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1Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares,
2crescents, gardens--already derelict--spread out like a huge map, and in the southward blotted. Over Ealing, Richmond,
3Wimbledon, it would have seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart. Steadily, incessantly, each black
4splash grew and spread, shooting out ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising ground, now
5pouring swiftly over a crest into a new-found valley, exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper.
6And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river, the glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and
7methodically spreading their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over that, laying it again with their
8steam jets when it had served its purpose, and taking possession of the conquered country. They do not seem to have
9aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any
10stores of powder they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and there. They were hamstringing
11mankind. They seemed in no hurry to extend the field of their operations, and did not come beyond the central part of
12London all that day. It is possible that a very considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through
13Monday morning. Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the Black Smoke. Until about midday the Pool of
14London was an astonishing scene. Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous sums of money
15offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned.
16About one o'clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the black vapour appeared between the arches of
17Blackfriars Bridge. At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a
18multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to
19fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront. People were actually clambering down the
20piers of the bridge from above. When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and waded down the river,
21nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse. Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The sixth
22star fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it
23far beyond the hills. On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across the sea, made its way through the
24swarming country towards Colchester. The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of London was
25confirmed. They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it was said, at Neasden. But they did not come into my brother's
26view until the morrow. That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need of provisions. As they grew
27hungry the rights of property ceased to be regarded. Farmers were out to defend their cattle-sheds, granaries, and
28ripening root crops with arms in their hands. A number of people now, like my brother, had their faces eastward, and
29there were some desperate souls even going back towards London to get food. These were chiefly people from the northern
30suburbs, whose knowledge of the Black Smoke came by hearsay. He heard that about half the members of the government had
31gathered at Birmingham, and that enormous quantities of high explosives were being prepared to be used in automatic
32mines across the Midland counties. He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the desertions of the
33first day's panic, had resumed traffic, and was running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of
34the home counties. There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar announcing that large stores of flour were available in
35the northern towns and that within twenty-four hours bread would be distributed among the starving people in the
36neighbourhood. But this intelligence did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three pressed
37eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution than this promise. Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone
38else hear more of it. That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose Hill. It fell while Miss Elphinstone was
39watching, for she took that duty alternately with my brother. She saw it. On Wednesday the three fugitives--they had
40passed the night in a field of unripe wheat--reached Chelmsford, and there a body of the inhabitants, calling itself the
41Committee of Public Supply, seized the pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the promise of
42a share in it the next day. Here there were rumours of Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey
43Powder Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders. People were watching for Martians here from the church
44towers. My brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at once to the coast rather than wait for
45food, although all three of them were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, strangely enough,
46seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they
47suddenly came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine.
48For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and
49Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a huge sickle-shaped curve that
50vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks--English, Scotch, French,
51Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats; and beyond were ships of larger burden, a
52multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old
53white transport even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and along the blue coast across the
54Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which
55also extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon. About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water,
56almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in
57sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea--for that day there was a dead calm--lay a serpent
58of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready
59for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent
60it. At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the assurances of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic. She
61had never been out of England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a foreign country, and so
62forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar. She had been
63growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two days' journeyings. Her great idea was to return
64to Stanmore. Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore. They would find George at Stanmore.... It was with the
65greatest difficulty they could get her down to the beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the
66attention of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and drove a bargain for thirty-six pounds
67for the three. The steamer was going, these men said, to Ostend. It was about two o'clock when my brother, having paid
68their fares at the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his charges. There was food aboard, albeit at
69exorbitant prices, and the three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward. There were already a
70couple of score of passengers aboard, some of whom had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the captain
71lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously
72crowded. He would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of guns that began about that hour in the
73south. As if in answer, the ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags. A jet of smoke sprang out
74of her funnels.
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