Герберт Джордж Уэллс – The War of the Worlds / Война миров. Уровень 2 (страница 2)

It was very hot. Not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind. The only shadow was near pine-trees. A clever salesman in the Chobham Road sent up his son to sell green apples and ginger beer.

I went to the edge of the pit. There I found a group of about half a dozen men. Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man were among them. It was Stent, the Astronomer. Stent was giving directions. He was standing on the cylinder. His face was crimson and streaming with perspiration. Something irritated him.

A large portion of the cylinder was uncovered, though its lower end was still stuck in earth. The workmen failed to unscrew the top. The case was enormously thick.

Ogilvy saw me and called to me to come down. He asked me to go over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor. He could help to keep the crowd at a distance.

Lord Hilton was not at home. He was expected to return from London by the six o’clock train. I went home. I had some tea, and walked up to the stationto waylay him[10].

Chapter 4

The Cylinder Opens

When I returned, the sun was setting. People were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and very few persons were returning. The crowd about the pit grew bigger, and stood out against the lemon yellow of the sky – a couple of hundred people, perhaps. As I drew nearer I heard Stent’s voice:

“Keep back! Keep back!”

“It’s moving,” a boy said to me; “screwing and screwing. I don’t like it. I’ll go home.”

I went on to the crowd. There were two or three hundred people there.

“He’s fallen in the pit!” cried someone.

“Keep back!”

Everyone was greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking. He was standing on the cylinder and trying to get out of the hole. Suddenly the screw came out. For a moment the circular cavity seemed perfectly black.

A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I saw horror on the faces of the people. The crowd moved backwards.

Tentacles were now projecting from the cylinder. The shopman was still on the edge of the pit. The people on the other side of the pit ran off. Stent was among them. I looked again at the cylinder in terror.

A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.

The head of the thing was rounded and had a “face”. Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim that dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder. Another swayed in the air.

Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine its strange and horrible appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the lower lip, the quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes – were vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.

Suddenly the monster vanished. It toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fell into the pit. Soon another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of theaperture[11].

I turned and ran madly to the trees. There, among some young pine-trees and bushes, I stopped. What will follow next? The people were standing like myself in terror, and staring at these creatures. And then I saw a round, black object. It was bobbing up and down on the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman. Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he slipped back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I heard a faint shriek. I had a momentary impulse to go back and help him.

The deep pit and the heap of sand hid the cylinder and we could not see what was going on.

Chapter 5

The Heat-Ray

The Martians were emerging from the cylinder, and a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I was staring at the edge of the pit.

I did not dare to go back, but I wanted to peer into it. I began to look at the sand-heaps. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across. Afterwards a thin rod rose up. It was bearing at its apex a circular disk.

Most of the spectators gathered in one or two groups – one little crowd in direction of Woking, the other in the direction of Chobham. There were few people near me. One man was a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name.

The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. It gave people courage. I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. As the dusk came on, a slow movement upon the sand-pits began. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.

Suddenly there was a flash of light. Some luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs. They drove up, one after the other, straight into the air. This smoke (or flame, perhaps) was very bright. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.

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