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04 - The Cylinder Opens - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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