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1Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made.
2Anyone coming along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the sight--a dwindling multitude of
3perhaps a hundred people or more standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes, behind gates and
4hedges, saying little to one another and that in short, excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of
5sand. The barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black against the burning sky, and in the sand-pits was a row
6of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the ground. V. THE HEAT-RAY. After the glimpse
7I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of
8fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I
9was a battleground of fear and curiosity. I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate longing to
10peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the
11sand-heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus,
12flashed across the sunset and was immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at
13its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there? Most of the spectators had
14gathered in one or two groups--one a little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of
15Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approached--he was, I perceived, a
16neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name--and accosted. But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation.
17"What ugly brutes!" he said. "Good God! What ugly brutes!" He repeated this over and over again. "Did you see a man in
18the pit?" I said; but he made no answer to that. We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving,
19I fancy, a certain comfort in one another's company. Then I shifted my position to a little knoll that gave me the
20advantage of a yard or more of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards Woking. The sunset
21faded to twilight before anything further happened. The crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and
22I heard now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham dispersed. There was scarcely an
23intimation of movement from the pit. It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I suppose the new
24arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement
25upon the sand-pits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder
26remained unbroken. Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and advance again, spreading
27out as they did so in a thin irregular crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, too, on my
28side began to move towards the pit. Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand-pits, and heard
29the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty
30yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was
31waving a white flag. This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were
32evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by approaching
33them with signals, that we too were intelligent. Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left.
34It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with
35others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the
36circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet
37distances. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three
38distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air. This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would
39be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards
40Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after
41their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible. Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people
42with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the
43black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then
44slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit,
45and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare
46leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them
47and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. Then, by the light of
48their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run. I stood staring, not as
49yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was
50something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as
51the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull
52thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly
53set alight. It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I
54perceived it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to stir. I heard
55the crackle of fire in the sand-pits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an
56invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between me and the Martians, and all along a
57curving line beyond the sand-pits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away to the left
58where the road from Woking station opens out on the common. Forth-with the hissing and humming ceased, and the black,
59dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit. All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood
60motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept through a full circle, it must
61inevitably have slain me in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark and
62unfamiliar. The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where its roadways lay grey and pale under
63the deep blue sky of the early night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were mustering, and in
64the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell
65came out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and their appliances were altogether invisible,
66save for that thin mast upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there
67smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the
68evening air. Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The little group of black specks with the
69flag of white had been swept out of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had scarcely been
70broken. It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling
71upon me from without, came--fear. With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather.
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