a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it came
clattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments upon
the flower bed by my study window.

I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of
Maybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' Heat-Ray now that
the college was cleared out of the way.

At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out
into the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go
upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.

"We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firing
reopened for a moment upon the common.

"But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.

I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.

"Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.

She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of
their houses, astonished.

"How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.

Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway
bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College;
two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The
sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the
trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon
everything.

"Stop here," said I; "you are safe here"; and I started off at once
for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart.
I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the
hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what
was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me,
talking to him.

"I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to drive
it."

"I'll give you two," said I, over the stranger's shoulder.

"What for?"

"And I'll bring it back by midnight," I said.

"Lord!" said the landlord; "what's the hurry? I'm selling my bit
of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What's going on now?"

I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the
dog cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the
landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and
then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife
and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such
plate as we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were
burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed r