closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of
electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions,
which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was
attained. Such quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling-machine
which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the
cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians
lying beyond it in the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual
tentacles, and moving feebly after their vast journey across space.
While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight, and
noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me of his
presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face,
and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one
of us to peep through; and so I had to forego watching them for a time
while he enjoyed that privilege.
When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together
several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder
into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on
the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting
jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and
embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which
had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had
kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked.
So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at
all.
III.
THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT.
The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole
into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian
might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later date we began to
feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of the
sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at
first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery
115