August 16, 2025 • 12 mins
20 - War of the Worlds - Bk2, Ch3. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
War of the Worlds by Herbert George Wells (H.G. Wells) was published in 1898 at a time when he wrote a series of novels related to a number of historical events of the time. The most important of these was the unification and militarization of Germany. The story, written in a semi-documentary style, is told in the first person by an unnamed observer. It tells of the events which happen mostly in London and the county of Surrey, England, when a number of vessels manned by aliens are fired from Mars and land on Earth.
War of the Worlds by Herbert George Wells (H.G. Wells) was published in 1898 at a time when he wrote a series of novels related to a number of historical events of the time. The most important of these was the unification and militarization of Germany. The story, written in a semi-documentary style, is told in the first person by an unnamed observer. It tells of the events which happen mostly in London and the county of Surrey, England, when a number of vessels manned by aliens are fired from Mars and land on Earth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. War of the World's by H. G. Wells,
Book two, Chapter three, The Days of Imprisonment. The arrival
(00:29):
of a second fighting machine drove us from our peep
hole into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation,
the martian might see down upon us behind our barrier.
At a later date we began to feel less in
danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the
dazzle of the sunlight outside our refuge must have been
blank blackness. But at first the slightest suggestion of approach
(00:52):
drove us into the scullery in heart throbbing retreat. Yet
terrible as the danger we incurred, the attraction of people
was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now
with a sort of wonder, that, in spite of the
infinite danger in which we were between starvation and a
still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly for
(01:14):
that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the
kitchen an a grotesque way between eagerness and the dread
of making a noise and strike each other, and thrust
and kick within a few inches of exposure. The fact
is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of
thought and action, and our danger in isolation only accentuated
(01:38):
the incompatibility. At Halliford, I had already come to hate
the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind,
his endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to
think out a line of action, and drove me at times.
Thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness,
(02:00):
he was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman.
He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe
that to the very end, this spoiled child of life
thought his weak tears in some way efficacious, and I
would sit in the darkness, unable to keep my mind
off him. By reason of his importunities, he ate more
(02:22):
than I did, and it was in vain I pointed
out that our only chance of life was to stop
in the house until the Martians had done with their pit,
that in the long patience a time might presently come
when we should need food he ate and drank impulsively
in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little as
(02:43):
the days wore on. His utter carelessness of any consideration
so intensified our distress and danger that I had much
as I lothed, doing it to resort to threats and
at last blows that brought him to reason for a time.
But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anemic,
hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God
(03:07):
nor man, who face not even themselves. It is disagreeable
for me to recall and write these things, but I
set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those
who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life
will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our
final tragedy, easy enough to blame for they know what
(03:30):
is wrong as well as any but not what is
possible to tortured men. But those who have been under
the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things,
will have a wider charity. And while within we fought
out our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food and drink,
and gripping hands and blows without in the pitiless sunlight
(03:53):
of that terrible June was the strange wonder the unfamiliar
routine of the martians in the pit. Let me return
to those first new experiences of mine. After a long time,
I ventured back to the peephole to find that the
newcomers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer
than three of the fighting machines. These last had brought
(04:14):
with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly
manner about the cylinder. The second handling machine was now
completed and was busied in serving one of the novel
contrivances the big machine had brought. This was a body
resembling a milk can in its general form, above which
oscillated a pear shaped receptacle, and from which a stream
(04:37):
of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. The
oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of
the handling machine. With two spatulate hands, the handling machine
was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the
pear shaped receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically
opened a door and removed rusty and blackening clinker from
(05:00):
the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed
the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards
some receiver that was hidden from me by the mound
of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver, a little thread
of green spoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As
I looked the handling machine with a faint and musical clinking,
(05:23):
extended telescopic fashion. A tentacle that had been a moment
before a mere blunt projection until its edend was hidden
behind the mound of clay. In another second, it had
lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as
yet and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing
(05:44):
stack of bars that stood at the side of the
pit between sunset and starlight. This dexterous machine must have
made more than one hundred such bars out of the
crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily
