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. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky—a couple of hundred people, perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent’s voice:
“Keep back! Keep back!”
A boy came running towards me.
“It’s a-movin’,” he said to me as he passed; “a-screwin’ and a-screwin’ out. I don’t like it. I’m a-goin’ ‘ome, I am.”
I went on to the crowd. There were really, I should think, two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling(1) one another, the one or two ladies there being by no means the least active.
“He’s fallen in the pit!” cried some one.
“Keep back!” said several.
The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through. Every one seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit.
“I say!” said Ogilvy; “help keep these idiots back. We don’t know what’s in the confounded(2) thing, you know!”
I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble(3) out of the hole again. The crowd had pushed him in.
This story is from the H.G Wells edition of The War of the Worlds.
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This story is from the H.G Wells edition of The War of the Worlds.
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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.
