CHAPTER TWO
THE FALLING STAR
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to her that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of her.
I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved 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 outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, 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 the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it she did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heathers was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against the dawn.
The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. She approached the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid her near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder she ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to her that it might be hollow.
She remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm. She did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. She was all alone on the common.
Then suddenly she noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise that brought her heart into her mouth.
For a minute she scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the heat was excessive, she clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to see the Thing more clearly. She fancied even then that the cooling of the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder.
And then she perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that she discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been near her five minutes ago was now at the other side of the circumference. Even then she scarcely understood what this indicated, until she heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon her in a flash. The cylinder was artificial--hollow--with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!
'Good heavens!' said Ogilvy. 'There's a woman in it--men in it! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape!'
At once, with a quick mental leap, she linked the Thing with the flash upon Mars.
The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to her that she forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily the dull radiation arrested her before she could burn her hands on the still-glowing metal. At that she stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock. She met a waggoner and tried to make her understand, but the tale she told and her appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the pit-- that the woman simply drove on. She was equally unsuccessful with the potman who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell Bridge. The fellow thought she was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut her into the taproom. That sobered her a little; and when she saw Henderson, the London journalist, in her garden, she called over the palings and made herself understood.
'Henderson,' she called, 'you saw that shooting star last night?'
'Well?' said Henderson.
'It's out on Horsell Common now.'
'Good Lady!' said Henderson. 'Fallen meteorite! That's good.'
'But it's something more than a meteorite. It's a cylinder--an artificial cylinder, woman! And there's something inside.'
Henderson stood up with her spade in her hand.
'What's that?' she said. She was deaf in one ear.
Ogilvy told her all that she had seen. Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then she dropped her spade, snatched up her jacket, and came out into the road. The two women hurried back at once to the common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering 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 woman or women inside must be insensible or dead.
Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had prepared women's minds for the reception of the idea.
By eight o'clock a number of girls and unemployed women had already started for the common to see the 'dead women from Mars.' That was the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper girl about a quarter to nine when I went out to get my DAILY CHRONICLE. I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the sand pits.