Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the

strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with

its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a

chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this

mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the

lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness

of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above

all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at

once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was

something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy

deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this

first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and

dread.

Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the

cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great

mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith

another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the

aperture.

I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees,

perhaps a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for

I could not avert my face from these things.

There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped,

panting, and waited further developments. The common round the sand

The War of the Worlds