"Herbert George Wells. The War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора

"I say!" said Ogilvy; "help keep these idiots back. We
don't know what's in the confounded thing, you know!"

I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe
he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out
of the hole again. The crowd had pushed him in.

The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within.
Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blun-
dered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto
the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must
have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel
with a ringing concussion. I stuck my elbow into the person
behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again.
For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black.
I had the sunset in my eyes.

I think everyone expected to see a man emerge--possibly
something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essen-
tials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw some-
thing stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements,
one above another, and then two luminous disks--like eyes.
Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the
thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing
middle, and wriggled in the air towards me--and then
another.

A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek
from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed
upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now
projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge
of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the
faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclama-
tions on all sides. There was a general movement backwards.
I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I
found myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of
the pit running off, Stent among them. I looked again at the
cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petri-
fied and staring.

A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear,
was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As
it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet
leather.

Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me stead-
fastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was
rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth
under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and