and the charred bodies lay about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of hammering from the pit was heard by many people.So you have the state of things on Friday night. 
In the centre, sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart, was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. 
Around it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. 
Here and there was a burning bush or tree. 
Beyond was a fringe of excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept as yet. 
In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years. 
The fever of war that would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to develop. 
All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit sky. 
About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon. 
Later a second company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. 
Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. 
The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. 
The military authorities were certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. 
About eleven, the next morning’s papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot. 
A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder. 

THE FIGHTING BEGINS. 
Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer. 
I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in sleeping, and I rose early. 
I went into my garden before breakfast and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but a lark. 
The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns were expected. 
Then—a familiar, reassuring note—I heard a train running towards Woking. 
“They aren’t to be killed,” said the milkman, “if that can 

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