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24 - The Man on Putney Hill - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, The Man on Putney Hill. I spent that
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  Speaker 1: night in the inn that stands at the top of
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  Speaker 1: Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first
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  Speaker 1: time since my flight to Leatherhead. I will not tell
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the needless trouble I had breaking into that house. Afterwards
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I found the front door was on the latch, nor
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  Speaker 1: how I ransacked every room for food, until just on
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  Speaker 1: the verge of despair, in what seemed to me to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: be a servant's bedroom, I found a rat nored crust
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  Speaker 1: and two tins of pineapple. The place had been already
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  Speaker 1: searched and emptied. In the bar, I afterwards found some
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  Speaker 1: biscuits and sandwiches that had been overlooked. The latter I
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  Speaker 1: could not eat they were too rotten, but the former
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  Speaker 1: not only stayed my hunger but filled my pockets. I
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  Speaker 1: lit no lamps, fearing some Martian might come beating that
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  Speaker 1: part of London for food. In the night before I
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  Speaker 1: went to bed, I had an interval of restlessness and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: prowled from window to window, peering out for some sign
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  Speaker 1: of these monsters. I slept little. As I lay in bed,
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  Speaker 1: I found myself thinking consecutively a thing I do not
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: remember to have done since my last argument with the Curate.
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  Speaker 1: During all the intervening time, my mental condition had been
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  Speaker 1: a hurrying succession of vague emotional states, or a sort
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of stupid receptivity. But in the night, my brain reinforced,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I suppose by the food I had eaten, grew clear again,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought three things struggled for possession of my mind,
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  Speaker 1: the killing of the Curate, the whereabouts of the Martians,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and the possible fate of my wife. The former gave
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  Speaker 1: me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall. I
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  Speaker 1: saw it simply as a thing done, a memory very
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  Speaker 1: infinitely disagreeable, but quite without the quality of remorse. I
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  Speaker 1: saw myself then as I see myself now, driven step
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  Speaker 1: by step towards that hasty blow, the creature of a
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  Speaker 1: sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that. I felt no condemnation.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me in the silence
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  Speaker 1: of the night, with that sense of the nearness of
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  Speaker 1: God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: I stood my trial, my only trial. For that moment
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  Speaker 1: of wrath and fear, I retraced every step of our
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: conversation from the moment when I had found him crouching
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  Speaker 1: beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: fire and smoke that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: we had been incapable of co operation. Grim chance had
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: taken no heed of that. Had I foreseen, I should
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  Speaker 1: have left him at Haliford. But I did not foresee.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And crime is to foresee and do. And I set
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  Speaker 1: this down, as I have set all this story down
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  Speaker 1: as it was. There were no witnesses. All these things
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  Speaker 1: I might have concealed, But I set it down, And
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  Speaker 1: the reader must form his judgment as he will. And
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: when by an effort I had set aside that picture
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  Speaker 1: of a prostrate body, I faced the problem of the
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  Speaker 1: Martians and the fate of my wife. For the former,
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  Speaker 1: I had no data. I could imagine a hundred things,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and so unhappily I could for the latter. And suddenly
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the
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  Speaker 1: heat ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers.
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  Speaker 1: Had prayed as Heathen's mutter charms when I was in extremity,
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  Speaker 1: But now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face
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  Speaker 1: to face with the darkness of God. Strangest in this
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  Speaker 1: that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had
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  Speaker 1: talked with God, crept out of the house like a
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: rat leaving its hiding place, a creature scarcely larger, an
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  Speaker 1: inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of
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  Speaker 1: our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else,
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  Speaker 1: this war has taught us pity, pity for those witless
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  Speaker 1: souls that suffer our dominion. The morning was bright and fine,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and the eastern s sky glowed pink and was fretted
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  Speaker 1: with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from
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  Speaker 1: the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number
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  Speaker 1: of poor vestiges of the panic torrent that must have
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  Speaker 1: poured London wood. On the Sunday night after the fighting began.
