JOURNALIST: Next morning, a crowd gathered on the Common, hypnotized by the unscrewing of the cylinder. Two feet of shining screw projected when, suddenly, the lid fell off!

Two luminous disc-like eyes appeared above the rim. A huge, rounded bulk, larger than a bear, rose up slowly, glistening like wet leather. Its lipless mouth quivered and slavered - and snake-like tentacles writhed as the clumsy body heaved and pulsated.

A few young men crept closer to the pit. A tall funnel rose, then an invisible ray of heat leapt from man to man and there was a bright glare, as each was instantly turned to fire. Every tree and bush became a mass of flames at the touch of this savage, unearthly
Heat Ray.

People clawed their way off the Common, and I ran too. I felt I was being toyed with,that when I was on the very verge of safety, this mysterious death would leap after me and strike me down. At last I reached Maybury Hill and in the dim coolness of my home I wrote an account for my newspaper before I sank into a restless, haunted sleep.

I awoke to alien sounds of hammering from the pit, and hurried to the railway station to buy the paper.

Around me, the daily routine of life - working, eating, sleeping - was continuing serenely as it had for countless years.

On Horsell Common, the Martians continued hammering and stirring,sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making. Now and again a light, like the beam of a warship's searchlight, swept the Common - and the Heat Ray was ready to follow. In the afternoon, a company of soldiers came through and deployed along the edge of the Common, to form a cordon.

That evening, there was a violent crash and I realized with horror that my home was now within range of the Martian's Heat Ray. At dawn, a falling star with a trail of green mist landed with a flash like summer lightning.

This was the second cylinder.

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