He was striding his way, the brass hood that crowned him rotated like a head looking around.

Yes, it was a machine, and it tinkled metallicly as it advanced, its long, flexible, shiny tentacles (one of which held a young pine tree) swayed at its sides. Wells describes war machines in detail in Book 1, Chapter 10: “Seen more closely, the artifact was incredibly strange, as it was not a simple machine that walked blindly. The fighting machines walked on three legs, they had metallic tentacles (the author compares them to the arms of a human being) that held the heath ray, and a metallic 'hood' that served as the head.