of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through
grass from the advance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay
on the towing path.
Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards
me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out
flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and
down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and that,
and came down to the water s edge not fifty yards from where I stood.
It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the water in its track
rose in a boiling weal crested with steam. I turned shoreward.
In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had
rushed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised,
I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had
my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in
full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that
runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing
but death.
I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a score
of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel, whirling
it this way and that and lifting again; of a long suspense, and then of
the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them, now clear
and then presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding
interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of river and
meadow. And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle I had
escaped.
XIII.
HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE.
After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons,
the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common;
and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed
companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible
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