BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS
CHAPTER 17: THE "THUNDER CHILD"
(continued)
About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in
the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged
ship. This was the ram THUNDER CHILD. It was the
only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the
smooth surface of the sea--for that day there was a dead
calm--lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next iron-clads
of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended
line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary
during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet
powerless to prevent it.
At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the
assurances of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic. She had
never been out of England before, she would rather die than
trust herself friendless in a foreign country, and so forth.
She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the
Martians might prove very similar. She had been growing
increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two
days' journeyings. Her great idea was to return to Stanmore.
Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore. They
would find George at Stanmore.
It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down
to the beach, where presently my brother succeeded in
attracting the attention of some men on a paddle steamer
from the Thames. They sent a boat and drove a bargain for
thirty-six pounds for the three. The steamer was going, these
men said, to Ostend.
It was about two o'clock when my brother, having paid
their fares at the gangway, found himself safely aboard the
steamboat with his charges. There was food aboard, albeit
at exorbitant prices, and the three of them contrived to eat
a meal on one of the seats forward.
There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard,
some of whom had expended their last money in securing
a passage, but the captain lay off the Blackwater until five
in the afternoon, picking up passengers until the seated decks
were even dangerously crowded. He would probably have
remained longer had it not been for the sound of guns that
began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the
ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of
flags. A jet of smoke sprang out of her funnels.
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