Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Fifth Section 6

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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Fifth Section 6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book one, chapter five, Section six of In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book one, Chapter five,
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  Speaker 1: Section six. I halted and stood, planning what I had
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  Speaker 1: to do. Should I go to bungalow after bungalow until
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  Speaker 1: one of the two I sought answered to my rap
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  Speaker 1: But suppose some servant intervened. Should I wait where I was,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps until morning watching? And meanwhile, all the nearer bungalows
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  Speaker 1: were very still. Now if I walked softly to them
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  Speaker 1: from open windows, from something seen or overheard, I might
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  Speaker 1: get a clue to guide me. Should I advance circuitously,
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  Speaker 1: creeping up upon them, or should I walk straight to
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  Speaker 1: the door. It was bright enough for her to recognize
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  Speaker 1: me clearly at a distance of many paces. The difficulty,
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  Speaker 1: to my mind lay in this that if I involved
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  Speaker 1: other people my questions, I might at last confront my betrayers,
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  Speaker 1: with these others close about me, ready to snatch my
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  Speaker 1: weapon and seize my hands. Besides, what names might they
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  Speaker 1: bear here boom. The sound crept upon my senses, and
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  Speaker 1: then again it came. I turned impatiently, as one turns
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  Speaker 1: upon an impertinence, and beheld a great iron clad not
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  Speaker 1: four miles out, steaming fast across the dappled silver, and
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  Speaker 1: from its funnels sparks intensely red poured out into the night.
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  Speaker 1: As I turned, came the hot flash of its guns,
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  Speaker 1: firing seaward and answering this red flashes and a streaming
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  Speaker 1: smoke in the line between sea and sky. So I
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  Speaker 1: remembered it, and I remember myself staring at it in
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  Speaker 1: a state of stupid arrest. It was an irrelevance. What
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  Speaker 1: had these things to do with me? With a shuddering hiss,
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  Speaker 1: a rocket from a headland beyond the village leaped up
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  Speaker 1: and burst hot gold against the glare, and the sound
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  Speaker 1: of the third and fourth guns reached me. The windows
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  Speaker 1: of the dark bungalows, one after another, leaped out squares
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  Speaker 1: of ruddy brightness that flared and flickered and became steadily bright.
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  Speaker 1: Dark heads appeared looking seaward. A door opened and sent
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  Speaker 1: out a brief lane of yellow to mingle and be
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  Speaker 1: lost in the comet's brightness that brought me back to
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  Speaker 1: the business in hand. Boom boom, And when I looked
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  Speaker 1: again at the great iron clad, a little torchlike spurt
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  Speaker 1: of flame wavered behind her funnels. I could hear the
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  Speaker 1: throb and clangor of her straining engines. I became aware
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  Speaker 1: of the voices of people calling to one another in
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  Speaker 1: the village. A white robed, hooded figure, some man in
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  Speaker 1: a bathing wrap absurdly suggestive of an Arab in his burnoose,
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  Speaker 1: came out from one of the nearer bungalows and stood
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  Speaker 1: clear and still and shadowless in the glare. He put
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  Speaker 1: his hands to shade his seaward eyes and shouted to
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  Speaker 1: people within, the people, within, my people. My fingers tightened
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  Speaker 1: on my revolver. What was this war nonsense to me?
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  Speaker 1: I would go round among the hummocks with the idea
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  Speaker 1: of approaching the three bungalows inconspicuously from the flank. This
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  Speaker 1: fight at sea might serve my purpose, except for that
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  Speaker 1: it had no interest for me at all. Boom boom.
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  Speaker 1: The huge, voluminous concussions rushed past me, beat at my
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  Speaker 1: heart and passed. In a moment, Nettie would come out
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  Speaker 1: to see. First one and then two other rapped figures
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  Speaker 1: came out of the bungalows to join the first. His
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  Speaker 1: arm pointed seaward, and his voice a full tenor rose
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  Speaker 1: in explanation. I could hear some of the words. It's
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  Speaker 1: a German, he said, she's caught. Some one disputed that,
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  Speaker 1: and there followed a little indistinct babble of argument. I
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  Speaker 1: went on slowly in the circuit I had marked out,
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  Speaker 1: watching these people. As I went, they shouted together with
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  Speaker 1: such a common intensity of direction that I halted and
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  Speaker 1: looked seaward. I saw the tall fountain flung by a
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  Speaker 1: shot that had just missed the great warship. A second
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  Speaker 1: rose still nearer us, a third and a fourth, and
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  Speaker 1: then a great uprush of dust, A whirling cloud leaped
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  Speaker 1: out of the headland. Whence the rocket had come and
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  Speaker 1: spread with a slow deliberation right and left hard on
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  Speaker 1: that enormous craw, and the man with a full voice
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  Speaker 1: leaped and cried, hit, let me see. Of course, I
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  Speaker 1: had to go round beyond the bungalows and then come
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  Speaker 1: up toward the group. From behind, a high pitched woman's
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  Speaker 1: voice called honeymooners. Honeymooners come out and see something gleamed
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  Speaker 1: in the shadow of the nearer bungalow, and a man's
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  Speaker 1: voice answered from within. What he said I did not catch.
