on. We talked in this manner through the early morning
time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky
for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where
he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I
saw the work he had spent a week upon--it was a burrow scarcely ten
yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney
Hill--I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his
powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him
sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at
his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed
against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a tin of
mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found a
curious relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady
labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and
presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I worked there all
the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a purpose again. After
working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go
before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it
altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long
tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at once down one of
the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to me, too, that
the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless length of
tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these things, the
artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me.

"We're working well," he said. He put down his spade. "Let us
knock off a bit" he said. "I think it's time we reconnoitred from the
roof of the house."

I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his
spade; and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so
did he at once.

"Why were you walking about the common," I said, "instead of being
here?"

"Taking the air," he said. "I was coming back. It's safer by
night."

"But the work?"

"Oh, one can't always work," he said, and in a flash I saw the man
plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. "We ought to reconnoitre
now," he said, "because if any come near they may hear the spades and
drop upon us unawares."

I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof
and stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were
to be seen