In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking1 in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke. There I will resume. We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next day--the day of the panic--in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke from the rest of the world. We could do nothing but wait in aching inactivity during those two weary days.
My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife. I figured her at Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man. I paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence. My cousin I knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of man to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly2. What was needed now was not bravery, but circumspection3. My only consolation4 was to believe that the Martians were moving Londonward and away from her. Such vague anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful. I grew very weary and irritable5 with the curate's perpetual ejaculations; I tired of the sight of his selfish despair. After some ineffectual remonstrance6 I kept away from him, staying in a room--evidently a children's schoolroom--containing globes, forms, and copybooks. When he followed me thither7, I went to a box room at the top of the house and, in order to be alone with my aching miseries8, locked myself in.
We were hopelessly hemmed9 in by the Black Smoke all that day and the morning of the next. There were signs of people in the next house on Sunday evening--a face at a window and moving lights, and later the slamming of a door. But I do not know who these people were, nor what became of them. We saw nothing of them next day. The Black Smoke drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house that hid us.
A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff with a jet of superheated steam that hissed10 against the walls, smashed all the windows it touched, and scalded the curate's hand as he fled out of the front room. When at last we crept across the sodden11 rooms and looked out again, the country northward12 was as though a black snowstorm had passed over it. Looking towards the river, we were astonished to see an unaccountable redness mingling13 with the black of the scorched14 meadows.
For a time we did not see how this change affected15 our position, save that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke. But later I perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get away. So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream of action returned. But the curate was lethargic16, unreasonable17.
"We are safe here," he repeated; "safe here."
I resolved to leave him--would that I had! Wiser now for the artilleryman's teaching, I sought out food and drink. I had found oil and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel18 shirt that I found in one of the bedrooms. When it was clear to him that I meant to go alone--had reconciled myself to going alone--he suddenly roused himself to come. And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we started about five o'clock, as I should judge, along the blackened poad to Sunbury.
In Sunbury, and at intervals19 along the road, were dead bodies lying in contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall21 of cindery22 powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange and unfamiliar23 appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating24 drift. We went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro under the chestnuts25, and some men and women hurrying in the distance towards Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham. These were the first people we saw.
Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke, and there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull26 to shift their quarters. I have an impression that many of the houses here were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for flight. Here too the evidence of a hasty rout27 was abundant along the road. I remember most vividly28 three smashed bicycles in a heap, pounded into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts. We crossed Richmond Bridge about half past eight. We hurried across the exposed bridge, of course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, some many feet across. I did not know what these were--there was no time for scrutiny--and I put a more horrible interpretation29 on them than they deserved. Here again on the Surrey side were black dust that had once been smoke, and dead bodies--a heap near the approach to the station; but we had no glimpse of the Martians until we were some way towards Barnes.
We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running down a side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed deserted30. Up the hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the town of Richmond there was no trace of the Black Smoke.
Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people running, and the upperworks of a Martian fightingmachine loomed31 in sight over the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us. We stood aghast at our danger, and had the Martian looked down we must immediately have perished. We were so terrified that we dared not go on, but turned aside and hid in a shed in a garden. There the curate crouched32, weeping silently, and refusing to stir again.
But my fixed33 idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest, and in the twilight34 I ventured out again. I went through a shrubbery, and along a passage beside a big house standing35 in its own grounds, and so emerged upon the road towards Kew. The curate I left in the shed, but he came hurrying after me.
That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did. For it was manifest the Martians were about us. No sooner had the curate overtaken me than we saw either the fightingmachine we had seen before or another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew Lodge36. Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the green-grey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian pursued them. In three strides he was among them, and they ran radiating from his feet in all directions. He used no Heat-Ray to destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently37 he tossed them into the great metallic38 carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder.
It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other purpose than destruction with defeated humanity. We stood for a moment petrified39, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and lay there, scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out.
I suppose it was nearly eleven o'clock before we gathered courage to start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking40 along hedgerows and through plantations41, and watching keenly through the darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who seemed to be all about us. In one place we blundered upon a scorched and blackened area, now cooling and ashen42, and a number of scattered43 dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with their legs and boots mostly intact; and of dead horses, fifty feet, perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages.
Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent and deserted. Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided44 to try one of the houses.
The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the window, was a small semi-detached villa45, and I found nothing eatable left in the place but some mouldy cheese. There was, however, water to drink; and I took a hatchet46, which promised to be useful in our next housebreaking.
We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of this domicile we found a store of food--two loaves of bread in a pan, an uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so precisely47 because, as it happened, we were destined48 to subsist49 upon this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces50. This pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in this was firewood; there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of burgundy, tinned soups and salmon51, and two tins of biscuits.
We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the dark--for we dared not strike a light--and ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle. The curate, who was still timorous52 and restless, was now, oddly enough, for pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when the thing happened that was to imprison53 us.
"It can't be midnight yet," I said, and then came a blinding glare of vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such a concussion54 as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle55 of falling masonry56 all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor against the oven handle and stunned57. I was insensible for a long time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut forehead, was dabbing58 water over me.
For some time I could not recollect59 what had happened. Then things came to me slowly. A bruise60 on my temple asserted itself.
"Are you better?" asked the curate in a whisper.
At last I answered him. I sat up.
"Don't move," he said. "The floor is covered with smashed crockery from the dresser. You can't possibly move without making a noise, and I fancy THEY are outside."
We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling61 sound. Outside and very near was an intermittent62, metallic rattle.
"That!" said the curate, when presently it happened again.
"Yes," I said. "But what is it?"
"A Martian!" said the curate.
I listened again.
"It was not like the Heat-Ray," I said, and for a time I was inclined to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled against the house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton Church.
Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through a triangular63 aperture64 between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the first time.
The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the window frame we could see an uprooted65 drainpipe. The floor was littered with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the house was broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the greater part of the house had collapsed66. Contrasting vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with a number of copper67 and tin vessels68 below it, the wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range.
As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing cylinder69. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly70 as possible out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery.
Abruptly71 the right interpretation dawned upon my mind.
"The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from Mars, has struck this house and buried us under the ruins!"
For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered:
"God have mercy upon us!"
I heard him presently whimpering to himself.
Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my part scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of the kitchen door. I could just see the curate's face, a dim, oval shape, and his collar and cuffs72. Outside there began a metallic hammering, then a violent hooting73, and then again, after a quiet interval20, a hissing74 like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for the most part problematical, continued intermittently75, and seemed if anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured thudding and a vibration76 that made everything about us quiver and the vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway77 became absolutely dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, until our tired attention failed. . . .
At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening78. My hunger was at a stride so insistent79 that it moved me to action. I told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the daint noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me.
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1
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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circumspection
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| n.细心，慎重 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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lethargic
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| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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cindery
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| adj.灰烬的，煤渣的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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ashen
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| adj.灰的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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subsist
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| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
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lettuces
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| n.莴苣，生菜（ lettuce的名词复数 ）；生菜叶 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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timorous
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| adj.胆怯的，胆小的 | |
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imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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circumspectly
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| adv.慎重地，留心地 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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hooting
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩 | |
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hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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76
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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77
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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78
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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79
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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