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14 - In London - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Daily Sci-Fi Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen in London. My younger brother was in London
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Speaker 1: when the Martians fell at Woking. He was a medical
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Speaker 1: student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing
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Speaker 1: of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on
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Speaker 1: Saturday contained, in addition to length these special articles on
0:22
Speaker 1: the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth,
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Speaker 1: a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking
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Speaker 1: for its brevity. The Martians, alarmed by the approach of
0:34
Speaker 1: a crowd, had killed a number of people with a
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Speaker 1: quick firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram concluded
0:41
Speaker 1: with the words formidable as they seemed to be, the
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Speaker 1: Martians have not moved from the pit into which they
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Speaker 1: have fallen, and indeed seem incapable of doing so. Probably
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Speaker 1: this is due to the relative strength of the Earth's
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Speaker 1: gravitational energy. On that last text, their leader writer expanded
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Speaker 1: very comfortingly. Of course, all the students in the Krammer's
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Speaker 1: biology class to which my brother went that day were
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Speaker 1: intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual
1:15
Speaker 1: excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of
1:20
Speaker 1: news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell beyond
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Speaker 1: the movements of troops about the common and the burning
1:27
Speaker 1: of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge until eight
1:31
Speaker 1: Then the Saint James Gazette, in an extra special edition
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Speaker 1: announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication.
1:40
Speaker 1: This was thought to be due to the falling of
1:42
Speaker 1: burning pine trees across the line. No more of the
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Speaker 1: fighting was known that night. The night of my drive
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Speaker 1: to Leatherhead and back, my brother felt no anxiety about us,
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Speaker 1: as he knew from the description in the papers that
1:56
Speaker 1: the cylinder was a good two miles from my house.
2:00
Speaker 1: He made up his mind to run down that night
2:03
Speaker 1: to me, in order, as he says, to see the
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Speaker 1: things before they were killed. He despatched a telegram which
2:10
Speaker 1: never reached me about four o'clock, and spent the evening
2:14
Speaker 1: at a music hall in London. Also on Saturday night,
2:19
Speaker 1: there was a thunder storm and my brother reached Waterloo
2:21
Speaker 1: in a cab on the platform from which the midnight
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Speaker 1: train usually starts. He learned after some waiting that an
2:29
Speaker 1: accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature
2:35
Speaker 1: of the accident he could not ascertain. Indeed, the railway
2:38
Speaker 1: authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was
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Speaker 1: very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing
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Speaker 1: to realize that anything further than a break down between
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Speaker 1: by Fleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the
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Speaker 1: theater trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia,
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Speaker 1: Wato or Guilford. They were busy making the nests and
3:00
Speaker 1: arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth
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Speaker 1: Sunday League excursions. An nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother
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Speaker 1: for the traffic manager to whom he bears a slight
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Speaker 1: resemblance waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting
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Speaker 1: the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. I
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Speaker 1: have read in another account of these events that on
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Speaker 1: Sunday morning all London was electrified by the news from Woking.
3:32
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify
3:35
Speaker 1: that very extravagant phrase. Plenty of Londoners did not hear
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Speaker 1: of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those
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Speaker 1: who did took some time to realize all that the
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Speaker 1: hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed The majority
3:51
Speaker 1: of people in London do not read Sunday papers. The
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Speaker 1: habit of personal security, moreover is so deeply fixed in them,
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Speaker 1: in the londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a
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Speaker 1: matter of course, in the papers that they could read
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Speaker 1: about it without any personal tremors. About seven o'clock last night,
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Speaker 1: the Martians came out of the cylinder and, moving about
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Speaker 1: under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking
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Speaker 1: Station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion
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Speaker 1: of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have
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Speaker 1: been absolutely useless against their armour. The field guns have
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Speaker 1: been disabled by them. Flying his ars have been galloping
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Speaker 1: into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey,
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Speaker 1: or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey and earthworks
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Speaker 1: are being thrown up to check the advanced London wood.
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Speaker 1: That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a
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Speaker 1: clever and remarkably prompt handbook article in the Referee compared
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Speaker 1: the affair to a menagerie suddenly let looseenn Village. No
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Speaker 1: one in London knew positively of the nature of the
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Speaker 1: armored Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that
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Speaker 1: these monsters must be sluggish, crawling, creeping painfully. Such expressions
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Speaker 1: occurred in almost all the earlier reports. None of the
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Speaker 1: telegrams could have been written by an eye witness of
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Speaker 1: their advance. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further
5:26
Speaker 1: news came to hand, some even in default of it,
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Speaker 1: But there was practically nothing more to tell people until
5:33
Speaker 1: late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press
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Speaker 1: agencies the news in their possession. It was stated that
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Speaker 1: the people of Walton and Weybridge and all the district
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Speaker 1: were pouring along the roads London Wood, and that was all.
