CHAPTER NINE

WRECKAGE

And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is

not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly,

all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and

praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.

Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that,

so far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow,

several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the

previous night. One man--the first--had gone to St. Martin's-le-Grand,

and, while I sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to

telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the

world; a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly

flashed into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin,

Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the

verge of the pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard,

shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making

up trains, even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church

bells that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news,

until all England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced,

unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of unhoped

deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for

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The War of the Worlds