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1I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, satisfying myself now for the first time that the hood did indeed
2contain a Martian. As the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of his integument and the brightness of his
3eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little cage
4that hunched upon its back. Then something--something struggling violently--was lifted high against the sky, a black,
5vague enigma against the starlight; and as this black object came down again, I saw by the green brightness that it was
6a man. For an instant he was clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middle-aged man, well dressed; three days before,
7he must have been walking the world, a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of light
8on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence. And then began a
9shrieking and a sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians. I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped
10my hands over my ears, and bolted into the scullery. The curate, who had been crouching silently with his arms over his
11head, looked up as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after me. That night, as we
12lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an
13urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape; but afterwards, during the second day, I was able
14to consider our position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable of discussion; this new and
15culminating atrocity had robbed him of all vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to the
16level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could face
17the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for absolute despair. Our chief chance
18lay in the possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment. Or even if they kept it
19permanently, they might not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might be afforded us. I also
20weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging a way out in a direction away from the pit, but the chances of our
21emerging within sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at first too great. And I should have had to do all the
22digging myself. The curate would certainly have failed me. It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I
23saw the lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the Martians feed. After that experience I avoided
24the hole in the wall for the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours
25digging with my hatchet as silently as possible; but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth
26collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having
27no spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by excavation. It says much for the
28impression the Martians had made upon me that at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about
29by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns. It was
30very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save
31for a fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handling-machine that was buried out of my sight
32in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale glow from
33the handling-machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking
34of the handling-machine, quite still. That night was a beautiful serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have
35the sky to herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that made me listen. Then I heard quite
36distinctly a booming exactly like the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a long interval six
37again. And that was all. IV. THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the
38last time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the
39curate had gone back into the scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and quietly into the
40scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of
41burgundy. For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood
42panting and threatening each other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told him of my
43determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let
44him eat any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at the food. I had been dozing, but in an
45instant I was awake. All day and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and complaining of
46his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day, but to me it seemed--it seems now--an interminable length of
47time. And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For two vast days we struggled in undertones
48and wrestling contests. There were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and persuaded him, and
49once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could get
50water. But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed beyond reason. He would neither desist from his attacks on
51the food nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our imprisonment endurable he would
52not observe. Slowly I began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole companion in
53this close and sickly darkness was a man insane. From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered
54at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the
55weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man. On the eighth day he began to talk
56aloud instead of whispering, and nothing I could do would moderate his speech. "It is just, O God!" he would say, over
57and over again. "It is just. On me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen short. There was
58poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust, and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly--my God, what
59folly!--when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called upon them to repent--repent! . . . Oppressors of
60the poor and needy! . . . The wine press of God!" Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld
61from him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise his voice--I prayed him not to. He perceived
62a hold on me--he threatened he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared me; but any concession
63would have shortened our chance of escape beyond estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might
64not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked with his voice rising slowly, through the greater
65part of the eighth and ninth days--threats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half-sane and always frothy repentance
66for his vacant sham of God's service, such as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed
67strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist. "Be still!" I implored. He rose to his knees, for he had been
68sitting in the darkness near the copper.
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