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the food! Across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the
Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were tearing to our relief. All the
shipping in the world seemed going Londonward in those days. But of
all this I have no memory. I drifted--a demented man. I found myself
in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day
wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood.
They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about
"The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive!" Troubled
as they were with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as
I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give
here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and
protected me from myself. Apparently they had learned something of my
story from me during the days of my lapse.
Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me
what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I
was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a
Martian. He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any
provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness
of power.
I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely
man and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four
days after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing
craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that
seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire
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