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Speaker 1: My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in
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Speaker 1: the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on
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Speaker 1: the previous night. There he heard allusions made to the
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Speaker 1: invasion and a special prayer for peace coming out. He
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Speaker 1: bought a referee. He became alarmed at the news in
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Speaker 1: this and went again to Waterloo Station to find out
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Speaker 1: if communication were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable
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Speaker 1: people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by
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Speaker 1: the strange intelligence that the news vendors were disseminating people
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Speaker 1: were interested or if alarmed, alarmed only on account of
6:30
Speaker 1: the local residents. At the station, he heard for the
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Speaker 1: first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted.
6:39
Speaker 1: The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been
6:43
Speaker 1: received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but
6:46
Speaker 1: that these had abruptly ceased. My brother could get very
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Speaker 1: little precise detail out of them, as fighting going on
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Speaker 1: about Weybridge was the extent of their information. The train
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Speaker 1: service was now very much disorganized. Quite a number of
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Speaker 1: people who had been expecting friends from places on the
7:07
Speaker 1: Southwestern network were standing about the station. One gray headed
7:12
Speaker 1: old gentleman came and abused the Southwestern company bitterly to
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Speaker 1: my brother, it wants showing up, he said. One or
7:21
Speaker 1: two trains came in from Richmond, Putney and Kingston, containing
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Speaker 1: people who had gone out for a day's boating and
7:27
Speaker 1: found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in
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Speaker 1: the air. A man in a blue and white blazer
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Speaker 1: addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. There's hosts of
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Speaker 1: people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things
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Speaker 1: with boxes of valuables and all that. He said, they
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Speaker 1: come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say
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Speaker 1: there's been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that
7:52
Speaker 1: mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once
7:54
Speaker 1: because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing at
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Speaker 1: Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What
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Speaker 1: the dickens does it all mean? The Martians can't get
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Speaker 1: out of their pit, can they? My brother could not
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Speaker 1: tell him. Afterwards, he found that the vague feeling of
8:13
Speaker 1: alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway,
8:16
Speaker 1: and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all
8:20
Speaker 1: over the Southwestern Lung Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew and
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Speaker 1: so forth at unnaturally early hours. But not a soul
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Speaker 1: had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone
8:34
Speaker 1: connected with the terminus seemed ill tempered. About five o'clock,
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Speaker 1: the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by
8:43
Speaker 1: the opening of the line of communication, which is almost
8:46
Speaker 1: invariably closed between the southeastern and the southwestern stations, and
8:52
Speaker 1: the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages
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Speaker 1: crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought
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Speaker 1: up from Woolidge and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was
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Speaker 1: an exchange of pleasantries, you'll get eaten with the beast
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Speaker 1: tamers and so forth. A little while after that, a
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Speaker 1: squad of police came into the station and began to
9:15
Speaker 1: clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went
9:18
Speaker 1: out into the street again. The church bells were ringing
9:22
Speaker 1: for evensong, and a squad of Salvation armulasses came singing
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Speaker 1: down Waterloo Road. On the bridge, a number of loafers
9:31
Speaker 1: were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down
9:34
Speaker 1: the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and
9:39
Speaker 1: the clock tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against
9:42
Speaker 1: one of the most peaceful skies. It is possible to
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Speaker 1: imagine a sky of gold barred with long transverse stripes
9:49
Speaker 1: of reddish purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body.
9:54
Speaker 1: One of the men there a reservist. He said he
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Speaker 1: was told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering
10:00
Speaker 1: in the west. In Wellington Street, my brother met a
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Speaker 1: couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out
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Speaker 1: of Fleet Street, with still wet newspapers and staring placards
10:11
Speaker 1: dreadful catastrophe. They bawled one to the other down Wellington Street,
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Speaker 1: fighting at Weybridge full description repulse of the Martians, London
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Speaker 1: in danger. He had to give threatens for a copy
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Speaker 1: of that paper. Then it was, and then only that
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Speaker 1: he realized something of the full power and terror of
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Speaker 1: these monsters. He learned that they were not merely a
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Speaker 1: handful of small, sluggish creatures, but that they were minds
10:41
Speaker 1: swaying vast mechanical bodies, and that they could move swiftly
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Speaker 1: and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns
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Speaker 1: could not stand against them. They were described as vast,
10:53
Speaker 1: spider like machines, nearly one hundred feet high, capable of
10:58
Speaker 1: the speed of an express train, and was able to
11:00
Speaker 1: shoot out a beam of intense heat. Masked batteries, chiefly
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Speaker 1: of field guns, had been planted in the country about
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Speaker 1: Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London.
