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15 - What Had Happened in Surrey - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen, what had happened in Surrey. It was while
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Speaker 1: the Curate had sat and talked so wildly to me
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Speaker 1: under the hedge in the flat meadows near Haliford, and
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Speaker 1: while my brother was watching the fugitive's stream over Westminster Bridge,
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Speaker 1: that the Martians had resumed the offensive. So far as
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Speaker 1: one can ascertain from the conflicting reports that have been
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Speaker 1: put forth, the majority of them remained busied with preparations
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Speaker 1: in the hausal pit until nine that night, hurrying on
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Speaker 1: some operation that disengaged huge volumes of green smoke. But
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Speaker 1: three certainly came out about eight o'clock, and, advancing slowly
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Speaker 1: and cautiously, made their way through by Fleet and Purfured
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Speaker 1: towards Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of
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Speaker 1: the expectant batteries against the setting sun. These Martians did
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Speaker 1: not advance in a body, but in a line, each
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Speaker 1: perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow.
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Speaker 1: They communicated with one another by means of siren like howls,
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Speaker 1: running up and down the scale from one note to another.
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Speaker 1: It was this howling and firing of the guns at
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Speaker 1: Ripley and Saint George's Hill that we had heard at
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Speaker 1: Upper Halliford. The ripley gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought
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Speaker 1: never to have been placed in such a position, fired
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Speaker 1: one premature, in effectual volley, and bolted on horse and
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Speaker 1: foot through the deserted village, while the martian, without using
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Speaker 1: his heat ray, walked serenely over their guns, stepped gingerly
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Speaker 1: among them, passed in front of them, and so came
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Speaker 1: unexpectedly upon the guns in pains Hill Park, which he destroyed.
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Speaker 1: The Saint George's hill men, however, were better lead or
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Speaker 1: of a better metal. Hidden by a pinewood as they were,
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Speaker 1: they seemed to have been quite unsuspected by the Martian
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Speaker 1: nearest to them. They laid their guns as deliberately as
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Speaker 1: if they had been on parade, and fired at about
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Speaker 1: a thousand yards range. The shells flashed all round him,
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Speaker 1: and he was seen to advance a few paces, stagger
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Speaker 1: and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns were
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Speaker 1: reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martians set up a
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Speaker 1: prolonged allulation, and immediately a second, glittering giant answering him,
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Speaker 1: appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem
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Speaker 1: that a leg of the tripod had been smashed by
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Speaker 1: one of the shells. The whole of the second volley
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Speaker 1: flew wide of the martian on the ground, and simultaneously
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Speaker 1: both his companions brought their heat raised a bear on
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Speaker 1: the battery. The ammunition blew up the pine trees all about.
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Speaker 1: The guns flashed into fire, and only one or two
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Speaker 1: of the men, who were already running over the crest
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Speaker 1: of the hill escaped. After this, it would seem that
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Speaker 1: the three took council together and halted, and the scouts
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Speaker 1: who were watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary
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Speaker 1: for the next half hour. The martian who had been
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Speaker 1: overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure,
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Speaker 1: oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight,
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Speaker 1: and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine,
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Speaker 1: he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above
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Speaker 1: the trees again. It was a few minutes past nine
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Speaker 1: that night when these three sentinels were joined by four
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Speaker 1: other martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A similar
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Speaker 1: tube was handed to each of the three, and the
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Speaker 1: seven proceeded to distribute themselves at equal distances along a
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Speaker 1: curved line between Saint George's Hill, Weybridge and the village
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Speaker 1: of Send, southwest of Ripley. A dozen rockets sprang out
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Speaker 1: of the hills before them so soon as they began
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Speaker 1: to move, and warned the way batteries about Ditton and Eshe.
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Speaker 1: At the same time, four of their fighting machines, similarly
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Speaker 1: armed with tubes, crossed the river, and two of them,
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Speaker 1: black against the western sky, came into sight of myself
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Speaker 1: and the Curate as we hurried wearily and painfully along
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Speaker 1: the road that runs northward out of Haliford, they moved,
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Speaker 1: as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a
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Speaker 1: milky mist covered the fields and rose to a third
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Speaker 1: of their height. At this sight, the Curate cried faintly
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Speaker 1: in his throat and began running. But I knew it
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Speaker 1: was no good running from a Martian, and I turned
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Speaker 1: aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the
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Speaker 1: broad ditch by the side of the road. He looked back,
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Speaker 1: saw what I was doing, and turned to join me.
