CHAPTER TWO
THE FALLING STAR
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen earlyin the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame highin the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for anordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenishstreak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatestauthority on meteorites, stated that the height of its firstappearance was about ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to himthat it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him.
I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although myFrench windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for Iloved in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it.Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outerspace must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had Ionly looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say ittravelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Manypeople in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall ofit, and, at most, 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 theshooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere onthe common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with theidea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far fromthe sand pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of theprojectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in everydirection over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a halfaway. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke roseagainst the dawn.
The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst thescattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in itsdescent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder,caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-colouredincrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approachedthe mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since mostmeteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however,still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his nearapproach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to theunequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurredto him that it might be hollow.
He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had madefor itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly atits unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then someevidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfullystill, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge,was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning,there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were thefaint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone onthe common.
Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the greyclinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was fallingoff the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes andraining down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fellwith a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth.
For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, althoughthe heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to thebulk to see the Thing more clearly. He fancied even then that thecooling of the body might account for this, but what disturbed thatidea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of thecylinder.
And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of thecylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movementthat he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that hadbeen near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of thecircumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated,until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerkforward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. Thecylinder 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! Halfroasted to death! Trying to escape!"
At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with theflash upon Mars.
The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that heforgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. Butluckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his handson the still-glowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment,then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly intoWoking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock.He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale hetold and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in thepit--that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with thepotman who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by HorsellBridge. The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made anunsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him alittle; and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in hisgarden, 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 Horsell Common now."
"Good Lord!" said Henderson. "Fallen meteorite! That's good."
"But it's something more than a meteorite. It's a cylinder--anartificial 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 sotaking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, andcame out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to thecommon, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. Butnow the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metalshowed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was eitherentering 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 insidemust be insensible or dead.
Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shoutedconsolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to gethelp. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited anddisordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight justas the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people wereopening their bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railwaystation at once, in order to telegraph the news to London. Thenewspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of theidea.
By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had alreadystarted for the common to see the "dead men from Mars." That was theform the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy abouta quarter to nine when I went out to get my _Daily Chronicle_. I wasnaturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across theOttershaw bridge to the sand pits.