The War of the Worlds

confluence with the high road, came a little cart drawn by
a sweating black pony and driven by a sallow youth in a
bowler hat, grey with dust. There were three girls, East
End factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded
in the cart.
‘This’ll tike us rahnd Edgware?’ asked the driver,
wild- eyed, white-faced; and when my brother told him it
would if he turned to the left, he whipped up at once
without the formality of thanks.
My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising
among the houses in front of them, and veiling the white
facade of a terrace beyond the road that appeared between
the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone suddenly cried
out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up
above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue
sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the
disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many
wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of
hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from
the crossroads.
‘Good heavens!’ cried Mrs. Elphinstone. ‘What is this
you are driving us into?’
My brother stopped.