nearly eleven o’clock before
Apparently he tossed them into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him , much as a workman 's basket hangs over his shoulder . It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other purpose than destruction with defeated humanity . We stood for a moment petrified , then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled garden , fell into , rather than found , a fortunate ditch , and lay there , scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out . I suppose it was nearly eleven o'clock before we gathered courage to start again , no longer venturing into the road , but sneaking along hedgerows and through plantations , and watching keenly through the darkness , he on the right and I on the left , for the Martians , who seemed to be all about us . In one place we blundered upon a scorched and blackened area , now cooling and ashen , and a number of scattered dead bodies of men , burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with their legs and boots mostly intact ; and of dead horses , fifty feet , perhaps , behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages . Sheen , it seemed , had escaped destruction , but the place was silent and deserted . Here we happened on no dead , though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place .