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WRECKAGE

And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly1, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.

WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE

After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone.

WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON

As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.

WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY

It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford.

UNDER FOOT

In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking1 in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke.

THE “THUNDER CHILD”

Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have annihilated1 the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly through the home counties.

THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS

For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security.

THE STILLNESS

My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every scrap of food had gone..

THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL

I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to Leatherhead.

THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD

It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute nonconductivity.

THE HEAT-RAY

After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination1 paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of fear and curiosity.

THE FIGHTING BEGINS

Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude1 too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer.

THE FALLING STAR

Then came the night of the first falling star.

THE EXODUS FROM LONDON

All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-Eastern people at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and trains were being filled.

THE EVE OF THE WAR

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world.

THE DEATH OF THE CURATE

It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the scullery.

THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT

The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole into the scullery1, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian might see down upon us behind our barrier.

THE CYLINDER OPENS

When I returned to the common the sun was setting. Scattered groups were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were returning.

ON HORSELL COMMON

I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay.

IN LONDON

My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking.

IN THE STORM

Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill.

HOW I REACHED HOME

My terror had fallen from me like a garment.

AT THE WINDOW

I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of exhausting themselves.

HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE

After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris1 of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself.

DEAD LONDON

After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and by the High Street across the bridge to Fulham.

FRIDAY NIGHT

All over the district people were dining and supping; working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes love-making, students sat over their books.