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

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  Chapter five, The heat Ray. After the glimpse I had had of the
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  Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the Earth from their
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  planet, a kind of fascination paralyzed my actions. I remained standing knee deep
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  in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a
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  battleground of fear and curiosity. I did not dare to go back towards the
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  pit, but I felt a passionate longing to peer into it. I began
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  walking therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage, and
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  continually looking at the sand heaps that hid these newcomers to our Earth. Once
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  a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed
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  across the sunset, and was immediately withdrawn. And afterwards a thin rod rose
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  up, joined by joint, bearing at its apex a certain disc that spun
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  with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there? Most of the
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  spectators had gathered in one or two groups, one a little crowd towards Woking,
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  the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham. Evidently they
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  shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approached
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  he was. I perceived a neighbor of mine, though I did not know
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  his name, and accosted. But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation.
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  What ugly brutes, he said, Good God, what ugly brutes.
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  He repeated this over and over again. Did you see a man in the
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  pit? I said, But he made no answer to that. We became
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  silent and stood watching for a time, side by side, deriving. I
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  found a certain comfort in one another's company. Then I shifted my position to
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  a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more of elevation,
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  and when I looked for him, presently he was walking towards Woking.
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  The sunset faded to twilight. Before anything further happened, the crowd far away
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  on the left towards Woking seemed to grow, and I heard now a faint
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  murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chopham dispersed. There was
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  scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit. It was this, as much
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  as anything, that gave people courage, and I suppose the new arrivals from
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  Woking also helped to restore confidence at any rate. As the dusk came on,
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  a slow, intermittent movement upon the sand pits began, a movement that
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  seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken.
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  Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop watch, and
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  advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin, irregular crescent
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  that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I too, on
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  my side, began to move towards the pit. Then I saw some cabmen
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  and others had walked boldly into the sand pits, and heard the clatter of
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  hoofs and the grind of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow
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  of apples, and then within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the
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  direction of horseal, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost
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  of whom was waving a white flag. This was the deputation. There had
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  been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were, evidently, in spite
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  of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them
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  by a aproaching them with signals that we too were intelligent. Flutter flutter went
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  the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was
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  too far for me to recognize anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvie,
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  Stent and Hendersome were with others in this attempt at communication. This little
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  group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of
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  the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures
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  followed it at discreet distances. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and
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  a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs,
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  which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.
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  This smoke or flame perhaps would be the better word, for it was
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  so bright that the deep blue sky overhead, and the hazy stretches of brown
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  common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as
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  these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the
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  same time, a faint hissing sound became audible. Beyond the pit stood the
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  little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these
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  phenomena, a little knot of small, vertical black shapes upon the black ground.
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  As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and
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  faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming,
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  into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out
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  of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker
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  out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, A bright glare leaping from
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  from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was
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  as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It
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  was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. Then by
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  the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and
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  their supporters turning to run. I stood staring, not as yet realizing that
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  this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All
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  I felt was that it was something very strange, an almost noiseless and blinding
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  flash of light. And man fell headlong and lay still. And as the
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  unseen shaft of light passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and
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  every dry furze bush became with one dull thud, a mass of flames,
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  and far away towards Naphill, I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and
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  wooden buildings suddenly set alight. It was sweeping round, swiftly and steadily,
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  this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it
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  coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and
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  stupefied to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand pits,
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  and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it
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  was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between
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  me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the sand pits,
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  the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away
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  to the left, where the road from Woking Station opens out on the common
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  forthwith the hissing and humming ceased, and the black dome like object sank slowly
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  out of sight in the pit. All this had happened with such swiftness that
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  I had stood motionless, dumbfounded, and dazzled by the flashes of light.
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  Had that death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me
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  in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night
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  about me suddenly dark and unfamiliar. The undulating common seemed now dark, almost
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  to blackness, except where its roadways lay gray and pale. Under the deep
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  blue sky of the early night, it was dark and suddenly void of men.
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  Overhead, the stars were mustering, and in the west the sky was
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  still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue. The tops of the pine
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  trees and the roofs of harsal came out sharp and black against the western afterglow.
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  The martians and their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast
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  upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated trees here and
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  there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards Woking Station were sending up
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  spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air. Nothing was changed save
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  for that and a terrible astonishment. The little group of black specks with the
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  flag of white had been swept out of existence, and the stillness of the
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  evening, so it seemed to me had scarcely been broken. It came to
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  me that I was upon this dark common helpless, unprotected and alone. Suddenly,
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  like a thing falling upon me from without, came fear. With an
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  effort. I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather. The fear
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  I felt was no rational fear, but a panic, terror, not only
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  of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such
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  an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran, weeping silently,
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  as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare
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  to look back. I remember, I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was
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  being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of
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  safety, this mysterious death, as swift as the passage of light, would
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  leap after me from the pit about the cylinder and strike me down. End
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  of Section five.