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Speaker 1: Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames,
11:17
Speaker 1: and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In
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Speaker 1: the other cases, the shells had missed and the batteries
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Speaker 1: had been at once annihilated by the heat rays. Heavy
11:28
Speaker 1: losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the
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Speaker 1: despatch was optimistic. The Martians had been repulsed, they were
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Speaker 1: not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders.
11:40
Speaker 1: Again in the circle about Woking, signalers with heliographs were
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Speaker 1: pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in
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Speaker 1: rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Wooldge, even from the North,
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Speaker 1: among others. Long wire guns of ninety five tons from Woolige,
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Speaker 1: altogether one hundred and sixteen were in position or being
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Speaker 1: hastily placed, chiefly covering London. Never before in England had
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Speaker 1: there been such a vast or rapid concentration of military material.
12:15
Speaker 1: Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be
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Speaker 1: destroyed at once by high explosives which were being rapidly
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Speaker 1: manufactured and distributed. No doubt ran the report. The situation
12:28
Speaker 1: was of the strangest and gravest description, but the public
12:32
Speaker 1: was exhorted to avoid and discourage panic. No doubt the
12:37
Speaker 1: Martians were strange and terrible in the extreme, but at
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Speaker 1: the outside there could not be more than twenty of
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Speaker 1: them against Armilians. The authorities had reason to suppose from
12:49
Speaker 1: the size of the cylinders that at the outside there
12:52
Speaker 1: could not be more than five in each cylinder, fifteen altogether,
12:56
Speaker 1: and one at least was disposed of, perhaps more. The
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Speaker 1: public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger,
13:04
Speaker 1: and elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of
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Speaker 1: the people in the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with
13:12
Speaker 1: reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability
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Speaker 1: of the authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasi
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Speaker 1: proclamation closed. This was printed in enormous type on paper
13:25
Speaker 1: so fresh that it was still wet, and there had
13:27
Speaker 1: been no time to add a word of comment. It
13:31
Speaker 1: was curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the
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Speaker 1: usual contents of the paper had been hacked and taken
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Speaker 1: out to give this place. All down Wellington Street, people
13:42
Speaker 1: could be seen fluttering out the pink sheets and reading,
13:45
Speaker 1: and the strand was suddenly noisy with the voices of
13:48
Speaker 1: an army of hawkers. Following these pioneers, men came scrambling
13:53
Speaker 1: off buses to secure copies. Certainly, this news excited people
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Speaker 1: intensely whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map
14:02
Speaker 1: shop in the strand were being taken down, my brother said,
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Speaker 1: and a man in his Sunday raiment lemon yellow gloves
14:08
Speaker 1: even was visible inside the window, hastily fastening maps of
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Speaker 1: Surrey to the glass. Going along the strand to Trafalgar
14:17
Speaker 1: Square the paper in his hand, my brother saw some
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Speaker 1: of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man
14:24
Speaker 1: with his wife and two boys, and some articles of
14:27
Speaker 1: furniture in a cart such as greengroses use. He was
14:31
Speaker 1: driving from the direction of Westminster Bridge, and close behind
14:34
Speaker 1: him came a hay wagon with five or six respectable
14:37
Speaker 1: looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The
14:41
Speaker 1: faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance
14:45
Speaker 1: contrasted conspicuously with the sabbath best appearance of the people
14:49
Speaker 1: on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them
14:53
Speaker 1: out of cabs. They stopped at the square as if
14:57
Speaker 1: undecided which way to take, and finally turned ea eastward
15:00
Speaker 1: along the strand. Some way behind these came a man
15:04
Speaker 1: in workday clothes riding one of those old fashioned tricycles
15:08
Speaker 1: with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white
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Speaker 1: in the face. My brother turned down towards Victoria and
15:16
Speaker 1: met a number of such people. He had a vague
15:19
Speaker 1: idea that he might see something of me. He noticed
15:23
Speaker 1: an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of
15:28
Speaker 1: the refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses.
15:32
Speaker 1: One was professing to have seen the Martians boilers on stilts,
15:37
Speaker 1: I tell you, striding along like men. Most of them
15:42
Speaker 1: were excited and animated by their strange experience. Beyond Victoria,
15:48
Speaker 1: the public houses were doing a lively trade with these arrivals.
