The War of the Worlds / Война миров. Уровень 2

At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.

Beyond the pit stood the little group of people with a white flag. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a long, loud noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light flickered out from it. A bright glare sprang from the scattered group of men. Each of them was suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.

The people were staggering and falling down.

The death was leaping from man to man in that little crowd. An almost noiseless flash of light – and a man fell headlong and lay still.

This flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat was coming towards me. But I was too astounded and stupefied to move. The dark ground smoked and crackled. Then the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.

All this happened with such swiftness that I stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light.

I was helpless, unprotected, and alone. With an effort I turned and began to run through the heather.

Chapter 6

The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road

How can the Martians slay men so swiftly and so silently? It is a mystery. Many people think that the Martians are able to generate an intense heat. They project this intense heat in a parallel beam against any object they choose. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light.

That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit. They were charred and distorted.

The news of the massacre reached Chobham, Woking, and Ottershaw. In Woking the shops closed. Many people were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges.

Few people in Woking knew that the cylinder opened. People were talking excitedly and peering at the spinning mirror over the sand-pits.

By half past eight, there was a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place.

There were three policemen too, they were trying, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from the cylinder.

As soon as the Martians emerged, Stent and Ogilvy telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks for help to protect these strange creatures from violence. After that they returned to the pit. Then we saw their death: three puffs of green smoke, the humming note, and the flashes of flame.