from between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the

high road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and

driven by a sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust. There were

three girls, East End factory girls, and a couple of little children

crowded in the cart.

This'll tike us rahnd Edgware?" asked the driver, wild-eyed,

white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the

left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks.

My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the

houses in front of them, and veiling the white facade of a terrace

beyond the road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs.

Elphinstone suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red

flame leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot,

blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the

disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the

creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round

sharply not fifty yards from the crossroads.

Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Elphinstone. "What is this you are

driving us into?"

My brother stopped.

For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of

140

The War of the Worlds