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Speaker 1: The two halted, the nearer to us, standing and facing Sunbury,
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Speaker 1: the remoter being a gray indistinctness towards the evening star,
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Speaker 1: away towards Staines, the occasional howling of the Martians had ceased.
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Speaker 1: They took up their positions in the huge crescent about
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Speaker 1: their cylinders, in absolute silence. It was a crescent with
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Speaker 1: twelve miles between its horns. Never since the devising of
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Speaker 1: gunpowder was the beginning of a battle, so still to us,
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Speaker 1: and to an observer about Ripley, it would have had
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Speaker 1: precisely the same effect. The Martians seemed in solitary possession
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Speaker 1: of the darkling night, lit only as it was by
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Speaker 1: the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight,
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Speaker 1: and the ruddy glare from Saint George's Hill and the
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Speaker 1: woods of Paineshill, But facing that crescent everywhere at Staines,
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Speaker 1: Hounslow Ditton, escha Ockham, behind hills and woods south of
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Speaker 1: the river, and across the flat grass meadows to the
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Speaker 1: north of it, wherever a cluster of trees or village
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Speaker 1: houses gave sufficient cover. The guns were waiting the signal.
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Speaker 1: Rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and vanished,
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Speaker 1: and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to
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Speaker 1: a tense expectation. The martians had but to advance into
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Speaker 1: the line of fire, and instantly those motionless black forms
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Speaker 1: of men, those guns glittering so darkly in the early night,
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Speaker 1: would explode into a thunderous fury of battle. No doubt.
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Speaker 1: The thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those
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Speaker 1: vigilant minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was
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Speaker 1: the riddle, how much did they understand of us? Did
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Speaker 1: they grasp that we, in our millions, were organized, disciplined,
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Speaker 1: working together? Or did they interpret our spurts of fire,
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Speaker 1: the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of
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Speaker 1: their encampment as we should, the furious unanimity of onslaught
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Speaker 1: in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they
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Speaker 1: might exterminate us? At that time? No one knew what
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Speaker 1: food they needed? A hundred such questions struggled together in
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Speaker 1: my mind as I watched that vast sentinel shape, And
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Speaker 1: in the back of my mind was the sense of
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Speaker 1: all the huge, unknown and hidden forces London wood. Had
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Speaker 1: they prepared pitfalls with the powder mills at hounslow ready
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Speaker 1: as a snare, would the Londoners have the heart and
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Speaker 1: courage to make a greater Moscow of their mighty province
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Speaker 1: of houses. Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed
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Speaker 1: to us crouching and peering through the hedge, came a
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Speaker 1: sound like the distant concussion of a gun, another nearer,
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Speaker 1: and then another, and then the martian beside us raised
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Speaker 1: his tube on high and discharged it gun wise, with
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Speaker 1: a heavy report that made the ground heave. The one
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Speaker 1: towards Stains answered him. There was no flash, no smoke,
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Speaker 1: simply that loaded detonation. I was so excited by these
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Speaker 1: heavy minute guns following one another that I so far
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Speaker 1: forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to
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Speaker 1: clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As
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Speaker 1: I did so, a second report followed, and a big
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Speaker 1: projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to
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Speaker 1: see smoke or fire, or some such evidence of its work.
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Speaker 1: But all I saw was the deep blue sky above,
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Speaker 1: with one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide
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Speaker 1: and low beneath. And there had been no crash, no
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Speaker 1: answering explosion. The silence was restored, the minute lengthened to three.
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Speaker 1: What has happened? Said the curate, standing up beside me.
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Speaker 1: Heaven knows, said I. A bat flickered by and vanished.
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Speaker 1: A distant tumult of shouting began and ceased. I looked
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Speaker 1: again at the Martian and saw he was now moving
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Speaker 1: eastward along the river bank with a swift rolling motion.
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Speaker 1: Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery
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Speaker 1: to spring upon him, but the evening calm was unbroken.
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Speaker 1: The figure of the Martian grew smaller as he receded,
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Speaker 1: and presently the mist and the gathering night had swallowed
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Speaker 1: him up. By a common impulse, we clambered higher towards Sunbury.
