Chapters 1 - 5
In the last years of the nineteenth century, no one believed that this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than our own. At most people believed there might be living things on Mars, perhaps less developed than us and ready to welcome visitors.
The end of all life, which is a distant possibility for us, is an immediate problem for the Martians. The attack came six years ago. Towards midnight on 12 August, one astronomer noticed a great cloud of hot gas on the surface of the planet. There was another sudden cloud of gas from the distant planet as a second missile started on its way to Earth from Mars, just under twenty-four hours later after the first one. Only a few nights later, the first falling star was seen towards the east. The Thing itself lay almost completely buried in the earth. The uncovered part looked like an enormous cylinder, about thirty meters across each end. It’s a cylinder –an artificial cylinder! And there’s something inside.’
The crowd around the pit had increased to a couple of hundred people, perhaps. A big grayish round creature, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. The Martians were using some kind of invisible ray. The fear I felt was panic – terror not only of the Martians but of the dark and stillness all around me. A few minutes earlier there had only been three things in my mind: the great size of the night and space and nature, my own weakness and unhappiness, and the near approach of death.
My wife was shocked when she saw me, because I looked so tired and dirty. I went into the dinning- room, sat down, and told her the things that I had seen.
One or two adventurous people went into the darkness and crawled quite near the Martians, but they never returned, because now and again a light- ray swept round the common, and the Heat- Ray was ready to follow. And all night the sound of hammering could be hard as the Martians worked, on the machines they were making ready. A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsay Road, Woking, saw a star fall from the sky into the woods to the north-west. This was the second cylinder.
During the day the Martians did not show themselves. They were busy in the pit, and there was the sound of hammering and column of smoke.
It was an enormous tripod, higher than many houses, stepping over the young trees. It was a walking engine of shining metal. Then suddenly, the trees in the wood ahead of me were pushed to the side and a second enormous tripod appeared, rushing, as it seemed, straight towards me.
The tripod walked slowly over the common. A kind of arm held a complicated metal case, out of which the Heat- Ray flashed as it killed anyone who was still moving.
In the last years of the nineteenth century, no one believed that this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than our own. At most people believed there might be living things on Mars, perhaps less developed than us and ready to welcome visitors.
The end of all life, which is a distant possibility for us, is an immediate problem for the Martians. The attack came six years ago. Towards midnight on 12 August, one astronomer noticed a great cloud of hot gas on the surface of the planet. There was another sudden cloud of gas from the distant planet as a second missile started on its way to Earth from Mars, just under twenty-four hours later after the first one. Only a few nights later, the first falling star was seen towards the east. The Thing itself lay almost completely buried in the earth. The uncovered part looked like an enormous cylinder, about thirty meters across each end. It’s a cylinder –an artificial cylinder! And there’s something inside.’
The crowd around the pit had increased to a couple of hundred people, perhaps. A big grayish round creature, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. The Martians were using some kind of invisible ray. The fear I felt was panic – terror not only of the Martians but of the dark and stillness all around me. A few minutes earlier there had only been three things in my mind: the great size of the night and space and nature, my own weakness and unhappiness, and the near approach of death.
My wife was shocked when she saw me, because I looked so tired and dirty. I went into the dinning- room, sat down, and told her the things that I had seen.
One or two adventurous people went into the darkness and crawled quite near the Martians, but they never returned, because now and again a light- ray swept round the common, and the Heat- Ray was ready to follow. And all night the sound of hammering could be hard as the Martians worked, on the machines they were making ready. A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsay Road, Woking, saw a star fall from the sky into the woods to the north-west. This was the second cylinder.
During the day the Martians did not show themselves. They were busy in the pit, and there was the sound of hammering and column of smoke.
It was an enormous tripod, higher than many houses, stepping over the young trees. It was a walking engine of shining metal. Then suddenly, the trees in the wood ahead of me were pushed to the side and a second enormous tripod appeared, rushing, as it seemed, straight towards me.
The tripod walked slowly over the common. A kind of arm held a complicated metal case, out of which the Heat- Ray flashed as it killed anyone who was still moving.
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