15:52
Speaker 1: At all the street corners, groups of people were reading papers,
15:56
Speaker 1: talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday vs. Visitors.
16:02
Speaker 1: They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at
16:05
Speaker 1: last the roads, my brother said, were like epsom High
16:08
Speaker 1: Street on a derby day. My brother addressed several of
16:12
Speaker 1: these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers from most. None of
16:18
Speaker 1: them could tell him any news of Woking, except one man,
16:21
Speaker 1: who assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on
16:24
Speaker 1: the previous night. I'll come from Byfleet, he said. Man
16:29
Speaker 1: on a bicycle came through the place in the early
16:31
Speaker 1: morning and ran from door to door warning us to
16:33
Speaker 1: come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look
16:38
Speaker 1: and there were clouds of smoke to the south, nothing
16:40
Speaker 1: but smoke and not a soul coming that way. Then
16:44
Speaker 1: we heard the guns at Chertsey and folks coming from Weybridge.
16:48
Speaker 1: So I've locked up my house and come on. At
16:51
Speaker 1: the time there was a strong feeling in the streets
16:54
Speaker 1: that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to
16:57
Speaker 1: dispose of the invaders. Without all this Inconvenieans. About eight
17:02
Speaker 1: o'clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all
17:06
Speaker 1: over the south of London. My brother could not hear
17:09
Speaker 1: it for the traffic in the main thoroughfares, but by
17:12
Speaker 1: striking through the quiet back streets to the river, he
17:15
Speaker 1: was able to distinguish it quite plainly. He walked from
17:20
Speaker 1: Westminster to his apartments near Regent's Park about two. He
17:24
Speaker 1: was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at
17:27
Speaker 1: the evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined
17:32
Speaker 1: to run, even as mine had run on Saturday. On
17:35
Speaker 1: military details. He thought of all those silent, expectant guns
17:41
Speaker 1: of the suddenly nomadic countryside. He tried to imagine boilers
17:45
Speaker 1: on stilts one hundred feet high. There were one or
17:50
Speaker 1: two cart loads of refugees passing along Oxford Street, and
17:53
Speaker 1: several in the Marlburne Road, but so slowly was the
17:57
Speaker 1: news spreading that Regent Street and Portland Play were full
18:01
Speaker 1: of their usual Sunday night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups,
18:06
Speaker 1: and along the edge of Regent's Park there were as
18:08
Speaker 1: many silent couples walking out together under the scattered gas
18:12
Speaker 1: lamps as ever there had been. The night was warm
18:17
Speaker 1: and still and a little oppressive. The sound of guns
18:20
Speaker 1: continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet
18:25
Speaker 1: lightning in the south. He read and re read the paper,
18:29
Speaker 1: fearing the worst had happened to me. He was restless,
18:34
Speaker 1: and after supper, prowled out again aimlessly. He returned and
18:39
Speaker 1: tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes.
18:44
Speaker 1: He went to bed a little after midnight, and was
18:47
Speaker 1: awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday
18:50
Speaker 1: by the sound of door knockers, feet running in the
18:53
Speaker 1: street distant drumming and a clamor of bells. Red reflections
18:59
Speaker 1: danced on the sea. For a moment, he lay astonished,
19:04
Speaker 1: wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad.
19:08
Speaker 1: Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
19:12
Speaker 1: His room was an attic, and as he thrust his
19:14
Speaker 1: head out, up and down the street there were a
19:17
Speaker 1: dozen echoes to the noise of his window, sash and
19:20
Speaker 1: heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Inquiries were
19:25
Speaker 1: being shouted. They are coming, bawled a policeman hammering at
19:29
Speaker 1: the door. The martians are coming, and hurried to the
19:33
Speaker 1: next door. The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from
19:37
Speaker 1: the Albany Street barracks, and every church with an ear
19:41
Speaker 1: shot was hard at work, killing sleep with a vehement,
19:44
Speaker 1: disorderly toxsin. There was a noise of doors opening, and
19:49
Speaker 1: window after window in the houses opposite flashed from darkness
19:52
Speaker 1: into yellow illumination. Up the street came galloping a closed carriage,
19:58
Speaker 1: bursting abruptly into noises the corner, rising to a clattering
20:02
Speaker 1: climax under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance.
