Fighters from Mars: The War of the Worlds in and near Boston, part 1, January 9th, 1898
CHAPTER II
THE FALLING STAR
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over northern Jersey eastward, a line of flame, high in the atmosphere.
Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin of Yale University described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds.
Dennings, our greatest American authority in meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about 90 or 100 miles. It seemed to him that it fell to the earth to the east.
Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many persons in the towns and villages of Middlesex county must have seen the fall and have thought that another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.
But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere in the fields above the Lexington road, rose early with the idea of finding it.
Find it he did soon after dawn, and not far from the Lexington line. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction.
They formed heaps visible a mile away. The long brown grass was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke arose against the dawn.
The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards.
It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone.
Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand.
A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth.
For a minute he scarcely realized what this meant, until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash.
The cylinder was artificial--hollow--with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!
"Good heavens!" said Ogilvy. "There's a man in it--men in it! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape!" At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the thing with the flash upon Mars.
The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands on the still-glowing metal.
He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly toward Concord. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock.
He met a wagon driver and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the pit--that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the porter who was just unlocking the doors of the road house.
The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the stable. That sobered him a little; and when he saw Henderson, the journalist, in his garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood.
"Henderson," he called, "you saw that shooting star last night?"
"Well?" said Henderson.
"It's out on the sand pits now."
"Good Lord!" said Henderson. "Fallen meteorite! That's good."
"But it's something more than a meteorite. It's a cylinder--an artificial cylinder, man! And there's something inside."
Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. "What's that?" he said. He was deaf in one ear.
Ogilvy told him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched at his coat, and came out into the road.
The two men hurried back at once to the sand pits, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound.
They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and, meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside must be insensible or dead. Of course they were quite unable to do anything. They shouted consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get help.
By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already started to see the "dead men from Mars." That was the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newsboy about a quarter to nine. I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out to the sand pits.
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