In due course I came to the hatch that led into the slaves’ compartment. Here I paused to listen, but all was silent within. I climbed on after catching my breath, and eventually arrived at the hatch to the main hold.
I slid open the metal plate with some trepidation, knowing that the monsters were certainly awake and alert, but my caution was in vain. There was no sign of the beasts within my view, but I knew they were present for I could hear the sound of their horrid, braying voices. Indeed, this noise was quite remarkable in its intensity, and I gathered that much was being discussed between the nauseous beings.
At last I moved on, climbing beyond the door to the very stern of the craft itself. Here I had hoped to find some way by which Amelia and I might leave the ship surreptitiously. (I knew that if all else failed I could operate the green blast in the way I had done in the smaller projectile, and so shift it from its landing-place, but it was crucial that the monsters should not suspect that we were not their regular crew.)
Unfortunately, my way was barred. This was the very end of the craft: the massive hatch by which the monsters themselves would exit. The fact that it was still closed was in itself hopefuclass="underline" if we could. not leave by this way, then at least the monsters too were confined within.
Here I rested again, before making my descent. For a few moments I speculated about where I had landed the craft. If we had fallen in the centre of a city the violence of our landing would certainly have caused untold damage; this again would be a matter for chance, and here chance would be on our side. Much of England is sparsely built upon, and it was more than, likely we would have found open countryside. I could do no more than hope; I had enough on my conscience.
I could still hear the monsters beyond the inner hull wall, addressing each other in their disagreeable braying voices, and occasionally I could hear the sinister sound of metal being moved. In moments of silence, though, I fancied I could hear other noises, emanating from beyond the hull.
Our spectacular arrival would almost certainly have brought crowds to the projectile, and as I stood precariously just inside the main rear hatch, my fevered imagination summoned the notion that just a few yards from where I was there would be scores, perhaps hundreds, of people clustered about.
It was a poignant thought, for of all things I hungered to be reunited with my own kind.
A little later, when I thought more calmly, I realized that any crowd that might have gathered would be in dire danger from these monsters. How much more grimly optimistic it was to think that the monsters would emerge to a ring of rifle-barrels!
Even so, as I waited there I felt sure I could hear human voices outside the projectile, and I almost wept to think of them there.
At long last, realizing that there was nothing to be done for the moment, I went back the way I had come and returned to Amelia.
iv
A long time passed, in which there seemed to be no movement either by the monsters within the ship, or by the men whom I now presumed were outside. Every two or three hours I would ascend again through the passages, but the hatch remained firmly closed.
The conditions inside our compartment continued to deteriorate, although there was a slight drop in the temperature. The lights were still on, and air was circulating, but the food was decomposing quickly and the smell was abominable. Furthermore, water was still pouring in from the fractured pipe, and the lower parts of the compartment were deeply flooded.
We stayed quiet, not knowing if the monsters could hear us, and dreading the consequences if they should. However, they seemed busied about their own menacing affairs, for there was no decline in their noise whenever I listened by their hatch.
Hungry, tired, hot and frightened, we huddled together on the metal floor of the projectile, waiting for a chance to escape.
We must have dozed for a while, for I awoke suddenly with a sense that there was a different quality to our, surroundings. I glanced at my watch—which in lieu of a pocket in my combinations I had attached by its chain to a buttonhole—and saw that nearly twenty hours had elapsed since our arrival.
I woke Amelia, whose head rested on my shoulder.
“What is it?” she said.
“What can you smell?”
She sniffed exaggeratedly, wrinkling her nose.
“Something is burning,” I said.
“Yes,” Amelia said, then cried it aloud: “Yes! I can smell wood-smoke!”
We were overcome with excitement and emotion, for no more homely smell could be imagined.
“The hatch,” I said urgently. “It’s open at last!”
Amelia was already on her feet. “Come on, Edward! Before it’s too late!”
I took her hand-bag, and led her up the sloping floor to the passage. I allowed her to go first, reasoning that I would then be below her if she fell. We climbed slowly, weakened by our ordeal… but we were climbing for the last time, out of the hell of the Martian projectile, towards our freedom.
v
Sensing danger, we stopped a few yards short of the end of the passage, and stared up at the sky.
It was a deep blue; it was not at all like the Martian sky, but a cool and tranquil blue, the sort that one rejoices to see at the end of a hot summer’s day. There were wisps of cirrus cloud, high and peaceful, still touched with the red of sunset. Lower down, though, thick clouds of smoke rolled by, heady with the smell of burning vegetation.
“Shall we go on?” Amelia said, whispering.
“I feel uneasy,” I said. “I had expected there would be many people about. It’s too quiet.”
Then, belying my words, there was a resounding clatter of metal, and I saw a brilliant flash of green.
“Are the monsters out already?” said Amelia.
“I shall have to look. Stay here, and don’t make a sound.”
“You aren’t leaving me?” There was an edge to her voice, making her words sound tense and brittle.
“I’m just going to the end,” I said. “We must see what is happening.”
“Be careful, Edward. Don’t be noticed.”
I passed her the hand-bag, then crawled on up. I was in a turmoil of sensations, some of them internal ones, like fright and trepidation, but others were external. I knew that I was breathing the air of Earth, smelling the soil of England.
At last I came to the lip, and lay low against the metal floor. I pulled myself forward until just my eyes peered out into the evening light. There, in the vast pit thrown up by our violent landing, I saw a sight that filled me with dread and terror.
Immediately beneath the circular end of the projectile was the discarded hatch. This was a huge disk of metal, some eighty feet in diameter. It had once been the very bulkhead which had withstood the blast of our launch, but now, unscrewed from within, and dropped to the sandy floor, it lay, its use finished.
Beyond it, the Martian monsters had already started their work of assembling their devilish machinery.
All five of the brutes were out of the craft, and they worked in a frenzy of activity. Two of them were painstakingly attaching a leg to one of the battle-machines, which squatted a short distance from where I lay. I saw that it was not yet ready for use, for its other two legs were telescoped so that the platform was no more than a few feet from the ground. Two other monsters worked beside the platform, but each of these was inside a small legged vehicle, with mechanical arms supporting the bulk of the tripod while shorter extensions hammered at the metal plates. With every blow there was a bright flash of green light, and an eerie smoke, yellow and green combined, drifted away on the breeze.