and sharp
and bright.

And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod,
higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and
smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering
metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel
dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling
with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly,
heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear
almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards
nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently
along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave.
But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on
a tripod stand.

Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted,
as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were
snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared,
rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard
to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went
altogether. Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse's head
hard round to the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled
over upon the horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung
sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water.

I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in
the water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck
was broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black
bulk of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still
spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went
striding by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford.

Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere
insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing
metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which
gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange
body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen
hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable
suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge
mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of
green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster
swept by me. And in an instant it was gone.

So much I saw then, all va