BOOK TWO CHAPTER TEN
THE EPILOGUE
I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I
am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions
which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke
criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My
knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it
seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the rapid
death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a
proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative.
At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined
after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial
species were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the
reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance
of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no
means a proven conclusion.
Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the
Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the
Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and
South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further
investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder
points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a
brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it
combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly
effect upon some constituent in the blood. But such unproven
speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to whom
this story is addressed. None of the brown scum that drifted down the
Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the time, and
now none is forthcoming.
The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far as
the prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have already
given. But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and almost complete
specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and the countless
drawings that have been made from it; and beyond that the interest of
their physiology and structure is purely scientific.
A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of
another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough
attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the
planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I,
for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should
be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define the
position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a
sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the
arrival of the next attack.
In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or
artillery before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge, or
they might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw opened. It
seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the failure of their
first surprise. Possibly they see it in the same light.
Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the
Martians have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet
Venus. Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with the
sun; that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view of an
observer on Venus. Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous marking
appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and almost
simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character was
detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk. One needs to see the
drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their
remarkable resemblance in character.
At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of
the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have
learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a
secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or
evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the
larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its
ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene confidence in
the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence, the gifts to
human science it has brought are enormous, and it has done much to
promote the conception of the commonweal of mankind. It may be that
across the immensity of space the Martians have watched the fate of
these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, and that on the
planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be that as it may,
for many years yet there will certainly be no relaxation of the eager
scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery darts of the sky, the
shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall an unavoidable
apprehension to all the sons of men.
The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be
exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion
that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty
surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. If the Martians can
reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible
for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth
uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life
that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet
within its toils.
Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life
spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system
throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a
remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the
Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the
future ordained.
I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding
sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by
lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with
writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and
desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a
butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle,
children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, and
I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot, brooding silence.
Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent streets, and the
contorted bodies shrouded in that layer; they rise upon me tattered and
dog-bitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, uglier, mad distortions
of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and wretched, in the darkness of
the night.
I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the
Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the
past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going
to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a
galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as I
did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great
province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist,
vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people walking to
and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the sight-seers about
the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear the tumult of
playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it all bright and
clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last great day. . . .
And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think
that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.