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The War of the Worlds
Chapter 22. THE STILLNESS
My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery.
But the pantry was empty, every scrap of food had gone.
Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the previous day.
At that discovery I despaired for the first time.
I took no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day.
At first my mouth and throat were dry, and my strength clearly faded.
I sat around in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of miserable hopelessness, My mind ran on eating.
I thought I had become deaf, because the sounds of movement I had been used to hearing from the pit had stopped completely.
I didn't feel strong enough to crawl silently to the peephole, or I'd have gone there.
On the twelfth day, my throat was so painful that I took a risk.
I attacked the creaking rain-water pump by the sink.
I got a couple of glassfuls of blackened, dirty rain water.
I felt much better after this, and I was encouraged by the fact that no searching tentacle followed the noise of my pumping.
During these days, in a wandering, unclear way, I thought a lot about the curate and about the way he died.
On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought disconnectedly about eating and about vague impossible plans of escape.
Whenever I dozed, I dreamt of horrible ghosts.
I also dreamt of the curate's death, or of rich dinners.
But asleep or awake, I felt a sharp pain.
It made me want to drink again and again.
The light that came into the scullery was no longer grey, but red.
To my confused imagination it seemed the colour of blood.
On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen.
I was surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall.
This turned the half-light of the place into a red-coloured darkness.
Early on the fifteenth day I heard a curious, familiar sequence of sounds in the kitchen.
Listening, I recognized them as the sniffing and scratching of a dog.
Going into the kitchen, I saw a dog's nose peering in through a break among the reddish fronds.
This greatly surprised me, At the smell of me he barked shortly.
I thought if I could get him to come into the place quietly, I might be able to kill and eat him.
In any case, it would be wise to kill him.
That way, his actions wouldn't attract the attention of the Martians.
I crept forward, saying "Good dog!" very softly, but he suddenly pulled his head back and disappeared.
I listened, I wasn't deaf, but certainly the pit was still.
I heard a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings, and a rough croaking, but that was all.
For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but I didn't dare to move aside the red plants that blocked it.
Once or twice I heard a faint pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going here.
There on the sand far below me.
And there were more birdlike sounds, but that was all.
At last, encouraged by the silence, I looked out.
Except in the corner, where crows hopped and fought over skeletons the Martians had eaten, there was no living thing in the pit.
I stared around me, hardly believing my eyes.
All the machinery had gone, the place was just an empty circular pit in the sand.
It had a big pile of greyish-blue powder in one corner and certain bars of aluminium in another.
The black birds and the skeletons of the killed were also there.
Slowly I pushed myself out through the red weed, and stood on the pile of rubble.
I could see in any direction except behind me, to the north, and neither Martians nor any sign of Martians could be seen.
The pit dropped straight down from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish provided a usable slope to the top of the ruins.
My chance of escape had come, I began to tremble.
I hesitated for some time, then, in a burst of desperate determination, I climbed to the top of the mound.
My heart beat violently, I had been buried there so long.
I looked around again, To the northward, too, no Martian was visible.
When I had seen this part of Sheen in daylight it was a scattered street of white and red houses with shady trees.
Now I stood on a mound of broken brickwork, clay, and gravel.
A crowd of knee-high red, cactus-shaped plants spread over it, with no earthly plant to challenge their footing.
The trees near me were dead and brown, but further away a network of red thread climbed the still living stems.
The neighbouring houses had all been destroyed, but none had been burned, their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows and broken doors.
The red weed grew wildly in their roofless rooms.
Below me was the great pit, with the crows fighting for its waste.
A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins.
Far away I saw a thin cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but there were no traces of men.
The day seemed, compared to my recent imprisonment, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue.
A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every bit of empty ground gently swaying.
And oh! the sweetness of the air!