knew not what and then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this
gaunt quiet.
London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses
were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a
thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my
temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was
tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could
not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John s Wood Road, and ran
headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from
the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen s
shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and
while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards
Regent s Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw
down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of
Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars, was a
third Martian, erect and motionless like the others.
An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would
save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly
towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I
saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about
the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the
road.
I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund s Terrace (I
waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from
the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass
before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the
crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it it was the final and
largest place the Martians had made and from behind these heaps there
rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog
ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew
real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation,
as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood
hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore.
In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon
its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space
it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of
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