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  Speaker 1: There was a little two wheeled cart inscribed with the
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  Speaker 1: name of Thomas Lobb, greengrocer, New Malden with a smashed
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  Speaker 1: wheel and an abandoned tin trunk. There was a straw
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  Speaker 1: hat trampled into the now hardened mud, and at the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: top of West Hill a lot of blood stained glass
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: about the overturned water trough. My movements were languid, my
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  Speaker 1: plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of going
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  Speaker 1: to Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the
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  Speaker 1: poorest chance of finding my wife, certainly, unless death had
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  Speaker 1: overtaken them suddenly, my cousins and she would have fled
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  Speaker 1: thence but it seemed to me I might find or
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  Speaker 1: learn there whither the surry people had fled. I knew
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to find my wife, that my heart ached
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  Speaker 1: for her and the world of men, but I had
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  Speaker 1: no clear idea how the finding might be done. I
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  Speaker 1: was also sharply aware now of my intense loneliness. From
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  Speaker 1: the corner, I went under cover of a thicket of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: trees and bushes to the edge of Wimbledon Common, stretching
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  Speaker 1: wide and far. That dark expanse was lit in patches
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  Speaker 1: by yellow gorse and broom. There was no red weed
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  Speaker 1: to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating on the
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  Speaker 1: verge of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all
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  Speaker 1: with light and vitality. I came upon a busy swarm
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of little frogs in a swampy place among the trees.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from
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  Speaker 1: their stout resolve to live, and presently turning. Suddenly, with
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  Speaker 1: an odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: amid a clump of bushes. I stood regarding this, I
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  Speaker 1: made a step towards it, and it rose up and
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  Speaker 1: became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly.
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  Speaker 1: He stood silent and motionless, regarding me. As I drew nearer,
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  Speaker 1: I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and
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  Speaker 1: filthy as my own. He looked, indeed, as though he
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: had been dragged to a culvert. Nearer I distinguished the
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  Speaker 1: green slime of ditches mixing with the pale drab of
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  Speaker 1: dried clay and shiny coally patches. His black hair fell
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  Speaker 1: over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty
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  Speaker 1: and sunken, so that at first I did not recognize him.
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  Speaker 1: There was a red cut across the lower part of
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  Speaker 1: his face. Stop when I was within ten yards of him,
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  Speaker 1: and I stopped. His voice was hoarse. Where do you
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  Speaker 1: come from, he said, I thought, surveying him. I come
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  Speaker 1: from Mortlake, I said, I was buried near the pit
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  Speaker 1: the Martians made about their cylinder. I have worked my
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  Speaker 1: way out and escaped. There is no food about here,
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  Speaker 1: he said. This is my country, all this hill, down
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  Speaker 1: to the river and back to Clapham and up to
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the common. There is only food for one.
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  Speaker 1: Which way are you going, I answered, slowly. I don't know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I said. I have been buried in the ruins of
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  Speaker 1: a house thirteen or fourteen days. I don't know what
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: has happened. He looked at me doubtfully, then started and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: looked with a changed expression. I've no wish to stop
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  Speaker 1: about here, said I. I think I shall go to Leatherhead,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: for my wife was there. He shot out a pointing finger.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: It is you, said he the man from Woking, and
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  Speaker 1: you weren't killed at Weybridge. I recognized him at the
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  Speaker 1: same moment. You are the artilleryman who came into my garden.
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  Speaker 1: Good luck, he said, we are lucky ones. Fancy you.
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  Speaker 1: He put out a hand and I took it. I
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  Speaker 1: crawled up a drain, he said, but they didn't kill
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  Speaker 1: every one. And after they went away, I got off
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  Speaker 1: towards Walton across the fields. But it's not sixteen days altogether,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and your hair is gray. He looked over his shoulders. Suddenly,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: only a rook, he said. One gets to know that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: birds have shadows these days. This is a bit open.
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  Speaker 1: Let us crawl under those bushes and talk. Have you
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  Speaker 1: seen any Martians? I said, Since I crawled out, they've
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  Speaker 1: gone away across lund he said, I guess they've got
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  Speaker 1: a bigger camp there. Of a night all over there
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  Speaker 1: Hampstead Way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's
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  Speaker 1: like a great city. And in the glare you can
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  Speaker 1: just see them moving By daylight you can't but nearer
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  Speaker 1: I haven't seen them. He counted on his fingers. Five days.
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  Speaker 1: Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith Way carrying something big.
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  Speaker 1: And the night before last, he stopped and spoke impressively.
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  Speaker 1: It was just a matter of lights, but it was
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: something up in the air. I believe they've built a
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  Speaker 1: flying machine and a learning to fly. I stopped on
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes fly. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: he said, fly. I went on into a little bower
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  Speaker 1: and sat down. It is all over with humanity, I said.
