the material universe swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light,
three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the
unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks
on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder.
And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly
and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer
every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were
sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity
and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one
on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant
planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection
of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I
told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty,
and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the
darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy
exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.

That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth
from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first
one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with
patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a
light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I
had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till
one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his
house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all
their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.

He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and
scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were
signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy
shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in
progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic
evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.

“The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one,” he
said.

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