WithinSource

Display

Text size

Font

Theme

Spacing

Width

Alignment

These choices apply to Text. Pages keeps the original PDF.

Opening

The war of the worlds H. G. Wells Public domain text from Project Gutenberg. / The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? . . . Are we or they Lords of the World? . . . And how are all things made for man? KEPLER (quoted in _The Anatomy of Melancholy_) Contents BOOK ONE. THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. II. THE FALLING STAR. III. ON HORSELL COMMON. IV. THE CYLINDER OPENS. V. THE HEAT-RAY. VI. THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD. VII. HOW I REACHED HOME. VIII. FRIDAY NIGHT. IX. THE FIGHTING BEGINS. X. IN THE STORM. XI. AT THE WINDOW. XII. WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. 1 XIII. HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE. XIV. IN LONDON. XV. WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY. XVI. THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. XVII. THE THUNDER CHILD . BOOK TWO. THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS I. UNDER FOOT. II. WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE. III. THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT. IV. THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. V. THE STILLNESS. VI. THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS. VII. THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL. VIII. DEAD LONDON. IX. WRECKAGE. X. THE EPILOGUE. BOOK ONE THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire 2

The war of the worlds

Page 53 of 160, printed 53

Text Pages

The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight. The sojers ll stop em, said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A haziness rose over the treetops. Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff of smoke that jerked up into the air and hung; and forthwith the ground heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished. Here they are! shouted a man in a blue jersey. Yonder! D yer see them? Yonder! Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly towards the river. Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds. Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armoured bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer. One on the extreme left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air, and the ghostly, terrible Heat-Ray I had already seen on Friday night smote towards Chertsey, and struck the town. At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd near the water s edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck. There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence. Then a hoarse murmur and a movement of feet a splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and sent me staggering with a blow from the corner of his burden. A woman thrust at me with her hand and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of the 53

Menu

Menu

The war of the worlds