(continued)

It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the lad killed.  It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the Martians feed.  After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall for the better part of a day.  I went into the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible;  but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue.  I lost heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to move.  And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by excavation.

It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about by their overthrow through any human effort.  But on the fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns.

It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly.  The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them.  Except for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking of the handling-machine, quite still.  That night was a beautiful serenity;  save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to herself.  I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that made me listen.  Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly like the sound of great guns.  Six distinct reports I counted, and after a long interval six again.  And that was all.

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