The Second Occurrence

As I write this, I am sitting at home, with very much fear in my heart, waiting for the next strike to occur.  Before I get into telling my actions as they are happening, I intend to back up, if you will, and follow the natural course of events, instead of talking in such a haphazard way that no one man could understand.  I shall begin as such – the very next day from my last post, I fancied to return to the crater made by the cylinder.  As I approached, the crowd was pressing ever closer to the hole.  I called out to one man, who at that time I did not know, but came to realize that he was the Astronomer Royale; he answered me with a complaint of how the throng was inhibiting the workers’ ability to excavate the cylinder, and requested that I speak to Lord Hilton to have a light railing be put up as to keep back the crowd.  I traversed to the manor, only to find that Lord Hilton was not in, but expected on the six o’clock train.  As it was only about 5:15, I returned to my home to wait.  When I revisited the pits, all was chaos.  As I hurried up to the crater, a boy rushed past me, gibbering about how the cylinder’s cover was “a-screwin’ out”.  Whilst I approached the sand-pit, I noticed that the crowd had grown to the size of two or three hundred, all of whom were muttering and jostling each other.  When at the lip of the pit, a movement caught my attention, and I glanced down to see a young shop assistant that had been pushed into the pit by the overeager crowd, standing upon the cylinder and attempting to hoist himself out.  In a minute, he was gone.  Out of the cylinder emerged a tentacle, then another, until a Martian pulled itself out of the cylinder and regarded us all with the vacuity one might consider an insect – briefly interested, then bored, looking as if in the next instant it might crush us.  Even in the paralysis of the moment, that vacant stare holding us as if we could not breathe, some woman found the purchase to scream, at which time we all broke from our inactivity and had the good sense to run.  The shopkeeper’s assistant did not fare so luckily and was slowly dragged down into the pit, where the Martian began to feast.  I shudder to think of it now, as I wish I could have helped the poor fellow.  However, if I had not run, I could very well no longer remain your loyal servant, William Russell.