So you have the state of things on Friday night.  In the centre,
sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart,
was this cylinder.  But the poison was scarcely working yet.  Around
it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few
dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there.
Here and there was a burning bush or tree.  Beyond was a fringe of
excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not
crept as yet.  In the rest of the world the stream of life still
flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years.  The fever of war that
would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain,
had still to develop.