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  Speaker 1: If they can do that, they will simply go round
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  Speaker 1: the world. He nodded, they will, but it will relieve
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  Speaker 1: things over here a bit. And besides, he looked at me.
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  Speaker 1: Aren't you satisfied at ease up with humanity? I am.
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  Speaker 1: We're down. We're beat. I stared. Strange as it may seem,
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  Speaker 1: I had not arrived at this fact, a fact perfectly
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  Speaker 1: obvious so soon as he spoke, I had still held
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  Speaker 1: a vague hope. Rather, I had kept a lifelong habit
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  Speaker 1: of mind. He repeated his words, we're beat. They carried
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  Speaker 1: absolute conviction. It's all over, he said. They've lost one,
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  Speaker 1: just one, and they've made their foot in good and
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  Speaker 1: crippled the greatest power in the world. They've walked over us.
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  Speaker 1: The death of that one at Weybridge was now accident.
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  Speaker 1: And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming, these
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  Speaker 1: green stars. I've seen none these five or six days,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: but I've no doubt they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's
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  Speaker 1: to be done. We're under We're beat. I made him
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain
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  Speaker 1: to devise some countervailing thought. This isn't a war, said
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the artilleryman. It never was a war any more than
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: there's war between man and ants. Suddenly I recalled the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: night in the observatory. After the tenth shot, they fired
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: no more, at least until the first cylinder came. How
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: do you know, said the artilleryman. I explained, he thought
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: something wrong with the gun. He said, But what if
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: there is, they'll get it right again. And even if
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: there's a delay, how can it alter thee It's just
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: men and ants. There's the ants builds, their cities, live
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  Speaker 1: their lives, have wars, revolutions until the men want them
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  Speaker 1: out of the way, and then they go out of
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  Speaker 1: the way. That's what we are now, just ants only, yes,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I said, we're eatable ants. We sat looking at each other,
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  Speaker 1: and what will they do with us? I said, That's
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  Speaker 1: what I've been thinking. He said, that's what I've been thinking.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: After Weybridge, I went south thinking I saw what was up.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Most of the people were hard at it, squealing and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: been in sight of death once or twice. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst death,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: thinking comes through. I saw everyone tracking away south, says I,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: food won't last this way, and I turned right back.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I went for the Martians like a sparrow goes for man.
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  Speaker 1: All round. He waved a hand to the horizon. They're
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  Speaker 1: starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. He saw
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: my face and halted awkwardly. No doubt, lots who have
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: money have gone away to France, he said. He seemed
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to hesitate whether to apologize, met my eyes and went on,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: there's food all about here, canned things in shops, wines, spirits,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: mineral waters, and the water mains and drains are empty. Well,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I was telling you what I was thinking. Here's intelligent things,
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  Speaker 1: I said, And it seems they want us for food first.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: They'll smash us up. Ships, machines, guns, cities, all the
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  Speaker 1: order and organization, all that will go. If we were
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the size of ants, we might pull through. But we're not.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It's all too bulky to stop. That's the first certainty, eh,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I assented, it is. I've thought it out very well.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Then next at present we're caught as we're wanted. A
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: martian has only to go a few miles to get
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a crowd on the run, And I saw one one
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: day out by Wandsworth, picking houses to pieces and routing
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: among the wreckage. But they won't go on doing that.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So soon as they've settled all our guns and ships,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and smashed our railways and done all the things they
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are doing over there, they will begin catching a systematic
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: picking the best and storing us in cages and things.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: That's what they will start doing in a bit. Lord.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: They haven't begun on us yet, don't you see that?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Not begun? I exclaimed? Not begun. All that's happened so
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: far as through our not having the sense to keep quiet,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: worrying them with guns and such foolery, and losing our
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: heads and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: any more safety than where we were. They don't want
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to bother us. Yet they're making their things, making all
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the things they couldn't bring with them, getting things ready
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: for the rest of their people. Very likely that's why
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: hitting those who are here, and instead of our rushing
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: about blind on the howl or getting dynamite on the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: chance of busting them up, we've got to fix ourselves
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: up according to the new state of affairs. That's how
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I figure it out. It isn't quite according to what
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a man wants for his species, but it's about what
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the facts point to. And that's the principle I acted upon. Cities, nations,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: civilization progress. It's all over. That game's up. We're beat.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: But if that is so, what is there to live for?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: The artilleryman looked at me for a moment. There won't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: There won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: light little feeds at restaurants. If it's amusement you're after,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I reckon the game is up. If you've got any
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: drawing room manners or a dislike to eating peas with
