Red Masses

[Curate]

The thread about the brown scum reminded me of another part of the story - a moment when the narrator and the curate are running across Richmond Bridge and the narrator spies "a number of red masses, some many feet across." He then goes on to say "I did not know what these were - there was no time for scrutiny - and I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they deserved."
I assume that the red masses were clumps of red weed floating down the river. I have to wonder what the 'horrible interpretation' put upon them by the narrator was though. Did he think they were the bloody remains of slaughtered humans? At this point in the story he wasn't yet aware of the Martians' feeding habits.

[Thunder Child]

Yes, i think what the narrator is trying to say is that he first thought that the red masses were dead bodies but that they turned out to be pieces of red weed.

johan

[MartianAmbassador]

They probably are corpses .