Amazing Stories, August 1927 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Aloo! aloo!” and howl that drowned the thunder, in another minute it was with its companion, and half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt this thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had fired at us from Mars, For some minutes I Jay there in the rain and darkness watching, by the intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moying about in the distance over the hedge-tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as it came and went, their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night swallowed them up. T was soaked with hail above and puddle-water below. It was some time before my blank astonish- ment would let me struggle up the bank to a drier position, or think at all about my imminent peril. Not far from me was a little one-roomed squat- ter’s hut of wood, surrounded by a patch of potato- garden. I struggled to my feet at last, and, crouch- ing and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people hear (if there were any people inside), and after atime I de- sisted, and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way, sueceeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine-wood towards Maybury, Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and Seren ‘ ing now, towards my own house. TJ walked among the trees trying to find the footpath. It was very dark indeed in the wood, for the Tehtning was now becoming infrequent, and the h pouring down in a torrent, fell in co umns through | the gaps in the heavy foliage. If I had fully realized the meaning me all Pree things I had seen J should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and blinded by the storm. I had a vague idea of going to my own house, and that was as much motive asI had. I staggered through the trees, fell into a ditch and bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out into the lane that ran down from the College Arms, I say splashed, for the storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent. There in the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me reeling back. He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I could gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy was the stress of the storm just at this place that I had the hardest | task to win my way up the hill. I went close u to the fence on the left and worked my way alo its palings. : poate Near the top I etarabiet: pon so hin and, by a flash of lightnin a heap of bla roadel ef the hill. , which was — : dressed; his head was bent under his pody, and he lay crumpled up close tp the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it. Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. © ee The lightning flashed for a third time, and his face leapt upon me. I sprang to my feet. ‘It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance a I had taken, | ae I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on ‘up I made my way by the police-station and — 5 the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the com- mon there still came a red glare and a rolling . tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the road. Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of feet, but I had not ~ the courage to shout or to go to them. I let my- self in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to the foot of the staircase and _ : sat doar My imagination was full of those strid- — ‘e ing metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence. te I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, shivering violently. | CHAPTER xI = ; Mt the Bo v1 that m Pau: ee up almost eeeieie : i went ‘into the dining- -room and drank some whisky, — and then I was moved to change my clothes. ae After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I do not know. The win- dow of my study looks over the trees and the rail- way towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with the picture the window-frame enclosed, that side of the room seemed impenetrably dark. J stopped short in the doorway. The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the pine-trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red glare, _ the common about the sand-pits was visible. Across the light, huge black shapes, grotesque and : strange, moved busily to and fro. ed, indeed, a s if the avhole country i in that