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a knife or dropping ahes, you'd better chuck them away.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: They ain't no further use. You mean, I mean that
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: men like me are going on living for the sake
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: of the breed. I tell you I'm grim set on living,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and if I'm not mistaken. You'll show what insides you've
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: got too before long. We aren't going to be exterminated.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean to be caught either, and tamed
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh, fancy
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: those brown creepers. You don't mean to say I do.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going on under their feet. I've got it planned,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I've thought it out. We men are beat we don't
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: know enough. We've got to learn before we've got a chance.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And we've got to live and keep independent while we learn. See,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that's what has to be done. I stared, astonished and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: stirred profoundly by the man's resolution grit, God cried, I,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: but you are a man, indeed, And suddenly I gripped
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: his hand. Ah, he said, with his eyes shining. I've
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: thought it out, eh, go on, I said, Well, those
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I'm
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: getting ready. Mind you. It isn't all of us that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: are made for wild beasts, and that's what it's got
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to be. That's why I watched you. I have my doubts.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You're slender. I didn't know that it was you you see,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: or just how you'd been buried all these the sort
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: of people that lived in these houses, and all those
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: damn little clerks that used to live down that way,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: they'd be no good. They haven't any spirit in them,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: no proud dreams and no proud lusts. And a man
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: who hasn't one or the other, Lord, what is he
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: but funk and precautions. They just used to skidaddle off
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to work. I've seen hundreds of em bit of breakfast
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: season ticket train for fear they'd get dismissed if they
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: didn't working at businesses they were afraid to take the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: trouble to understand, skidaddling back for fear they wouldn't be
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in time for dinner, keeping indoors after dinner for fear
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of the back streets and sleeping with the wives They married,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: not because they wanted them, but because they had a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: bit of money that would make for safety in their
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: one little miserable skidaddle through the world lives insured and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a bit invested for fear of accidents, and on Sundays,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: fear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits, well,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the Martians will be just a god send to these nice,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: week or so, chasing about the fields and lands on
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful. They'll be
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: quite glad after a bit. They'll wonder what people did
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: before there were martians to take care of them. And
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the bar loafers and mashers and singers. I can imagine them,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I can imagine them, he said, with a sort of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: somber gratification. There'll be any amount of sentiment and religion
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: loose among them. There's hundreds of things I saw with
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: my eyes that I've only begun to see clearly these
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: last few days. There's lots will take things as they are,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: fat and stupid, and lots will be worried by a
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: sort of fear, feeling that it's all wrong, and that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: they ought to be doing something now. Whenever things are
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: so that a lot of people feel they ought to
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: be doing something, the weak and those who go weak
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: with a lot of complicated thinking always make for a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: sort of do nothing religion very pious and superior, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: submit to persecution and the will of the lord. Very
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: likely you've seen the same thing it's energy in a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: gale of funk, and turned clean inside out. These cages
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: will be full of psalms and hymns and piety, and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: those of a less simple sort will work in a
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: bit of what is it eroticism? He paused, Very likely
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: these martians will make pets of some of them, train
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: them to do tricks. Who knows, get sentimental over the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: pet boy who grew up and had to be killed.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And some maybe they will trained a hunt us. No,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I cried, that's impossible, no human being. What's the good
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of going on with such lies? Said the artilleryman. There's
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: men who do it, cheerful, what nonsense to pretend there isn't?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And I succumbed to his conviction. If they come after me,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: he said, Lord, if they come after me, and subsided
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: into a grim meditation. I sat contemplating these things. I
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: could find nothing to bring against this man's reasoning. In
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the days before the invasion, no one would have questioned
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: my intellectual superiority to his. I a professed and recognized
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: writer on philosophical themes, and he a common soldier. And
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: yet he had already formulated a situation that I had
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: scarcely realized, what do you do? I said, presently, what
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: plans have you made? He hesitated. Well, it's like this,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: he said, what have we to do? We have to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: invent a sort of life where men can live and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: breed and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yes,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: wait a bit, and I'll make it clearer what I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: think ought to be done. The tame ones will go
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like all tame beasts in a few generations. They'll be big, beautiful, rich, blooded,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: stupid rubbish. The risk is that we who keep wild
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: will go savage, degenerate into a sort of big savage rat.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You see, how I mean to live is underground. I've
