Fighters From Mars: The War Of The Worlds In And Near Boston, part 1, January 9th, 1898
CHAPTER III
THE CYLINDER UNSCREWS
I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance of that colossal bulk, imbedded in the ground. The turf and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion.
There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the pit, with their feet dangling, and amusing themselves--until I stopped them--by throwing stones at the giant mass.
In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much. The early editions of the evening papers had startled Boston with enormous headlines:
"A message received from Mars."
As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the staring crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down. They wanted a light railing put up, and help to keep the people back.
He told me that a faint stirring was occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them.
The case appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior.
When I returned to the common the sun was setting. The crowd around the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky - a couple of hundred people perhaps.
There were a number of voices raised and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. As I drew neared a boy came running toward me.
"It's a-movin'," he said to me, as he passed; "a-screwin' and a-screwin' out. I don't like it. I'm a-goin' home, I am."
I went on to the crowd.
There were really, I should think, 200 or 300 people, elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two ladies there by no means the least active.
"He's fallen in the pit!" cried someone.
"Keep back!" said several. The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through.
Everyone seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit.
"I say!" said Ogilvy, "keep these idiots back. We don't know what's in the confounded thing, you know."
I saw a young man - a clerk, I believe he was, in Concord, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had pushed him in.
The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me and I narrowly missed being pitched on to the top of the screw.
I turned, and as a I did so the screw must have come out, and the lid of the cylinder fell out upon the gravel with a ringing concussion. I struck my elbow into the person behind and turned my head toward the Thing again.
I think everyone expected to see a man emerge - possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all the essentials a man. I know I did.
But looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow, grayish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous discs like eyes. Then something resembling a little gray snake about the thickness of a walking stick coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air toward me. And then another.
A sudden chill came upon me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit.
I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. There was a general movement backward. I saw the clerk struggling still on the edge of the pit.
I found myself alone, and found people on the other side of the pit running off. I looked at the cylinder and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring.
A big, grayish rounded belly - 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 oiled silk.
Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. It was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva.
The body heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.
I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, toppeled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather.
Suddenly the monstershdrl ilsomiv r (editors note " typo here in the original - should be the word "vanished") and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture.
At that my terror passed away. I turned and, running madly, made for the nearest group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away. But I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not avert my face from these things.
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