Halfway through Chapter 10, (starting with “And this thing I saw”), the narrator describes the Martian machine as the lightning flashes. What is his impression?

From the text:

The thunderclaps, treading one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment, sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the slope.