Latest / Classic Adventure Books Library / 21 - The War of The Worlds - H G Wells

Transcript

21 - The War of The Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Adventure Books Library

• 0:00
  Chapter four, The Death of the Curate. It was on the sixth day
• 0:06
  of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last time and presently found myself alone.
• 0:12
  Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit,
• 0:16
  the Curate had gone back into the scullery. I was struck by a
• 0:21
  sudden thought. I went back quickly and quietly into the scullery. In the
• 0:27
  darkness, I heard the curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and
• 0:32
  my fingers caught a bottle of Burgundy. For a few minutes, there was
• 0:37
  a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke, and I desisted and
• 0:42
  rose. We stood, panting and threatening each other. In the end,
• 0:48
  I planted myself between him and the food and told him of my determination to
• 0:53
  begin a discipline. I divided the food in the pantry into rations to last
• 0:58
  us ten days. I would not let him eat any more. That day,
• 1:03
  in the afternoon he made a feeble attempt to get at the food.
• 1:07
  I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day
• 1:12
  and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and
• 1:19
  he weeping and complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know,
• 1:23
  a night and a day, but to me it seemed it seems now an
• 1:30
  interminable length of time. And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open
• 1:37
  conflict. The two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There
• 1:45
  were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and
• 1:49
  persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of
• 1:53
  Burgundy, for there was a rain water pump from which I could get water.
• 1:59
  But neither force nor kindness availed. He was indeed beyond reason. He
• 2:05
  would neither desist from his attacks on the food, nor from his noisy babbling
• 2:08
  to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe.
• 2:17
  Slowly, I began to realize the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to
• 2:23
  perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane.
• 2:30
  From certain vague memories I am inclined to think. My own mind wandered
• 2:34
  at times. I had strange and hideous dreams. Whenever I slept. It
• 2:40
  sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that. The weakness and insanity
• 2:46
  of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man.
• 2:52
  On the eighth day, he began to talk aloud instead of whispering,
• 2:55
  and nothing I could do would moderate his speech. It is just o God,
• 3:01
  he would say, over and over again. It is just on me
• 3:06
  and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen short.
• 3:10
  There was poverty, sorrow, the poor were trodden in the dust,
• 3:15
  and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly, My God, what
• 3:20
  folly when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and
• 3:23
  called upon them to repent, repent oppressors of the poor and needy, the
• 3:29
  wine press of God. Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the
• 3:34
  food. I withheld from him, praying, begging, weeping. At last,
• 3:38
  threatening, he began to raise his voice. I prayed him not to.
• 3:46
  He perceived a hold on me. He threatened he would shout and bring
• 3:49
  the Martians upon us. For a time. That scared me, but any
• 3:53
  concession would have shortened our chance of escape. Beyond estimating, I defy him,
• 4:00
  although I felt no assurance that he might not do this thing, but
• 4:04
  that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked with his
• 4:09
  voice rising slowly through the greater part of the eighth and ninth days, threats
• 4:15
  entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half sane and always frothy repentance for his
• 4:20
  vacant sham of God's service, such as made me pity him. Then he
• 4:27
  slept awhile and began again with renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs
• 4:32
  make him desist. Be still, I implored. He rose to his knees,
• 4:40
  for he had been sitting in the darkness near the copper. I have
• 4:44
  been still too long, he said, in a tone that must have reached
• 4:47
  the pit. And now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful
• 4:54
  city, Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of
• 5:00
  the earth. By reason of the other voices of the trumpet. Shut up,
• 5:05
  I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror, lest
• 5:09
  the martians should hear us. For God's sake, nay, shouted the curate
• 5:15
  at the top of his voice, standing likewise and extending his arms, speak
• 5:20
  the word of the Lord is upon me in three strides. He was at
• 5:26
  the door leading into the kitchen. I must bear my witness. I go.
• 5:30
  It has already been too long delayed. I put out my hand and
• 5:35
  felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a flash, I was
• 5:40
  after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was half way across
• 5:45
  the kitchen, I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity,
• 5:49
  I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong
• 5:55
  forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood panting.
• 6:01
  He lay still. Suddenly I heard a noise without the run and smash
• 6:08
  of slipping plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I
• 6:14
  looked up and saw the lower surface for handling machine coming slowly across the hole.
• 6:20
  One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris. Another limb appeared,
• 6:25
  feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood petrified, staring. Then
• 6:32
  I saw through a sort of glass plate near the edge of the body,
• 6:35
  the face as we may call it, and the large dark eyes of a
• 6:40
  martian peering. And then a long metallic snake of tentacle came feeling slowly through
• 6:46
  the hole. I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and
• 6:50
  stopped at the scullery door. The tentacle was now some way two yards or
• 6:57
  more in the room, and twisting and turning with were sudden movements this way
• 7:00
  and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance.
• 7:09
  Then with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery.
• 7:15
  I trembled violently, I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door
• 7:19
  of the coal cellar and stood there in the darkness, staring at the faintly
• 7:23
  lit doorway into the kitchen and listening. Had the Martian seen me? What
• 7:29
  was it doing? Now? Something was moving to and fro there, very
• 7:33
  quietly. Every now and then it tapped against the wall or started on its
• 7:40
  movements with a faint metallic ringing like the movements of keys on a split ring.
• 7:45
  Then a heavy body. I knew too well what was dragged across the
• 7:49
  floor of the kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted. I crept to the
• 7:57
  door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer sunlight,
• 8:03
  I saw the Martian in its briarius of a handling machine, scrutinizing the curate's
• 8:07
  head. I thought at once that it would infer my presence from the mark
• 8:13
  of the blow I had given him. I crept back to the coal cellar,
• 8:16
  shut the door, and began to cover myself up as much as I
• 8:20
  could, and as noiselessly as possible in the darkness amid the firewood and coal
• 8:26
  therein. Every now and then I paused, rigid to hear if the Martian
• 8:31
  had thrust its tentacles through the opening again. Then the faint metallic jingle returned.
• 8:39
  I traced it slowly, feeling over the kitchen. Presently I heard it
• 8:43
  nearer in the scullery. As I judged, I thought that its length might
• 8:48
  be insufficient to reach me. I prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly
• 8:56
  across the cellar door, an aide which of almost intolerable suspense intervened. Then
• 9:03
  I heard it fumbling at the latch. It had found the door. The
• 9:07
  Martians understood doors. It worried at the catch for a minute perhaps, and
• 9:13
  then the door opened. In the darkness, I could just see the thing
• 9:18
  like an elephant's trunk, more than anything else, waving towards me and touching
• 9:24
  and examining the wall, coals, wood, and ceiling. It was like
• 9:28
  a black worm, swaying its blind head to and fro. Once even it
• 9:35
  touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of screaming.
• 9:39
  I bit my hand. For a time, the tentacle was silent. I
• 9:46
  could have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click,
• 9:52
  it gripped something I thought it had me, and seemed to go out of
• 9:56
  the cellar again. For a minute, I was not. Apparently it had
• 10:01
  taken a lump of coal to examine. I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting
• 10:07
  my position, which had become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate
• 10:13
  prayers for safety. Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me
• 10:20
  again, slowly, slowly, it drew near, scratching against the walls and
• 10:26
  tapping the furniture. While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the
• 10:33
  cellar door and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and
• 10:37
  the biscuit tins rattled, and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy
• 10:41
  bump against the cellar door, then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense.
• 10:50
  Had it gone at last? I decided that it had it came into
• 10:56
  the scullery no more, but I lay all the tenth day in the close
• 11:00
  darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to crawl out for
• 11:05
  the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day before I ventured
• 11:09
  so far from my security end of Section twenty one