until it topped the side of the pit. The contrast
between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and
(06:07):
the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and
for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these
latter were indeed the living of the two things. The
Curate had possession of the slit when the first men
were brought to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up,
listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backwards,
(06:29):
and I, fearful that we were observed, crouched in a
spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and
crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for
a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a
resignation of the slit, and after a little while my
curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him,
(06:52):
and clambered up to it. At first I could see
no reason for his frantic behavior. The twilight had come,
the stars were little and faint, but the pit was
illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the
aluminium making The whole picture was a flickering scheme of
green gleams and shifting, rusty black shadows, strangely trying to
(07:15):
the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats,
heeding it not at all. The sprawling martians were no
longer to be seen. The mound of blue green powder
had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting
machine with its legs contracted, crumpled and abbreviated, stood across
the corner of the pit. And then amid the clangor
(07:36):
of the machinery came a drifting suspicion of human voices
that I entertained at first only to dismiss. I crouched
watching this fighting machine, closely, satisfying myself now for the
first time that the hood did indeed contain a martian.
As the green flames lifted, I could see the oily
(07:58):
gleam of his integument, and the brightness of his eyes.
And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a long
technacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine, to the
little cage that hunched upon its back. Then something, something
struggling violently, was lifted high against the sky, a black,
vague enigma against the starlight. And as this black object
(08:22):
came down again, I saw by the green brightness that
it was a man. For an instant he was clearly visible.
He was a stout, ruddy, middle aged man, well dressed.
Three days before he must have been walking the world,
a man of considerable consequence, I could see his staring
eyes and gleams of light in his studs and watch chain.
(08:43):
He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there
was silence, and then began a shrieking and a sustained
and cheerful hooting from the martians. I slid down the rubbish,
struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears,
and bolted into the scullery. The Curate, who had been
crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up
(09:05):
as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion
of him, and came running after 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
(09:26):
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
(09:48):
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 mind 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
(10:09):
chance of escape might be afforded us. I also weighed
very carefully the possibility of our digging away 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
(10:30):
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
(10:51):
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
(11:14):
the idea of escaping from 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,
(11:36):
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 peep hole,
the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale
glow from the handling machine and the bars and patches
(11:58):
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
(12:18):
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 end of Chapter three.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. War of the World's by H. G. Wells,
Book two, Chapter three, The Days of Imprisonment. The arrival
(00:29):
of a second fighting machine drove us from our peep
hole into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation,
the martian might see down upon us behind our barrier.
At a later date we began to feel less in
danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the
dazzle of the sunlight outside our refuge must have been
blank blackness. But at first the slightest suggestion of approach
(00:52):
drove us into the scullery in heart throbbing retreat. Yet
terrible as the danger we incurred, the attraction of people
was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now
with a sort of wonder, that, in spite of the
infinite danger in which we were between starvation and a
still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly for
(01:14):
that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the
kitchen an a grotesque way between eagerness and the dread
of making a noise and strike each other, and thrust
and kick within a few inches of exposure. The fact
is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of
thought and action, and our danger in isolation only accentuated
(01:38):
the incompatibility. At Halliford, I had already come to hate
the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind,
his endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to
think out a line of action, and drove me at times.
Thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness,
(02:00):
he was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman.
He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe
that to the very end, this spoiled child of life
thought his weak tears in some way efficacious, and I
would sit in the darkness, unable to keep my mind
off him. By reason of his importunities, he ate more
(02:22):
than I did, and it was in vain I pointed
out that our only chance of life was to stop
in the house until the Martians had done with their pit,
that in the long patience a time might presently come
when we should need food he ate and drank impulsively
in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little as
(02:43):
the days wore on. His utter carelessness of any consideration
so intensified our distress and danger that I had much
as I lothed, doing it to resort to threats and
at last blows that brought him to reason for a time.