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  Speaker 1: But suddenly I heard Nettie calling, very distinctly, we've been bathing.
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  Speaker 1: The man who had first come out shouted, don't you
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  Speaker 1: hear the guns? They're fighting not five miles from shore,
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  Speaker 1: eh answered the bungalow, and a window opened out there.
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  Speaker 1: I did not hear the reply because of the faint
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  Speaker 1: rustle of my own movements. Clearly, these people were all
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  Speaker 1: too much occupied by the battle to look in my direction,
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  Speaker 1: and so I walked now straight towards the darkness that
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  Speaker 1: held Nettie and the black desire of my heart. Look
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  Speaker 1: cried some one in pointed skyward. I glanced up, and behold,
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  Speaker 1: the sky was streaked with bright green trails. They radiated
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  Speaker 1: from a point half way between the western horizon and
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  Speaker 1: the zenith, and within the shining clouds of the meteor,
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  Speaker 1: a streaming movement had begun, so that it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be pouring both westerly and back toward the east, with
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  Speaker 1: a crackling sound, as though the whole heaven was stippled
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  Speaker 1: over with phantom pistol shots. It seemed to me then,
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  Speaker 1: as if the meteor were coming to help me, descending
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  Speaker 1: with those thousand pistols like a curtain to fend off
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  Speaker 1: this unmeaning foolishness of the sea. Boom went a gun
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  Speaker 1: on the big iron clad, and boom, and the guns
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  Speaker 1: of the pursuing cruisers flashed in reply. To glance up
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  Speaker 1: at that streaky, stirring light scum of the sky made
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  Speaker 1: one's head swim. I stood for a moment, dazed and
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  Speaker 1: more than a little giddy. I had a curious instant
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  Speaker 1: of purely speculative thought. Suppose, after all the fanatics were
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  Speaker 1: right and the world was coming to an end, What
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  Speaker 1: a score that would be for parload. Then it came
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  Speaker 1: into my head that all these things were happening to
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  Speaker 1: consecrate my revenge. The war below, the heavens above were
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  Speaker 1: the thunderous garment of my deed. I heard Nettie's voice
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  Speaker 1: cry out not fifty yards away, and my passion surged again.
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  Speaker 1: I was a return to her amid these terrors, bearing
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  Speaker 1: unanticipated death. I was to possess her with a bullet
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  Speaker 1: amidst thunderings and fear at the thought, I lifted up
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  Speaker 1: my voice to a shout that went unheard, and advanced,
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  Speaker 1: now recklessly revolver. Displayed in my hand, it was fifty yards,
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  Speaker 1: forty yards, thirty yards. The little group of people, still
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  Speaker 1: heedless of me, was larger and more important now, the
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  Speaker 1: green shot sky and the fighting ships remoter. Some one
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  Speaker 1: darted out from the bungalow with an interrupted question and stopped,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly aware of me. It was Nettie, with some coquettish
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  Speaker 1: dark wrap about her, and the green glare shining on
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  Speaker 1: her sweet face and white throat. I could see her
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  Speaker 1: expression stricken with dismay and terror at my advance, as
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  Speaker 1: though something had seized her by the heart and held
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  Speaker 1: her still the target for my shots. Boom came the
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  Speaker 1: iron Clad's gunshot like a command. Bang, the bullet leaped
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  Speaker 1: from my hand. Do you know I did not want
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  Speaker 1: to shoot her then? Indeed I did not want to
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  Speaker 1: shoot her. Then bang, and I had fired again, still
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  Speaker 1: striding on, and each time it seemed I had missed,
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  Speaker 1: she moved a step or so toward me, still staring,
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  Speaker 1: And then some one intervened, and near beside her, I
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  Speaker 1: saw young varral A heavy stranger the man in the hood.
