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Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!
"Good heavens!" said Ogilvy. "There's a man in it--men in it! Half
roasted to death! Trying to escape!"
At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the
flash upon Mars.
The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he
forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But
luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands
on the still-glowing metal. At that he 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.
He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he
told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the
pit--that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the
potman who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell
Bridge. The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an
unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a
little; and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his
garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood.
"
"
Henderson," he called, "you saw that shooting star last night?"
Well?" said Henderson.
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