Connecticut western news., 1920-06-03

1 gantic legs like an exaggerated tri- pod driving on with an express-trafn's speed, smashing everything in their path. At the tops, crouched in metal hoods, lay the Martians.
 Looking out from my windows at dawn, I beheld an abominable desola- tion, a blackened world that had been l green and fair. I struck out for LOn- | don and for miles saw not a living be- ing. I had reached the Thames when I saw the Things coming, five of them. I ran for the water. Straight toward me sped one, but I might have been an ant in a mans path. It strode through the river and lowered above Shepperton. Then six hidden guns | belched together. One shell struck l the hood and there was a horrible confusion of flesh and blood and me | tai. Something drove the uncontrolled machine on, crashing through the vil- lage, toppling over the church-tower, collapsing in the river. The others rushed to the spot and the air was filled with hissing of Heat Rays and | cracking of fires. SheppertOn leaped into flame. staggered to the shore and when I looked up, the Things were bearing away the smashed ma | chine. .cs1@. s.,-..s @~-t% I stumbled on, panic-stricken, dazed. The world was doomed. These mon sters could slay with Heat Rays be- yond the range. of our biggest guns. Not again could we kill one of them | by surprise. Terror stalked through London. To the horror of Heat Rays had been added the Black Smoke, cloud of poison that blighted all liv- | ing things. So London streamed in flight, 6,OOO,OO0 people roaring out along the highways until they were rivers in flood. sa--+. +-~.a'-i'~ Ifell into a ldoze under hedge and there the curate joined me. He was half-mad with fright and clung to me. We plodded on to a suburb where we sought refuge In a deserted house. At midnight came a blinding flash. When day broke, we peered through a peep hole and in the garden was Martian. Embedded in the earth was another glowing cylinder.
 For fifteen days I was penned there, so I saw more of the monsters than any other man now living. I watched their intricate machines-the auto matic digger, the sensitive handling machine like a metallic spider,-so flexible and so swiftly sure that they seemed centuries in advance of our rigid machinery. I could study too the Martian habits. learned that evolution had made them all brain, cold, remorseless intelligences un- swayed by emotion. They neither slept nor ate; they were sexless and their young were budded off, like the young of corals. Most horrible to me was the fact that they injected mems blood into their veins for nourishment.
 It was this that drove me to act as did when the curate went ravipg mad. I knew that his shouts would warn the Martians of our presence and tried to silence him. He broke away and caught him in the kitchen where I felled him with a meat-chop- per. He dropped stunned and then I saw two dark eyes at the window. fled to the coal-cellar and above me I heard a tapping, tapping, and then the noise of heavy body being drag ged across the floor.
 piled wood and coal over me when heard that tapping at the cellar door. Through crevices I could see the terrible arm of a handling-ma- chine, waving, feeling, examining. Once 1t ran across the heel of my boot and I nearly screamed. Then it went away.
 A week passed before I dared look out. About the peep-hole was massed quantities of the red weed that the Martians had brought-evidently vege- tation on Mars is red. I pushed it aside and ,gazed out. The garden was deserted.
 I crept into desolate world. About me was a smashed village. struggled in through the outskirts of London and not until I reached Wimbledon Com mon did meet man. He had food and drink and plans for the future, visions of people living in the great drains until they had science enough to conquer their conquerors. I stayed with. him until I had regained my strength and then walked into dead London.
 The metropolis was stilled of all it's humming life. Here and there were heaps of dead, withered by Black Smoke; here and there were signs of destruction but it was little changed except for the horrible quiet. I was near South Kensington when heard the mournful bowling, "ulla, ulla !" NnH Aho lnr q Al,n