After they ate, the Narrator and the Curate (a man who works in a church) went back to the small room. The Narrator slept again for a short time. When he woke up, he was alone. He heard a loud and steady beating sound.
The Narrator walked to the kitchen door. The room moved because of the loud noise. He saw the Curate across the room. The Curate was looking through a small hole in the wall.
The Narrator walked carefully across the broken floor. He touched the Curate’s leg. The Curate moved quickly and some wall pieces fell down. The Narrator was afraid the Martians would hear them.
The Narrator looked through a small gap in the wall. The fifth cylinder (a large metal object from space) hit the house next door. That house was now completely destroyed. There was a very deep hole in the ground.
Their own house was broken, but the kitchen was still there. It was buried under a lot of dirt. The Narrator and the Curate were on the edge of the large pit. A green gas moved across the hole in the wall.
The Narrator saw a strange machine in the pit. It was a handling-machine (a machine with many arms for moving things). It looked like a metal spider with five legs. It had many long tentacles (long, thin arms that can move easily).
The machine was very fast and complex. It took metal rods out of the cylinder. It moved like a living animal. The Narrator was very surprised by this machine.
Then the Narrator saw the real Martians. They were very strange and scary. They were just large heads about four feet wide. Each head had a face with big, dark eyes.
The Martians had a type of beak under their eyes. They had sixteen thin tentacles around their mouths. These tentacles were like hands. On Earth, the Martians moved very slowly because they were heavy.
The Martians were very different from humans. They did not have a stomach or a heart like ours. They did not eat food. Instead, they took blood from living animals or humans.
They put this blood into their own bodies with a small tube. This sounds very bad to humans. But humans also eat animals. The Martians were very intelligent, but they had no feelings.
The Martians never slept. They worked for twenty-four hours every day. Also, they did not have men and women. A young Martian grew on the body of its parent like a small plant.
The Martians did not get sick. They had no bacteria (very small living things that cause disease). They did not have fevers or other human illnesses. Their lives were very simple and efficient.
On Mars, the plants are red. The Martians brought seeds with them. A red weed (a Martian plant that grows very fast) began to grow everywhere. It grew up the sides of the pit.
The red weed even grew around the hole in the kitchen wall. Later, the Narrator saw it near every river and stream. It was a bright red color. It grew very quickly in the water.
The Narrator watched the Martians closely. They did not use sounds or signs to talk. The Narrator believed they used telepathy (sending thoughts from one brain to another). They worked together perfectly without speaking.
The Martians did not wear clothes. They did not feel the cold or the heat. They were much more advanced than humans. They were like big brains that used machines for bodies.
The Martians did not use the wheel (a round object that turns to make a car move). This is very strange to humans. All our machines use wheels. Martian machines used metal parts that moved like muscles.
The Curate pulled the Narrator’s arm. He also wanted to look through the hole. The Narrator let the Curate look. The Curate was very afraid and angry.
Later, the Narrator saw a new machine. It was a digging machine (a machine that makes holes in the ground). It made a loud, rhythmic noise. It made the whole house shake as it worked.