第 19 页

me.

That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our

horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt

an urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of

escape; but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider

our position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite

incapable of discussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed

him of all vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had

already sunk to the level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I

gripped myself with both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could

face the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet

no justification for absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the

possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing more than a

temporary encampment. Or even if they kept it permanently, they might

not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might be

afforded us. I also weighed very carefully the possibility of our

digging a way out in a direction away from the pit, but the chances of

our emerging within sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at

first too great. And I should have had to do all the digging myself.

The curate would certainly have failed me.

It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw

the lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the

Martians feed. After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall

for the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the

door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as

possible; but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the

loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost

heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no

spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea

of escaping by excavation.

It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that

at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought

about by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth

or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns.

It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly.

The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a

fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a

handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the

pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them.

Except for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and

patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for

the clinking of the handling-machine, quite still. That night was a

beautiful serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the

sky to herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was

that made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly

like the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and

after a long interval six again. And that was all.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DEATH OF THE CURATE

It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the

last time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close

to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back

into the scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back

quickly and quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the

curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a

bottle of burgundy.

For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor

and broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening

each other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and

told him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the

food in the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let

him eat any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort

to get at the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake.

All day and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and

he weeping and complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a

night and a day, but to me it seemed--it seems now--an interminable

length of time.

And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict.

For two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests.

There were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I

cajoled and persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last

bottle of burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could

get water. But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed

beyond reason. He would neither desist from his attacks on the food

nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions

to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I

began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to

perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was

a man insane.

From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind

wandered at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept.

It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness

and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane

man.

On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and

nothing I could do would moderate his speech.

"It is just, O God!" he would say, over and over again. "It is

just. On me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have

fallen short. There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in

the dust, and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly--my God,

what folly!--when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and

called upon them to repent-repent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and

needy . . . ! The wine press of God!"

Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld

from him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to

raise his voice--I prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on me--he

threatened he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time

that scared me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of

escape beyond estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance

that he might not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did

not. He talked with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part

of the eighth and ninth days--threats, entreaties, mingled with a

torrent of half-sane and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham

of God's service, such as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and

began again with renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs make

him desist.

"Be still!" I implored.

He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near

the copper.

"I have been still too long," he said, in a tone that must have

reached the pit, "and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this

unfaithful city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of

the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet----"

"Shut up!" I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the

Martians should hear us. "For God's sake----"

"Nay," shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing

likewise and extending his arms. "Speak! The word of the Lord is

upon me!"

In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen.

"I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long

delayed."

I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall.

In a flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was

halfway across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch

of humanity I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He

went headlong forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled

over him and stood panting. He lay still.

Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping

plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I

looked up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming

slowly across the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the

debris; another limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams.

I stood petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate

near the edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large

dark eyes of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of

tentacle came feeling slowly through the hole.

I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the

scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in

the room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this

way and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful

advance. Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the

scullery. I trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I

opened the door of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness

staring at the faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening.

Had the Martian seen me? What was it doing now?

Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and

then it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a

faint metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring.

Then a heavy body--I knew too well what--was dragged across the floor

of the kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept

to the door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright

outer sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine,

scrutinizing the curate's head. I thought at once that it would infer

my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him.

I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover

myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the

darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I

paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through

the opening again.

Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly

feeling over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearer--in the

scullery, as I judged. I thought that its length might be

insufficient to reach me. I prayed copiously. It passed, scraping

faintly across the cellar door. An age of almost intolerable suspense

intervened; then I heard it fumbling at the latch! It had found the

door! The Martians understood doors!

It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door

opened.

In the darkness I could just see the thing--like an elephant's

trunk more than anything else--waving towards me and touching and

examining the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm

swaying its blind head to and fro.

Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of

screaming; I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I

could have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt

click, it gripped something--I thought it had me!--and seemed to go

out of the cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it

had taken a lump of coal to examine.

I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which

had become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers

for safety.

Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again.

Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping

the furniture.

While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar

door and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins

rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against

the cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of

suspense.

Had it gone?

At last I decided that it had.

It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in

the close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even

to crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day

before I ventured so far from my security.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STILLNESS

My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door

between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every

scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on

the previous day. At that discovery I despaired for the first time. I

took no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day.

At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed

sensibly. I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of

despondent wretchedness. My mind ran on eating. I thought I had

become deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear

from the pit had ceased absolutely. I did not feel strong enough to

crawl noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there.

On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance

of alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rain-water pump that

stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and

tainted rain water. I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened

by the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my

pumping.

During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much

of the curate and of the manner of his death.

On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and

thought disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of

escape. Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death

of the curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a

keen pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came

into the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered

imagination it seemed the colour of blood.

On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised

to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across

the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a

crimson-coloured obscurity.

It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar

sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as