20:07
Speaker 1: Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs,
20:10
Speaker 1: the forerunners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going
20:14
Speaker 1: for the most parts to Chalk Farm Station, where the
20:17
Speaker 1: Northwestern Special trains were loading up, instead of coming down
20:20
Speaker 1: the gradient into Euston. For a long time, my brother
20:25
Speaker 1: stared out of the window in blank astonishment, watching the
20:28
Speaker 1: policemen hammering at door after door and delivering their incomprehensible message.
20:34
Speaker 1: Then the door behind him opened and the man who
20:37
Speaker 1: lodged across the landing came in, dressed only in shirt,
20:40
Speaker 1: trousers and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his
20:44
Speaker 1: hair disordered from his pillow. What the devil is it?
20:48
Speaker 1: He asked? A fire What a devil of a row?
20:53
Speaker 1: They both craned their heads out of the window, straining
20:56
Speaker 1: to hear what the policemen were shouting. People were coming
20:59
Speaker 1: out of the side streets and standing in groups at
21:02
Speaker 1: the corners talking. What the devil is it all about?
21:06
Speaker 1: Said my brother's fellow lodger. My brother answered him vaguely,
21:11
Speaker 1: and began to dress, running with each garment to the
21:14
Speaker 1: window in order to miss nothing of the growing excitement,
21:18
Speaker 1: And presently, men selling unnaturally early newspapers came bawling into
21:22
Speaker 1: the street. London in danger of suffocation. The Kingston and
21:27
Speaker 1: Richmond defenses forced fearful massacres in the Thames Valley, and
21:32
Speaker 1: all about him in the rooms below, in the houses
21:36
Speaker 1: on each side, and across the road and behind, in
21:39
Speaker 1: the park terraces, and in the hundred other streets of
21:42
Speaker 1: that part of Marylebone and the Westbourne Park District, and
21:46
Speaker 1: Saint Pancras and Westwood, and northward in Kilburn and Saint
21:49
Speaker 1: John's Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury
21:54
Speaker 1: and Haggerston and Hoxton, and indeed throughout all the vastness
21:59
Speaker 1: of London, from Ealing to east Ham. People were rubbing
22:03
Speaker 1: their eyes and opening windows to stare out and ask
22:06
Speaker 1: aimless questions, dressing hastily as the first breath of the
22:10
Speaker 1: coming storm of fear blew through the streets. It was
22:14
Speaker 1: the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone
22:19
Speaker 1: to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened
22:23
Speaker 1: in the small hours of Monday morning to a vivid
22:26
Speaker 1: sense of danger. Unable from his window to learn what
22:31
Speaker 1: was happening, my brother went down and out into the street,
22:35
Speaker 1: just as the sky between the parapets of the houses
22:37
Speaker 1: grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on
22:41
Speaker 1: foot and in vehicles grew more numerous. Every moment black smoke.
22:47
Speaker 1: He heard people crying, and again, black smoke. The contagion
22:53
Speaker 1: of such a unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother
22:57
Speaker 1: hesitated on the doorstep, he saw another news vendor approaching
23:01
Speaker 1: and got a paper forthwith. The man was running away
23:05
Speaker 1: with the rest and selling his papers for a shilling
23:08
Speaker 1: each as he ran a grotesque mingling of prophet and panic.
23:13
Speaker 1: And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch
23:17
Speaker 1: of the Commander in chief. The Martians are able to
23:21
Speaker 1: discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapor by
23:26
Speaker 1: means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond,
23:31
Speaker 1: Kingston and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying
23:36
Speaker 1: everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them.
23:41
Speaker 1: There is no safety from the black smoke. But in
23:44
Speaker 1: instant flight that was all. But it was enough. The
23:50
Speaker 1: whole population of the great six million city was stirring, slipping, running.
23:56
Speaker 1: Presently it would be pouring en masse northward black smoke,
24:02
Speaker 1: The voices cried fire, The bells of the neighboring church
24:08
Speaker 1: made a jangling tumult. A cart carelessly driven smashed amid
24:12
Speaker 1: shrieks and curses against the water trough up the street.
24:17
Speaker 1: Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the houses,
24:21
Speaker 1: and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And
24:25
Speaker 1: overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm.
24:32
Speaker 1: He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms,
24:35
Speaker 1: and up and down stairs. Behind him, his landlady came
24:39
Speaker 1: to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl.
24:42
Speaker 1: Her husband followed, ejaculating. As my brother began to realize
24:47
Speaker 1: the import of all these things, he turned hastily to
24:50
Speaker 1: his own room, put all his available money, some ten
24:54
Speaker 1: pounds altogether, into his pockets, and went out again into
24:58
Speaker 1: the streets. End of Section fourteen.