But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anemic,
hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God
(03:07):
nor man, who face not even themselves. It is disagreeable
for me to recall and write these things, but I
set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those
who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life
will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our
final tragedy, easy enough to blame for they know what
(03:30):
is wrong as well as any but not what is
possible to tortured men. But those who have been under
the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things,
will have a wider charity. And while within we fought
out our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food and drink,
and gripping hands and blows without in the pitiless sunlight
(03:53):
of that terrible June was the strange wonder the unfamiliar
routine of the martians in the pit. Let me return
to those first new experiences of mine. After a long time,
I ventured back to the peephole to find that the
newcomers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer
than three of the fighting machines. These last had brought
(04:14):
with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly
manner about the cylinder. The second handling machine was now
completed and was busied in serving one of the novel
contrivances the big machine had brought. This was a body
resembling a milk can in its general form, above which
oscillated a pear shaped receptacle, and from which a stream
(04:37):
of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. The
oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of
the handling machine. With two spatulate hands, the handling machine
was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the
pear shaped receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically
opened a door and removed rusty and blackening clinker from
(05:00):
the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed
the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards
some receiver that was hidden from me by the mound
of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver, a little thread
of green spoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As
I looked the handling machine with a faint and musical clinking,
(05:23):
extended telescopic fashion. A tentacle that had been a moment
before a mere blunt projection until its edend was hidden
behind the mound of clay. In another second, it had
lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as
yet and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing
(05:44):
stack of bars that stood at the side of the
pit between sunset and starlight. This dexterous machine must have
made more than one hundred such bars out of the
crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily
until it topped the side of the pit. The contrast
between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and
(06:07):
the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and
for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these
latter were indeed the living of the two things. The
Curate had possession of the slit when the first men
were brought to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up,
listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backwards,
(06:29):
and I, fearful that we were observed, crouched in a
spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and
crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for
a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a
resignation of the slit, and after a little while my
curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him,
(06:52):
and clambered up to it. At first I could see
no reason for his frantic behavior. The twilight had come,
the stars were little and faint, but the pit was
illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the
aluminium making The whole picture was a flickering scheme of
green gleams and shifting, rusty black shadows, strangely trying to
(07:15):
the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats,
heeding it not at all. The sprawling martians were no
longer to be seen. The mound of blue green powder
had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting
machine with its legs contracted, crumpled and abbreviated, stood across
the corner of the pit. And then amid the clangor
(07:36):
of the machinery came a drifting suspicion of human voices
that I entertained at first only to dismiss. I crouched
watching this fighting machine, closely, satisfying myself now for the
first time that the hood did indeed contain a martian.
As the green flames lifted, I could see the oily
(07:58):
gleam of his integument, and the brightness of his eyes.
And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a long
technacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine, to the
little cage that hunched upon its back. Then something, something
struggling violently, was lifted high against the sky, a black,
vague enigma against the starlight. And as this black object
(08:22):
came down again, I saw by the green brightness that
it was a man. For an instant he was clearly visible.
He was a stout, ruddy, middle aged man, well dressed.
Three days before he must have been walking the world,
a man of considerable consequence, I could see his staring
eyes and gleams of light in his studs and watch chain.
(08:43):
He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there
was silence, and then began a shrieking and a sustained
and cheerful hooting from the martians. I slid down the rubbish,
struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears,
and bolted into the scullery. The Curate, who had been
crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up
(09:05):
as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion
of him, and came running after 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
(09:26):
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
(09:48):
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 mind 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
(10:09):
chance of escape might be afforded us. I also weighed
very carefully the possibility of our digging away 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
(10:30):
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
(10:51):
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
(11:14):
the idea of escaping from 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,
(11:36):
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 peep hole,
the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale
glow from the handling machine and the bars and patches
(11:58):
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
(12:18):
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 end of Chapter three.
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