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Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned
since that, so far from my being the first discoverer of the
Martian overthrow, several such wanderers as myself had
already discovered this on the previous night. One man--
the first--had gone to St. Martin's-le-Grand, and, while I
sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to telegraph to
Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world;
a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly
flashed into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in
Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time
when I stood upon the verge of the pit. Already men, weeping
with joy, as I have heard, shouting and staying their
work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, even
as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells
that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news,
until all England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced,
unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of
unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of
despair. And for the food! Across the Channel, across the
Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were
tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed
going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no
memory. I drifted--a demented man. I found myself in a
house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day
wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St.
John's Wood. They have told me since that I was singing
some insane doggerel about "The Last Man Left Alive!
Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive!" Troubled as they were
with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as
I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not
even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me,
sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they
had learned something of my story from me during the days
of my lapse.
Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they
break to me what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was imprisoned it had been destroyed,
with every soul in it, by a Martian. He had swept it out
of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy
might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power.
I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I
was a lonely man and a sad one, and they bore with me. I
remained with them four days after my recovery. All that
time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look once more
on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy
and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast
upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they
could to divert me from this morbidity. But at last I could
resist the impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to
return to them, and parting, as I will confess, from these
four-day friends with tears, I went out again into the streets
that had lately been so dark and strange and empty.
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