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Speaker 1: Was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had
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Speaker 1: suddenly come into being, there, hiding our view of the
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Speaker 1: farther country, and then remoter across the river, over Walton,
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Speaker 1: we saw another such summit. These hill like forms grew
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Speaker 1: lower and broader even as we stared. Moved by a
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Speaker 1: sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a
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Speaker 1: third of these cloudy black copies had risen. Everything had
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Speaker 1: suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, marking
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Speaker 1: the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one another,
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Speaker 1: and then the air quivered again with the distant thud
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Speaker 1: of their guns, but the earthly artillery made no reply.
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Speaker 1: Now at the time we could not understand these things,
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Speaker 1: But later I was to learn the meaning of these
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Speaker 1: ominous copies that gathered in the twilight. Each of the
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Speaker 1: martians standing in the great crescent I have described, had
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Speaker 1: discharged by means of the gun like tube. He carried
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Speaker 1: a huge canister over whatever hill, cops, cluster of houses,
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Speaker 1: or other possible cover for guns chanced to be in
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Speaker 1: front of him. Some fired only one of these, some too,
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Speaker 1: as in the case of the one we had seen,
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Speaker 1: the one at Ripley, is said to have discharged, and
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Speaker 1: a fewer than five at that time, These canisters smashed,
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Speaker 1: striking the ground. They did not explode, and incontinently disengaged.
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Speaker 1: An enormous volume of heavy, inky vapor, coiling and pouring
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Speaker 1: upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous
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Speaker 1: hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country.
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Speaker 1: And the touch of that vapor, the inhaling of its
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Speaker 1: pungent wisps, was death to all that breathes. It was heavy,
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Speaker 1: this vapor, heavier than the densest smoke, so that after
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Speaker 1: the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it
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Speaker 1: sank down through the air and poured over the ground
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Speaker 1: in a manner rather liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills
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Speaker 1: and streaming into the valleys and ditches and water courses.
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Speaker 1: Even as I have heard, the carbonic acid gas that
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Speaker 1: pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do. And where
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Speaker 1: it came upon water, some chemical action occurred and the
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Speaker 1: surface would instantly be covered with a powdery scum that
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Speaker 1: sank slowly and made way for more. The scum was
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Speaker 1: absolutely insoluble, and it is a strange thing, seeing the
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Speaker 1: instant effect of the gas, that one could drink without
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Speaker 1: hurt the water from which it had been strained. The
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Speaker 1: vapor did not diffuse as a true gas would do.
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Speaker 1: It hung together in banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope
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Speaker 1: of the land and driving reluctantly before the wind, and
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Speaker 1: very slowly it combined with the mist and moisture of
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Speaker 1: the air and sank to the earth in the form
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Speaker 1: of dust. Save that an unknown element giving a group
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Speaker 1: of four lines in the blue of the spectrum, is concerned,
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Speaker 1: we are still entirely ignorant of the nature of this substance.
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Speaker 1: Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the
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Speaker 1: black smoke clung so closely to the ground even before
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Speaker 1: its precipitation, that fifty feet up in the air, on
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Speaker 1: the roofs and upper stories of high houses and on
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Speaker 1: great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison altogether,
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Speaker 1: as was proved even that night at Street Cobbom and Ditton.
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Speaker 1: The man who escaped at the former place tells a
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Speaker 1: wonderful story of the strangeness of its coiling flow, and
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Speaker 1: how he looked down from the church spire and saw
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Speaker 1: the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of
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Speaker 1: its inky nothingness. For a day and a half he
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Speaker 1: remained there, weary, starving, and sun scorched the earth under
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Speaker 1: the blue sky and against the prospect of the distant hills,
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Speaker 1: a velvet black expanse, with red roofs, green trees, and
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Speaker 1: later black veiled shrubs and gates, barns, outhouses and walls,
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Speaker 1: rising here and there into the sunlight. But that was
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Speaker 1: at Street Cobbom, where the black vapor was allowed to
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Speaker 1: remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground.
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Speaker 1: As a rule, the Martians, when it had so served
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Speaker 1: its purpose, cleared the air of it again by wading
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Speaker 1: into it and directing a jet of steam upon it.
