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

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