now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal
showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either
entering or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound.

They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and,
meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside
must be insensible or dead.

Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted
consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get
help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and
disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just
as the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were
opening their bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway
station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London. The
newspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of the
idea.

By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already
started for the common to see the "dead men from Mars." That was the
form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about
a quarter to nine when I went out to get my _Daily Chronicle_. I was
naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the
Ottershaw bridge to the sand pits.



CHAPTER THREE

ON HORSELL COMMON