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

approach the Martians nearer. There were three policemen
too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under
instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter
them from approaching the cylinder. There was some booing
from those more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a
crowd is always an occasion for noise and horse-play.

Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a
collision, had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as
soon as the Martians emerged, for the help of a company of
soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence.
After that they returned to lead that ill-fated advance. The
description of their death, as it was seen by the crowd, tallies
very closely with my own impressions: the three puffs of
green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of
flame.

But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than
mine. Only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand inter-
cepted the lower part of the Heat-Ray saved them. Had the
elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher,
none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes
and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the
bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then,
with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit,
the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of
the beech trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks,
smashing the windows, firing the window frames, and bring-
ing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of the
house nearest the corner.

In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees,
the panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly
for some moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall
into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and
dresses caught fire. Then came a crying from the common.
There were shrieks and shouts, and suddenly a mounted
policeman came galloping through the confusion with his
hands clasped over his head, screaming.

"They're coming!" a woman shrieked, and incontinently
everyone was turning and pushing at those behind, in order
to clear their way to Woking again. They must have bolted
as blindly as a flock of sheep. Where the road grows narrow
and black between the high banks the crowd jammed, and a
desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not escape;
three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were
crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror
and the darkness.