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  Speaker 1: At bath Gown, a fat, foreign looking man came out
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  Speaker 1: of nowhere like a shield before them. He seemed a
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  Speaker 1: preposterous interruption. His face was full of astonishment and terror.
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  Speaker 1: He rushed across my path with arms extended and open hands,
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  Speaker 1: as one might try to stop a runaway horse. He
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  Speaker 1: shouted some nonsense. He seemed the want to dissuade me,
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  Speaker 1: as though dissuasion had anything to do with it. Now,
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  Speaker 1: not you, you fool, I said, hoarsely, not you, But he
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  Speaker 1: hid Nettie. Nevertheless, by an enormous effort, I resisted a
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  Speaker 1: mechanical impulse to shoot through his fat body. Anyhow, I
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  Speaker 1: knew I mustn't shoot him. For a moment I was
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  Speaker 1: in doubt. Then I became very active, turned aside abruptly
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  Speaker 1: and dodged his pointing on arm to the left, and
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  Speaker 1: so found two others irresolutely in my way. I fired
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  Speaker 1: a third shot in the air, just over their heads,
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  Speaker 1: and ran at them. They hastened left and right. I
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  Speaker 1: pulled up and faced about within a yard of a
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  Speaker 1: foxy faced young man coming sideways, who seemed about to
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  Speaker 1: grapple me. At my resolute halt. He fell back a pace, ducked,
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  Speaker 1: and threw up a defensive arm, And then I perceived
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  Speaker 1: the course was clear and ahead of me young Verrel
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  Speaker 1: and Nettie. He was holding her arm. The helper running away,
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  Speaker 1: of course, said I. I fired a fourth ineffectual shot,
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  Speaker 1: and then, in an excess of fury at my missus,
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  Speaker 1: started out to run them down and shoot them barrel
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  Speaker 1: to backbone these people, I said, dismissing all these interferences.
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  Speaker 1: A yard, I panted, speaking aloud to myself. A yard till,
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  Speaker 1: then take care. You mustn't mustn't shoot again. Some one
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  Speaker 1: pursued me, perhaps several people I do not know. We
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  Speaker 1: left them all behind. We ran for a space. I
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  Speaker 1: was altogether intent upon the swift monotony of flight and pursuit.
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  Speaker 1: The sands were changed to a whirl of green moonshine,
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  Speaker 1: the air was thunder, A luminous green haze rolled about us.
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  Speaker 1: What did such things matter? We ran? Did I gain
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  Speaker 1: her lose? That was the question. They ran through a
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  Speaker 1: gap in a broken fence that sprang up abruptly out
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  Speaker 1: of nothingness, and turned to the right. I noted we
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  Speaker 1: were in a road, but this green mist one seemed
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  Speaker 1: the plow through it. They were fading into it, and
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  Speaker 1: at that thought I made a spurt that one a
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  Speaker 1: dozen feet or more. She staggered. He gripped her arm
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  Speaker 1: and dragged her forward. They doubled to the left. We
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  Speaker 1: were off the road again and on turf. It felt
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  Speaker 1: like turf. I tripped and fell at a dish that
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  Speaker 1: was somehow full of smoke, and was up again. But
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  Speaker 1: now they were phantoms, half gone into the livid swirls
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  Speaker 1: about me. Still I ran on on. I groaned with
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  Speaker 1: the violence of my effort. I staggered again and swore.
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  Speaker 1: I felt the concussions of great guns tear past me
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  Speaker 1: through the murk. They were gone. Everything was going, but
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  Speaker 1: I kept on running. Once more, I stumbled. There was
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  Speaker 1: something about my feet that impeded me, tall grass or heather,
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  Speaker 1: but I could not see what. It was, only this
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  Speaker 1: smoke that eddied about my knees. There was a noise
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  Speaker 1: in spinning in my brain, the vein resistance to a
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  Speaker 1: dark green curtain that was falling, falling, falling, fold upon fold.
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  Speaker 1: Everything grew darker and darker. I made one last frantic
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  Speaker 1: effort and raised my revolver, fired my penultimate shot at
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  Speaker 1: a venture, and fell headlong to the ground. And behold,
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  Speaker 1: the green curtain was a black one, and the earth
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  Speaker 1: and eye and all things ceased to be. End of
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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter five, Section six. Recording by Richard Kilmer, Real, Medina, Texas,