About Our Organization

Bringing artistic light to the community.

Fix had heard this conversation.  A little while before, when there was no prospect of proceeding on the journey, he had made up his mind to leave Fort Kearney; but now that the train was there, ready to start, and he had only to take his seat in the car, an irresistible influence held him back.  The station platform burned his feet, and he could not stir.  The conflict in his mind again began; anger and failure stifled him.  He wished to struggle on to the end. Meanwhile the passengers and some of the wounded, among them Colonel Proctor, whose injuries were serious, had taken their places in the train.  The buzzing of the over-heated boiler was heard, and the steam was escaping from the valves.  The engineer whistled, the train started, and soon disappeared, mingling its white smoke with the eddies of the densely falling snow. The detective had remained behind. Several hours passed.  The weather was dismal, and it was very cold.

Fix sat motionless on a bench in the station; he might have been thought asleep.  Aouda, despite the storm, kept coming out of the waiting-room, going to the end of the platform, and peering through the tempest of snow, as if to pierce the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, and to hear, if possible, some welcome sound.  She heard and saw nothing.  Then she would return, chilled through, to issue out again after the lapse of a few moments, but always in vain. Evening came, and the little band had not returned.  Where could they be?  Had they found the Indians, and were they having a conflict with them, or were they still wandering amid the mist?  The commander of the fort was anxious, though he tried to conceal his apprehensions.  As night approached, the snow fell less plentifully, but it became intensely cold.  Absolute silence rested on the plains.  Neither flight of bird nor passing of beast troubled the perfect calm.

Throughout the night Aouda, full of sad forebodings, her heart stifled with anguish, wandered about on the verge of the plains.  Her imagination carried her far off, and showed her innumerable dangers. What she suffered through the long hours it would be impossible to describe. Fix remained stationary in the same place, but did not sleep.

The Early Years

Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand pits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels.  I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples.

• And then, within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag.
• This was the Deputation.

Coming Of Age

There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent. Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left.

• It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication.
• This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances.
• Suddenly there was a flash of light,

An Artistic Force To Be Reckoned With

This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal.  At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible. Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground.

• As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished.
• Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise.
• Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.
• Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men.  It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame.  It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.