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: been thinking about the drains. Of course, those who don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: know drains think horrible things. But under this, London and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: miles and miles, hundreds of miles and a few days
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: The main drains are big enough and airy enough for
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: any one. Then there's cellars, vaults, stores from which bolting
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: passages may be made to the drains, and the railway
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: tunnels and subways. Ey, you begin to see, and we
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: form a band able, bodied, clean minded men. We're not
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: go out again as you meant me to go, Well,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I parleyed, didn't I We won't quarrel about that. Go
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: on those who stop obey orders, able bodied, clean minded women.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: We want also mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies, no
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: blasted rolling eyes. We can't have any weak or silly.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: mischievous have to die. They ought to die, They ought
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: after all, to live and taint the race, and they
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: can't be happy. Moreover, dying's none so dreadful. It's the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: funking makes it bad. And in all those places we
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: shall gather, our district will be London, and we may
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: even be able to keep a watch and run about
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: in the open when the Martians keep away play cricket.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Perhaps that's how we shall save the race. Eh, it's
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a possible thing. But saving the race is nothing in itself,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: as I say, that's only being rats. It's saving our
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: like you come in. There's books, there's models. We must
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: make great safe places, down deep and get all the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: books we can, not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: science books. That's where men like you come in. We
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: must go to the British Museum and pick all those
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: books through especially, we must keep up our science. Learn more.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: We must watch those Martians. Some of us must go
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: as spies. When it's all working. Perhaps I will get caught,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I mean. And the great thing is we must leave
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the Martians alone. We mustn't even steal. If we get
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: in their way, we clear out. We must show them
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: we mean no harm. Yes, I know, but they're intelligent things,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and they won't hunt us down if they have all
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: they want and think we're just harmless vermin. The artilleryman
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm. After all,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it may not be so much we have to learn before.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Just imagine this, four or five of their fighting machines
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: suddenly starting off heat rays right and left, And not
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a martian in them, not a martian in em, but men,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: men who have learned the way. How it may be
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: in my time, even those men fancy having one of
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: them lovely things with its heat ray wide and free,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: fancy having it in control. What would it matter if
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: you smash the smithereens at the end of the run.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: After a bust like that, I reckon, the martians will
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: open their beautiful eyes. Can't you see them, man? Can't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you see them hurrying, hurrying, puffing and blowing and hooting
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to their other mechanical affairs. Something out of gear in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: every case, And swish, bang, rattle, swish, just as they
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: are fumbling over it, swish comes the heat ray, and behold,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: man has come back to his own. For a while,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the imaginative daring of the artilleryman and the tone of
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: assurance and courage he assumed completely dominated my mind. I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: believed unhesitatingly, both in his forecast of human death destiny
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme. And the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject and mine.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: we talked in this manner through the early morning time,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and later crept out of the bushes, and after scanning
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the sky for martians, hurried precipitately to the house on
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the coal cellar of the place, and when I saw
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the work he had spent a week upon. It was
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: reach to the main drain on Putney Hill. I had
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: my first inkling of the gulf. Between his dreams and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a day, But I believed in him sufficiently to work
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: with him all that morning until past midday. At his digging,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: we had a garden barrow and shot the earth we
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: tin of mock turtle soup and wine from the neighboring pantry.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I found a curious relief from the aching strangeness of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the world in this steady labor. As we worked, I
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: turned his project over in my mind, and presently objections
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and doubts began to arise. But I worked there all
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the morning, So glad was I to find myself with
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a purpose again. After working an hour, I began to
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: speculate on the distance one had to go before the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: cloaca was reached the chances we had of missing it altogether.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: tunnel when it was possible to get into the drain
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: at once, down one of the man holes, and work
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: back to the house. It seemed to me too that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the house was inconveniently chosen and required a needless length
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: these things, the artilleryman stopped digging and looked at me.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: We're working well, he said. He put down his spade.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Let us knock off a bit, He said, I think
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: it's time we reconnoitered from the roof of the house.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I was for going on, and after a little hesitation
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: he resumed his spade. And then suddenly I was struck
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: by a thought. I stopped, and so did he at once.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Why were you walking about the common, I said, instead
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of being here taking the air? He said, I was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: coming back. It's safer by night. But the work, oh
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: one can't always work, he said, and in a flash
