trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards
Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of
the evening air.
Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The
little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out
of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had
scarcely been broken.
It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected,
and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without,
came fear.
With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather.
The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of
the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an
extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently
as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back.
I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played
with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this
mysterious death as swift as the passage of light would leap after me
from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down.
VI.
THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD.
It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so
swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to
generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute
non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam
against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror
of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse
projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these
details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the
21