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1For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely
2dominated my mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in the practicability of his
3astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily
4with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by
5apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after
6scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the
7coal cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week upon--it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long,
8which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney Hill--I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and
9his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that morning
10until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We
11refreshed ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found a curious relief from
12the aching strangeness of the world in this steady labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and
13presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I worked there all the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a
14purpose again. After working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached,
15the chances we had of missing it altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long tunnel, when it was
16possible to get into the drain at once down one of the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to me, too, that
17the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these
18things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me. "We're working well," he said. He put down his spade. "Let
19us knock off a bit," he said. "I think it's time we reconnoitred from the roof of the house." I was for going on, and
20after a little hesitation he resumed his spade; and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he at
21once. "Why were you walking about the common," I said, "instead of being here?" "Taking the air," he said. "I was coming
22back. It's safer by night." "But the work?" "Oh, one can't always work," he said, and in a flash I saw the man plain. He
23hesitated, holding his spade. "We ought to reconnoitre now," he said, "because if any come near they may hear the spades
24and drop upon us unawares." I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and stood on a ladder
25peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under
26shelter of the parapet. From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but we could see the river
27below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees
28about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its
29clusters. It was strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their propagation. About
30us neither had gained a footing; laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of laurels and
31hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze
32hid the northward hills. The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still remained in London. "One
33night last week," he said, "some fools got the electric light in order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus
34ablaze, crowded with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting till dawn. A man who was there
35told me. And as the day came they became aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking down at
36them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road
37towards them, and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away." Grotesque gleam of a time no history
38will ever fully describe! From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose plans again. He grew
39enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than half believed
40in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on
41doing nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that he personally was to capture and fight the
42great machine. After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed to resume digging, and when he
43suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away and returned
44with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great
45occasion. "There's some champagne in the cellar," he said. "We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy," said I.
46"No," said he; "I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We've a heavy enough task before us! Let us take a rest and
47gather strength while we may. Look at these blistered hands!" And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon
48playing cards after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London between us, I taking the northern side
49and he the southern, we played for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober reader, it is
50absolutely true, and what is more remarkable, I found the card game and several others we played extremely interesting.
51Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear
52prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and
53playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When
54dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a lamp. After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the
55artilleryman finished the champagne. We went on smoking the cigars. He was no longer the energetic regenerator of his
56species I had encountered in the morning. He was still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more thoughtful
57optimism. I remember he wound up with my health, proposed in a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence. I
58took a cigar, and went upstairs to look at the lights of which he had spoken that blazed so greenly along the Highgate
59hills. At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley. The northern hills were shrouded in darkness; the
60fires near Kensington glowed redly, and now and then an orange-red tongue of flame flashed up and vanished in the deep
61blue night. All the rest of London was black. Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale, violet-purple
62fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze. For a space I could not understand it, and then I knew that it must
63be the red weed from which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realisation my dormant sense of wonder, my sense
64of the proportion of things, awoke again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear, glowing high in the west, and then
65gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead and Highgate. I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering
66at the grotesque changes of the day. I recalled my mental states from the midnight prayer to the foolish card-playing. I
67had a violent revulsion of feeling. I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful symbolism. My folly came
68to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a traitor to my wife and to my kind; I was filled with remorse. I resolved to
69leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to go on into London. There, it
70seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof
71when the late moon rose. VIII. DEAD LONDON.
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