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I saw the man plain. He hesitated, holding his spade.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: We ought to reconnoiter now, he said, because if any
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: come near, they may hear the spades and drop upon
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: us unawares. I was no longer disposed to object. We
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: went together to the roof and stood on a ladder
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: slipped down under shelter of the parapet. From this position
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but we
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: could see the river below a bubbly mass of red weed,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and the low parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: red creeper swarmed up the trees about the old palace,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and their branches stretched, gaunt and dead, and set with
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: shriveled leaves from amid its clusters. It was strange how
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: their propagation about us. Neither had gained a footing. Laburnums,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: pink maize, snowballs, and trees of arborvitai rose out of
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: laurels and high rangers, green and brilliant into the sunlight.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Beyond Kensington, dense smoke was rising, and that and a
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: blue haze hid the northward hills. The artillerymen began to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: tell me of the sort of people who still remained
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: in London. One night last week, he said, some fools
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: got the electric light in order, and there was all
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Regent Street and the circus ablaze, crowded with painted and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting till dawn,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: a man who was there told me. And as the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: day came they became aware of a fighting machine standing
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: near by the langham and looking down at them. Heaven
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: knows how long he had been there. It must have
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: given some of them a nasty turn. He came down
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the road towards them and picked up nearly a hundred,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: too drunk or frightened to run away. Grotesque gleam of
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a time no history will ever fully describe. From that
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in answer to my questions he came round to his
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: grandiose plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: of the possibility of capturing a fighting machine that I
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: more than half believed in him again. But now that
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I was beginning to understand something of his quality, I
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: could divine the stress he laid on doing nothing precipitately,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And I noted that now there was no question that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: he personally was to capture and fight the great machine.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of us seemed disposed to resume digging, and when he
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. He became suddenly
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: very generous, and when we had eaten, he went away
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and returned, and with some excellent cigars we lit these,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and his optimism glode. He was inclined to regard my
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: coming as a great occasion. There's some Champagne in the cellar,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: he said, we can dig better on this Thames side.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Burgundy said I no, said he I am host to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: day Champagne, great god, with a heavy enough task before us.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Let us take a rest and gather strength, while we
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: may look at these blistered hands. And pursuant to this
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards. After
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: we had eaten. He taught me yuka, and after dividing
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: London between us, I taking the north side and he
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the southern, we played for parish points. Grotesque and foolish
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: as this will seem to the sober reader, it is
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: absolutely true. And what is more remarkable, I found the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: card game, and several others we played extremely interesting strange
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: mind of man, that, with our species upon the edge
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: us but the chance of a horrible death, we could
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard and playing
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: the joker with vivid delight. Afterwards, he taught me poker,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and I beat him at three tough chess games. When
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: dark came, we decided to take the risk and lit
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a lamp. After an interminable string of games, we supped,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and the artilleryman finished the champagne. We went on smoking
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the cigars. He was no longer the energetic regenerator of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: his species I had encountered in the morning. He was
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: thoughtful optimism. I remember he wound up with my health
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: proposed in a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I took a cigar and went upstairs to look at
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the lights of which he had spoken, that blazed so
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: greenly along the Highgate Hills. At first I stared unintelligently
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: across the London Valley. The northern hills were shrouded in darkness.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: The fires near Kensington glowed redly and now and then
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: an orange red tongue of flame flashed up and vanished
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: in the deep blue night. All the rest of London
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: was black. Then nearer I perceived a strange light, a
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: pale violet, purple fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: For a space I could not understand it, and then
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I knew that it must be the red weed from
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realization, my dormant
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of things
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: awoke again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: glowing high in the west, and then gazed long and
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead and Highgate. I remained
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: grotesque changes of the day. I recalled my mental states
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: from the midnight prayer to the foolish card playing. I
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: had a violent revulsion of feeling. I remember I flung
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: away the cigar with a certain wasteful symbolism. My folly
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: came to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a traitor
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: to my wife and to my kind. I was filled
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: with remorse, I resolved to leave this strange, undisciplined dreamer
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: go on into London. There, it seemed to me I
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: had the best chance of learning what the Martians and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: my fellow men were doing. I was still upon the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: roof when the late moon rose end of Section twenty four.