Latest / Science Fiction Books - Daily / 04 - The Cylinder Opens - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells

Transcript

04 - The Cylinder Opens - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Science Fiction Books - Daily

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter four, The Cylinder opens. When I returned to the common,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the sun was setting. Scattered groups were hurrying from the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: direction of Woking, and one or two persons were returning.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The crowd about the pit had increased and stood out
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: black against the lemon yellow of the sky. A couple
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of hundred people perhaps. There were raised voices, and some
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Strange imaginings passed through my mind. As I drew nearer.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I heard Sten's voice, keep back, keep back. A boy
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: came running towards me. It's a movin, he said to me,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: as he passed a screwin and a screwin out. I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: don't like it. I'm a goin, O, my am. I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: went on to the crowd. There were really, I should
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: think two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the one or two ladies there being, by no means
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the least active. He's fallen in the pit, cried someone.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Keep back, said several. The crowd swayed a little, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I elbowed my way through. Everyone seemed greatly excited. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. I say
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: said Ogilvy, Help keep these idiots back. We don't know
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: what's in the confounded thing, you know. I saw a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: young man, a shop assistant in Woking. I believe he
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of the hole. Again. The crowd had pushed him in
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and I narrowly missed being pitched on to the top
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of the screw. I turned, and as I did so,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the screw must have come out, for the lid of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I stuck my elbow into the person behind me and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: turned my head towards the thing again. For a moment,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I have the sunset
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: in my eyes. I think everyone expected to see a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: man emerge, possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: but in all essentials a man. I know I did,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: But looking I presently saw something stirring within the shadow,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: grayish billowy movements one above another, and then two luminous
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: disks like eyes. Then something resembling a little gray snake
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of the writhing middle and wriggled in the air towards me.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And then another a sudden chill came over me. There
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder, still from which
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: giving place to horror on the faces of the people
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and saw the people on the other side of the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: pit running off stent among them. I looked again at
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and staring. A big, grayish, rounded bulk, the size perhaps
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: it glistened like wet leather. Two large, dark colored eyes
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them. The
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: head of the thing was rounded and had one might say,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: lipless brim of which quivered and panted and dropped saliva.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank, tentacular
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the air. Those who have never seen a living Martian
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: v shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: wedge like lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the Earth.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes were
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements, unspeakably nasty. Even at
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: disgust and dread. Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: pit with a thud, like the fall of a great
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and forthwith another these creatures appeared darkly in the deep
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: shadow of the aperture. I turned, and, running madly, made
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: for the first group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: But I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: avert my face from these things. There, among some young
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped panting and waited
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: further developments. The common round the sand pits was dotted
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: with people, standing, like myself in a half fascinated terror,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: at the edge of the pit in which they lay.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And then, with a renewed horror, I saw a round
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: black object bobbing up and down on the edge of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the pit. It was the head of the shopman who
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: had fallen in but showing as a little black object
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: against the hot western sun. Now he got his shoulder
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I had a momentary impulse to go back and help him,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that my fears overruled. Everything was then quite invisible, hidden
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: by the deep pit and the heap of sand that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the fall of the cylinder had made. Anyone coming along
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: at the sight a dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: people or more standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: behind bushes, behind gates and hedges, saying little to one another,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and that in short excited shouts, and staring, staring hard
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: at a few heaps of sand. The barrow of ginger
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: beer stood a queer, derelict, black against the burning sky.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And in the sand pits was a row of deserted vehicles,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: with their horses feeding out of nose bags or pouring
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the ground. End of Section four