Amazing Stories, August 1927 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

434 out the servant, telling her I would go upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for. “We can’t possibly stay here,” I said; and as I spoke the firing re-opened for a moment upon the common. “But where are we to go?” said my wife in terror. I thought, perplexed. cousins at Leatherhead. “Leatherhead !” I shouted above the sudden noise. She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their houses astonished. “Tow are we to get to Leatherhead?” she said. Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway-bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College; two others dis- mounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood-red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything. “Stop here,’ said I; “you are safe here;” and I started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dogcart. I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to him. “T must have a pound,” said the landlord, ‘and I’ve no one to drive it.” ‘T’ll give you two,” said I, over the stranger’s shoulder. “What for?” “And I'll bring it back by midnight,” I said. “Lord!” said the landlord, “what’s the hurry? I’m selling my bit of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What’s going on now?” I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dogcart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as we had, and so forth. The beech-trees below the house were burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was oc- cupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on as I came out of my front-door, lugging my treas- ures, done up in a table-cloth. I shouted after him: “What news?” He turned, stared, bawled something about “crawling out in a thing like a dish cover,” and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a moment. I ran to my neigh- bor’s door, and rapped to satisfy myself, what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him, and had locked up their house. I went in again according to my promise to get my servant’s box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of the dogcart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver’s seat beside my wife. In another Moment we were clear 0 Then I remembered her NES eT mesg ee eee a Gar AMAZING STORIES te out of the lighted p pa the smoke and noise, and spanking down the op- posite slope at Maybury Hill towards Old Woking. In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat- field ahead on either side of the road, and the May- bury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doc- tor’s cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head to look at the hillside I was Jeav- ing. Thick streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green tree-tops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and west—to the Byfleet pine- woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine- gun that was presently stilled, and an intermittent crackling of rifles. Apparently, the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of their Heat-Ray. ; Lam not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention to the horse, When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that quivering tumult. I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send. CHAPTER X In the Storm EATHERHEAD is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyr- ford, and the hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses. The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leav- ing the evening very peaceful and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine o’clock, and the horse had an hour’s rest while I took supper with my cousins and commended my wife to their care. My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reagsuringly, pointing out that the Martians were tied to the pit by sheer heaviness, and, at the utmost, could but crawl a little out of it, but she answered only in mono- syllables. Had it not been for my promise to the innkeeper, she would, I think, have urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night. Would that I had! Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted. For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very like the war-fever, that occasionally runs through a civilized community, had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our in- vaders from Mars, death. It was nearly eleven when I started to retur1 The night was eee dark; ; I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be in at the |