
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  Speaker 1: the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an
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  Speaker 1: urgent need of action, I tried in vain to conceive
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  Speaker 1: some plan of escape. But afterwards, during the second day,
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  Speaker 1: I was able to consider our position with great clearness.
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  Speaker 1: The Curate, I found, was quite incapable of discussion. This
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  Speaker 1: new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all vestiges
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  Speaker 1: of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to
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  Speaker 1: the level of an animal. But as the saying goes,
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  Speaker 1: I gripped myself with both hands. It grew upon my
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  Speaker 1: mind once I could face the facts that terrible as
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  Speaker 1: our position was, there was as yet no justification for
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  Speaker 1: absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the possibility of
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  Speaker 1: the Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment,
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  Speaker 1: or even if they kept it permanently, they might not
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  Speaker 1: consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of
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  Speaker 1: escape might be afforded us. I also weighed very carefully
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  Speaker 1: the possibility of our digging away out in a direction
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  Speaker 1: away from the pit. But the chances of our emerging
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  Speaker 1: within sight of some sentinel fighting machine seemed at first
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  Speaker 1: too great, and I should have had to do all
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  Speaker 1: the digging myself. The curate would certainly have failed me.
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  Speaker 1: It was on the third day, if my memory serves
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  Speaker 1: me right, that I saw the lad killed. It was
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  Speaker 1: the only occasion on which I actually saw the Martians feed.
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  Speaker 1: After that experience, I avoided the hole in the wall
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  Speaker 1: for the better part of a day. I went into
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  Speaker 1: the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging
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  Speaker 1: with my hatchet as silently as possible. But when I
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  Speaker 1: had made a hole about a couple of feet deep,
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  Speaker 1: the loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue.
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  Speaker 1: I lost heart and lay down on the scullery floor
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  Speaker 1: for a long time, having no spirit even to move.
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  Speaker 1: And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping
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  Speaker 1: by excavation. It says much for the impression the Martians
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  Speaker 1: had made upon me that at first I entertained little
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  Speaker 1: or no hope of our escape being brought about by
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  Speaker 1: their overthree row through any human effort. But on the
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  Speaker 1: fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns.
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  Speaker 1: It was very late in the night, and the moon
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  Speaker 1: was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the excavating machine,
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  Speaker 1: and save for a fighting machine that stood in the
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  Speaker 1: remoter bank of the pit, and a handling machine that
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  Speaker 1: was buried out of my sight in a corner of
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  Speaker 1: the pit, immediately beneath my peep hole, the place was
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  Speaker 1: deserted by them. Except for the pale glow from the
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  Speaker 1: handling machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight,
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  Speaker 1: the pit was in darkness, and except for the clinking
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  Speaker 1: of the handling machine, quite still that night was a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful serenity save for one planet. The moon seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have the sky to herself. I heard a dog howling,
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  Speaker 1: and that familiar sound it was that made me listen.
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  Speaker 1: Then I heard quite distinctive a booming, exactly like the
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  Speaker 1: sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and
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  Speaker 1: after a long interval, six again, and that was all.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section twenty