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At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley . The northern hills were shrouded in darkness ; the fires near Kensington glowed redly , and now and then an orange - red tongue of flame flashed up and vanished in the deep blue night . All the rest of London was black . Then , nearer , I perceived a strange light , a pale , violet - purple fluorescent glow , quivering under the night breeze . For a space I could not understand it , and then I knew that it must be the red weed from which this faint irradiation proceeded . With that realisation my dormant sense of wonder , my sense of the proportion of things , awoke again . I glanced from that to Mars , red and clear , glowing high in the west , and then gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead and Highgate . I remained a very long time upon the roof , wondering at the grotesque changes of the day . I recalled my mental states from the midnight prayer to the foolish card - playing . I had a violent revulsion of feeling . I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful symbolism . My folly came to me with glaring exaggeration . I seemed a traitor to my wife and to my kind ; I was filled with remorse . I resolved to leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony , and to go on into London . There , it seemed to me , I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing . I was still upon the roof when the late moon rose . VIII . DEAD LONDON . After I had parted from the artilleryman , I went down the hill , and by the High Street across the bridge to Fulham . The red weed was tumultuous at that time , and nearly choked the bridge roadway ; but its fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that presently removed it so swiftly . At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I found a man lying . He was as black as a sweep with the black dust , alive , but helplessly and speechlessly drunk . I could get nothing from him but curses and furious lunges at my head . I think I should have stayed by him but for the brutal expression of his face . There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards , and it grew thicker in Fulham . The streets were horribly quiet . I got food — sour , hard , and mouldy , but quite eatable — in a baker’s shop here . Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder , and I passed a white terrace of houses on fire ; the noise of the burning was an absolute relief . Going on towards Brompton , the streets were quiet again . Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies . I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham Road . They had been dead many days , so that I hurried quickly past them . The black powder covered them over , and softened their outlines . One or two had been disturbed by dogs .
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