"Manly Wade Wellman - Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

space may not regard us and our overtures with any particular re-spect or deference."
The deputation walked closer to the pit, and closer. The more distant watchers all around stood in
silent expectation.
Then something seemed to stir in the pit beneath the mirror, something dark and dome-shaped. It
hunched upward into plainer sight. Upon it rode some sort of superstructure, brassy brown and shaped
like a hood. This object swiveled around as though to face the approaching group. Henderson lifted his
flag above his head and dipped it to left, then to right.
Something else came into view. It was a metal arm, seemingly jointed, that bore at its upper end a
strange housing, smaller than the hooded superstructure. This, too, shifted position as though to face and
observe Stent's party.
"PerhapsтАФ" Sir Percy began.
He got no further. There was a spurt of green vapor from below, a momentary, blinding flash of light.
A wail droned in the evening air, and the men of the deputation seemed to burst into flame, all at once.
They staggered and writhed, then fell this way and that, motionless and cinder-black.
The hood turned from them, and so did the arm with the ray-throwing instrument. Another flash, rather
than a visible beam, swept through the groups of on-lookers in the direction of Horsell, ignited a tuft of
trees beyond them, and jumped to more distant houses at the edge of the great open common. Flames
burst out everywhere that it touched.
Sir Percy Phelps cried out wordlessly and turned as though to run. His companion shot out a lean arm,
caught his shoulder and dragged him powerfully down behind the sandy rise, himself falling flat as he did
so. The flash was passing over them, and the wail of sound rose again in the evening air. Others in the
groups near-by, less fortunate or less quick, burst into incan-descence like grotesque fireworks and went
slamming down upon the turf. The flash abruptly died away. The two prone men behind the rise glanced
upward. The first stars had begun to wink into view in the darkening sky.
Elsewhere on Horsell Common rose quavering screams of terror. The tall stranger raised himself on his
hands until he could peer over the low ridge toward the pit. The domelike contrivance still hunched there,
with the mirror on its slender rod above it. All across the open space people were running, except for
those who could run no more. Heather and clumps of furze burned smokily, and trees were aflame. Two
miles away to the northwest, the roofs of Horsell blazed redly against the evening sky. He dropped
quickly flat again.
"Move away, but keep low," he said to Phelps. "See here, there's a dip in the ground just behind us,
toward town. That's our line of retreat, but keep out of sight. Never give them a chance at you."
Crouching so low that they almost crept on all fours, the two made their way into a shallow saucerlike
de-pression, fully a hundred yards across. The strange fire-weapon had not kindled the turf here. Sir
Percy trembled, but came along at his companion's touch until they were able to slide behind some bushy
trees, burning and crackling but affording a screen. Keeping that mask between them and the thing in the
pit, they gained the Chobham Road, rose and ran along it, and so into Woking.
Trees and houses at the edge of town had also been stricken by fire. Along the street beyond these,
people huddled at windows or peered in terror from doors. Nobody seemed to move in the streets
except the two who now made their way toward Briarbrae, Sir Percy's beautiful home. They entered at
the door and came into the study, where they conferred, Sir Percy still shaken, his companion earnest
but calm.
Sir Percy scribbled a telegram and sent a servant running with it to wire to London, then dashed off
others and sent a second man with those. At last he held out a shaking hand to his guest.
"I haven't had time to say thank you," he said in a voice that could barely be heard. "Out there, when
things were happening as though in a nightmare, you knew what to do, you kept us both safe and
brought us away."
"Knowing what to do has been my lifelong study," said the other. "At the time, I was thankful that they
brought no worse weapon into play than that flashing beam."
"What weapon could be worse?" asked Sir Percy.