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Speaker 1: This they did with the vapor banks near us. As
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Speaker 1: we saw in the starlight from the window of a
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Speaker 1: deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had returned from there,
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Speaker 1: we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and Kingston
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Speaker 1: Hill going to and fro and about eleven the windows
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Speaker 1: rattled and we heard the sound of the huge siege
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Speaker 1: guns that had been put in position there. These continued
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Speaker 1: intermittently for the space of a quarter of an hour,
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Speaker 1: sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton.
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Speaker 1: And then the pale beams of the electric light vanished
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Speaker 1: and were replaced by a bright red glow. Then the
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Speaker 1: fourth cylinder fell a brilliant green meteor, as I learned afterwards,
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Speaker 1: in Bushy Park, before the guns on the Richmond and
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Speaker 1: Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade
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Speaker 1: far away in the southwest, due I believe to guns
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Speaker 1: being fired haphazard before the black vapor could overwhelm the gunners.
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Speaker 1: So setting about it as methodically as men might smoke
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Speaker 1: out a wasp's nest. The Martians spread this strange, stifling
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Speaker 1: vapor over the London wood country. The horns of the
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Speaker 1: Crescent slowly moved apart, until at last they formed a
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Speaker 1: line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All through the
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Speaker 1: night their destructive tubes advanced. Never once, after the Martian
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Speaker 1: at Saint George's Hill was brought down, did they give
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Speaker 1: the artillery the ghost of a chance against them. Wherever
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Speaker 1: there was a possibility of guns being laid for them unseen,
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Speaker 1: a fresh canister of the black vapor was discharged, and
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Speaker 1: where the guns were openly displayed, the heat ray was
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Speaker 1: brought to bear. By midnight, the blazing trees along the
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Speaker 1: slopes of Richmond Park and the glare of Kingston Hill
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Speaker 1: threw their light upon a network of black smoke, blotting
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Speaker 1: out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as
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Speaker 1: far as the eye could reach. And through this two
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Speaker 1: Martians slowly waded and turned their hissing steam jets this way.
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Speaker 1: And that they were sparing of the heat ray that night,
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Speaker 1: either because they had but a limited supply of material
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Speaker 1: for its production, or because they did not wish to
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Speaker 1: destroy the country, but only to crash and over awe
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Speaker 1: the opposition they had aroused. In the latter aim they
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Speaker 1: certainly succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organized
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Speaker 1: opposition to their movements. After that, no body of men
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Speaker 1: would stand against them. So hopeless was the enterprise. Even
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Speaker 1: the crews of the torpedo boats and destroyers that had
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Speaker 1: brought their quick fires up the Thames refused to stop,
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Speaker 1: mutinied and went down again. The only offensive operation men
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Speaker 1: ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines
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Speaker 1: and pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic
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Speaker 1: and spasmodic. One has to imagine, as well as one may,
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Speaker 1: the fate of those batteries towards Esha, waiting so tensely
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Speaker 1: in the twilight survivors there were none. One may picture
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Speaker 1: the orderly expectation, the officers alert and watchful, the gunners ready,
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Speaker 1: the ammunition piled to hand, the limber gunners with their
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Speaker 1: horses and wagons, the groups of civilian spectators standing as
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Speaker 1: near as they were permitted, the evening stillness, the ambulances
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Speaker 1: and hospital tents with the burned and wounded from Weybridge.
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Speaker 1: Then the dull resonance of the shots the martians fired,
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Speaker 1: and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and houses
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Speaker 1: and smashing amid the neighboring fields. One may picture too,
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Speaker 1: the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils
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Speaker 1: and bellying of that blackness, advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning
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Speaker 1: the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible
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Speaker 1: antagonist of vapor striding upon its victims, men and horses
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Speaker 1: near it seemed dimly running, shrieking, falling, headlong, shouts of dismay,
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Speaker 1: the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground,
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Speaker 1: and the swift broadening out of the opaque cone of smoke,
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Speaker 1: and then night and extinction, nothing but a silent mass
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Speaker 1: of impenetrable vapor hiding its dead. Before dawn, the black
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Speaker 1: vapor was pouring through the streets of Richmond, and the
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Speaker 1: disintegrating organism of government was, with a last expiring effort,
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Speaker 1: rousing the population of London to the necessity of flight.
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Speaker 1: End of Section fifteen.