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Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment . The little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out of existence , and the stillness of the evening , so it seemed to me , had scarcely been broken . It came to me that I was upon this dark common , helpless , unprotected , and alone . Suddenly , like a thing falling upon me from without , came — fear . With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather . The fear I felt was no rational fear , but a panic terror not only of the Martians , but of the dusk and stillness all about me . Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do . Once I had turned , I did not dare to look back . I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with , that presently , when I was upon the very verge of safety , this mysterious death — as swift as the passage of light — would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder , and strike me down . VI . THE HEAT - RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD . It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently . Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non - conductivity . This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose , by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition , much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light . But no one has absolutely proved these details . However it is done , it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter . Heat , and invisible , instead of visible , light . Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch , lead runs like water , it softens iron , cracks and melts glass , and when it falls upon water , incontinently that explodes into steam . That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit , charred and distorted beyond recognition , and all night long the common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze . The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham , Woking , and Ottershaw about the same time . In Woking the shops had closed when the tragedy happened , and a number of people , shop people and so forth , attracted by the stories they had heard , were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon the common . You may imagine the young people brushed up after the labours of the day , and making this novelty , as they would make any novelty , the excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial flirtation . You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road in the gloaming . . . . As yet , of course , few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had opened , though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the post office with a special wire to an evening paper .
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