CHAPTER ELEVEN

AT THE WINDOW

I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of

exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and

wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I

got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some

whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes.

After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so

I do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the

railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this

window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with

the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed

impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway.

The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College

and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a

vivid red glare, the common about the sand pits was visible. Across

the light huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to

and fro.

It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on

fire--a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and

The War of the Worlds