Page:War of the Worlds.djvu/319

 artilleryman had talked to the hussars, and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the thunder-storm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog-cart with the whitened bones of the horse, scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding these vestiges.&hellip;

Then I returned through the pine-wood, neck-high with red weed here and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed.

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. The door had been forced; it was unfastened, and was opening slowly as I approached.

It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt empty. The stair-carpet was ruffled and discolored where I had crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunder-storm the night of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs,