the distant
pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to
make her understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear.
You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even
the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation
about that evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and empty save
for a few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well, that night the
expectation took the colour of my fears. In that darkling calm my senses
seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel the hollowness
of the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see through it
the Morlocks on their ant-hill going hither and thither and waiting
for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they would receive my
invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why had they
taken my Time Machine?
`So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The
clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out.
The ground grew dim and the trees black. Weena's fears and her fatigue
grew upon her. I took her in my arms and talked to her and caressed
her. Then, as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck,
and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face against my shoulder.
So we went down a long slope into a valley, and there in the dimness
I almost walked into a little river. This I waded, and went up the opposite
side of the valley, past a number of sleeping houses, and by a statue--a
Faun, or some such figure, MINUS the head. Here too were acacias. So
far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was yet early in the
night, and the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come.
`From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood spreading wide and
black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either
to the right or the left. Feeling tired--my feet, in particular, were
very sore--I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and
sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain,
and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness of the
wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches
one would be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other lurking
danger--a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon--there
would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike
against.
`I was very tired, too, after the excitements of the day; so I decided
that I would not face it, but would pass the night upon the open hill.
`Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her
in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The
hill-side was quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood there
came now and then a stir of living things. Above me shone the stars,
for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort
in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky,
however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human
lifetimes, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But
the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer
of star-dust as of yore. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright
red star that was new to me; it was even more splendid than our own
green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright
planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend.
`Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the
gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance,
and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown
past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional cycle
that the pole of the earth describes. Only forty times had that silent
revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And during
these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the complex
organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even
the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence.
Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry,
and the white Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought of the
Great Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time,
with a sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had
seen might be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping
beside me, her face white and starlike under the stars, and forthwith
dismissed the thought.
`Through that long night I held my mind off the Morlocks as well as
I could, and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs
of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear,
except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt I dozed at times. Then, as my
vigil wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection
of some colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and peaked and
white. And close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the
dawn came, pale at first, and then growing pink and warm. No Morlocks
had approached us. Indeed, I had seen none upon the hill that night.
And in the confidence of renewed day it almost seemed to me that my
fear had been unreasonable. I stood up and found my foot with the loose
heel swollen at the ankle and painful under the heel; so I sat down
again, took off my shoes, and flung them away.
`I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood, now green and pleasant
instead of black and forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to break
our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing
in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night.
And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. I felt assured
now of what it was, and from the bottom of my heart I pitied this last
feeble rill from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time
in the Long-Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had run short. Possibly
they had lived on rats and such-like vermin. Even now man is far less
discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was--far less than
any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep-seated instinct.
And so these inhuman sons of men----! I tried to look at the thing in
a scientific spirit. After all, they were less human and more remote
than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And
the intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment
had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted cattle,
which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon--probably saw
to the breeding of. And there was Weena dancing at my side!
`Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon
me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man
had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his
fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in
the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. I even tried a
Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude
of mind was impossible. However great their intellectual degradation,
the Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy,
and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation and their Fear.
`I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should pursue.
My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to make myself
such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That necessity was
immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some means of fire,
so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing, I
knew, would be more efficient against these Morlocks. Then I wanted
to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under
the White Sphinx. I had in mind a battering ram. I had a persuasion
that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before
me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. I could not imagine
the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away. Weena I had resolved
to bring with me to our own time. And turning such schemes over in my
mind I pursued our way towards the building which my fancy had chosen
as our dwelling.
VIII
`I found the Palace of Green Porcelain, when we approached it about
noon, deserted and falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass
remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had fallen
away from the corroded metallic framework. It lay very high upon a turfy
down, and looking north-eastward before I entered it, I was surprised
to see a large estuary, or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and
Battersea must once have been. I thought then--though I never followed
up the thought--of what might have happened, or might be happening,
to the living things in the sea.
`The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain,
and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown character.
I thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me to interpret this,
but I only learned that the bare idea of writing had never entered her
head. She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps
because her affection was so human.
`Within the big valves of the door--which were open and broken--we found,
instead of the customary hall, a long gallery lit by many side windows.
At the first glance I was reminded of a museum. The tiled floor was
thick with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was
shrouded in the same grey covering. Then I perceived, standing strange
and gaunt in the centre of the hall, what was clearly the lower part
of a huge skeleton. I recognized by the oblique feet that it was some
extinct creature after the fashion of the Megatherium. The skull and
the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and in one place, where
rain-water had dropped through a leak in the roof, the thing itself
had been worn away. Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel
of a Brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards
the side I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing away
the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time.
But they must have been air-tight to judge from the fair preservation
of some of their contents.
`Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latter-day South Kensington!
Here, apparently, was the Palaeontological Section, and a very splendid
array of fossils it must have been, though the inevitable process of
decay that had been staved off for a time, and had, through the extinction
of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, was
nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work
again upon all its treasures. Here and there I found traces of the little
people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in
strings upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily
removed--by the Morlocks as I judged. The place was very silent. The
thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea
urchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently came, as I stared
about me, and very quietly took my hand and stood beside me.
`And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an
intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented.
Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little from my
mind.
`To judge from the size of the place, this Palace of Green Porcelain
had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly
historical galleries; it might be, even a library! To me, at least in
my present circumstances, these would be vastly more interesting than
this spectacle of oldtime geology in decay. Exploring, I found another
short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be
devoted to minerals, and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind
running on gunpowder. But I could find no saltpeter; indeed, no nitrates
of any kind. Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago. Yet the sulphur
hung in my mind, and set up a train of thinking. As for the rest of
the contents of that gallery, though on the whole they were the best
preserved of all I saw, I had little interest. I am no specialist in
mineralogy, and I went on down a very ruinous aisle running parallel
to the first hall I had entered. Apparently this section had been devoted
to natural history, but everything had long since passed out of recognition.
A few shrivelled and blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed
animals, desiccated mummies in jars that had once held spirit, a brown
dust of departed plants: that was all! I was sorry for that, because
I should have been glad to trace the patent readjustments by which the
conquest of animated nature had been attained. Then we came to a gallery
of simply colossal proportions, but singularly ill-lit, the floor of
it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which I entered.
At intervals white globes hung from the ceiling--many of them cracked
and smashed--which suggested that originally the place had been artificially
lit. Here I was more in my element, for rising on either side of me
were the huge bulks of big machines, all greatly corroded and many broken
down, but some still fairly complete. You know I have a certain weakness
for mechanism, and I was inclined to linger among these; the more so
as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles, and I could make
only the vaguest guesses at what they were for. I fancied that if I
could solve their puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers
that might be of use against the Morlocks.
`Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So suddenly that she startled
me. Had it not been for her I do not think I should have noticed that
the floor of the gallery sloped at all. [Footnote: It may be, of course,
that the floor did not slope, but that the museum was built into the
side of a hill.-ED.] The end I had come in at was quite above ground,
and was lit by rare slit-like windows. As you went down the length,
the ground came up against these windows, until at last there was a
pit like the "area" of a London house before each, and only
a narrow line of daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling
about the machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the
gradual diminution of the light, until Weena's increasing apprehensions
drew my attention. Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last into
a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked round me, I saw
that the dust was less abundant and its surface less even. Further away
towards the dimness, it appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow
footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived
at that. I felt that I was wasting my time in the academic examination
of machinery. I called to mind that it was already far advanced in the
afternoon, and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means of
making a fire. And then down in the remote blackness of the gallery
I heard a peculiar pattering, and the same odd noises I had heard down
the well.
`I took Weena's hand. Then, struck with a sudden idea, I left her and
turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike those in
a signal-box. Clambering upon the stand, and grasping this lever in
my hands, I put all my weight upon it sideways. Suddenly Weena, deserted
in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength of
the lever pretty correctly, for it snapped after a minute's strain,
and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient, I judged,
for any Morlock skull I might encounter. And I longed very much to kill
a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing
one's own descendants! But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity
in the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion
that if I began to slake my thirst for murder my Time Machine might
suffer, restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing
the brutes I heard.
`Well, mace in one hand and Weena in the other, I went out of that gallery
and into another and still larger one, which at the first glance reminded
me of a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The brown and charred
rags that hung from the sides of it, I presently recognized as the decaying
vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and every
semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped boards
and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been
a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the futility of
all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me with keenest force
was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of
rotting paper testified. At the time I will confess that I thought chiefly
of the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS and my own seventeen papers upon physical
optics.
`Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to what may once have been
a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a little hope of
useful discoveries. Except at one end where the roof had collapsed,
this gallery was well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case.
And at last, in one of the really air-tight cases, I found a box of
matches. Very eagerly I tried them. They were perfectly good. They were
not even damp. I turned to Weena. "Dance," I cried to her
in her own tongue. For now I had a weapon indeed against the horrible
creatures we feared. And so, in that derelict museum, upon the thick
soft carpeting of dust, to Weena's huge delight, I solemnly performed
a kind of composite dance, whistling THE LAND OF THE LEAL as cheerfully
as I could. In part it was a modest CANCAN, in part a step dance, in
part a skirt-dance (so far as my tail-coat permitted), and in part original.
For I am naturally inventive, as you know.
`Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the
wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange, as for me it was
a most fortunate thing. Yet, oddly enough, I found a far unlikelier
substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that by
chance, I suppose, had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at
first that it was paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly. But
the odour of camphor was unmistakable. In the universal decay this volatile
substance had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of
centuries. It reminded me of a sepia painting I had once seen done from
the ink of a fossil Belemnite that must have perished and become fossilized
millions of years ago. I was about to throw it away, but I remembered
that it was inflammable and burned with a good bright flame--was, in
fact, an excellent candle--and I put it in my pocket. I found no explosives,
however, nor any means of breaking down the bronze doors. As yet my
iron crowbar was the most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless
I left that gallery greatly elated.
`I cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon. It would require
a great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all the proper
order. I remember a long gallery of rusting stands of arms, and how
I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword. I could not
carry both, however, and my bar of iron promised best against the bronze
gates. There were numbers of guns, pistols, and rifles. The most were
masses of rust, but many were of some new metal, and still fairly sound.
But any cartridges or powder there may once have been had rotted into
dust. One corner I saw was charred and shattered; perhaps, I thought,
by an explosion among the specimens. In another place was a vast array
of idols--Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician, every country on
earth I should think. And here, yielding to an irresistible impulse,
I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America
that particularly took my fancy.
`As the evening drew on, my interest waned. I went through gallery after
gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous, the exhibits sometimes mere heaps
of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher. In one place I suddenly found
myself near the model of a tin-mine, and then by the merest accident
I discovered, in an air-tight case, two dynamite cartridges! I shouted
"Eureka!" and smashed the case with joy. Then came a doubt.
I hesitated. Then, selecting a little side gallery, I made my essay.
I never felt such a disappointment as I did in waiting five, ten, fifteen
minutes for an explosion that never came. Of course the things were
dummies, as I might have guessed from their presence. I really believe
that had they not been so, I should have rushed off incontinently and
blown Sphinx, bronze doors, and (as it proved) my chances of finding
the Time Machine, all together into nonexistence.
`It was after that, I think, that we came to a little open court within
the palace. It was turfed, and had three fruit- trees. So we rested
and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset I began to consider our position.
Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible hiding-place had still
to be found. But that troubled me very little now. I had in my possession
a thing that was, perhaps, the best of all defences against the Morlocks--I
had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket, too, if a blaze were needed.
It seemed to me that the best thing we could do would be to pass the
night in the open, protected by a fire. In the morning there was the
getting of the Time Machine. Towards that, as yet, I had only my iron
mace. But now, with my growing knowledge, I felt very differently towards
those bronze doors. Up to this, I had refrained from forcing them, largely
because of the mystery on the other side. They had never impressed me
as being very strong, and I hoped to find my bar of iron not altogether
inadequate for the work.
IX
`We emerged from the palace while the sun was still in part above the
horizon. I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning,
and ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods that had stopped
me on the previous journey. My plan was to go as far as possible that
night, and then, building a fire, to sleep in the protection of its
glare. Accordingly, as we went along I gathered any sticks or dried
grass I saw, and presently had my arms full of such litter. Thus loaded,
our progress was slower than I had anticipated, and besides Weena was
tired. And I began to suffer from sleepiness too; so that it was full
night before we reached the wood. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge
Weena would have stopped, fearing the darkness before us; but a singular
sense of impending calamity, that should indeed have served me as a
warning, drove me onward. I had been without sleep for a night and two
days, and I was feverish and irritable. I felt sleep coming upon me,
and the Morlocks with it.
`While we hesitated, among the black bushes behind us, and dim against
their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There was scrub and
long grass all about us, and I did not feel safe from their insidious
approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather less than a mile across.
If we could get through it to the bare hill-side, there, as it seemed
to me, was an altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my
matches and my camphor I could contrive to keep my path illuminated
through the woods. Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish matches
with my hands I should have to abandon my firewood; so, rather reluctantly,
I put it down. And then it came into my head that I would amaze our
friends behind by lighting it. I was to discover the atrocious folly
of this proceeding, but it came to my mind as an ingenious move for
covering our retreat.
`I don't know if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must
be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. The sun's heat
is rarely strong enough to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops,
as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast
and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation
may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this
rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the art of fire-making
had been forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up
my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
`She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would have
cast herself into it had I not restrained her. But I caught her up,
and in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the wood.
For a little way the glare of my fire lit the path. Looking back presently,
I could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks
the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved line of fire
was creeping up the grass of the hill. I laughed at that, and turned
again to the dark trees before me. It was very black, and Weena clung
to me convulsively, but there was still, as my eyes grew accustomed
to the darkness, sufficient light for me to avoid the stems. Overhead
it was simply black, except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down
upon us here and there. I struck none of my matches because I had no
hand free. Upon my left arm I carried my little one, in my right hand
I had my iron bar.
`For some way I heard nothing but the crackling twigs under my feet,
the faint rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing and the throb
of the blood-vessels in my ears. Then I seemed to know of a pattering
about me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and
then I caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard in the Under-world.
There were evidently several of the Morlocks, and they were closing
in upon me. Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at my coat, then
something at my arm. And Weena shivered violently, and became quite
still.
`It was time for a match. But to get one I must put her down. I did
so, and, as I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness
about my knees, perfectly silent on her part and with the same peculiar
cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft little hands, too, were creeping
over my coat and back, touching even my neck. Then the match scratched
and fizzed. I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of the Morlocks
in flight amid the trees. I hastily took a lump of camphor from my pocket,
and prepared to light is as soon as the match should wane. Then I looked
at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet and quite motionless, with
her face to the ground. With a sudden fright I stooped to her. She seemed
scarcely to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the
ground, and as it split and flared up and drove back the Morlocks and
the shadows, I knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full
of the stir and murmur of a great company!
`She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder and
rose to push on, and then there came a horrible realization. In manoeuvring
with my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about several times,
and now I had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path. For
all I knew, I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain.
I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do. I
determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I put Weena, still
motionless, down upon a turfy bole, and very hastily, as my first lump
of camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and leaves. Here and there
out of the darkness round me the Morlocks' eyes shone like carbuncles.
`The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match, and as I did so,
two white forms that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away.
One was so blinded by the light that he came straight for me, and I
felt his bones grind under the blow of my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay,
staggered a little way, and fell down. I lit another piece of camphor,
and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry was some
of the foliage above me, for since my arrival on the Time Machine, a
matter of a week, no rain had fallen. So, instead of casting about among
the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping up and dragging down branches.
Very soon I had a choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and
could economize my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay beside
my iron mace. I tried what I could to revive her, but she lay like one
dead. I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed.
`Now, the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and it must have made
me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapour of camphor was in the air.
My fire would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very weary
after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too, was full of a slumbrous
murmur that I did not understand. I seemed just to nod and open my eyes.
But all was dark, and the Morlocks had their hands upon me. Flinging
off their clinging fingers I hastily felt in my pocket for the match-box,
and--it had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me again. In a moment
I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out, and
the bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed full of
the smell of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by the hair, by
the arms, and pulled down. It was indescribably horrible in the darkness
to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was
in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered, and went down. I felt
little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over, and as I did so my hand
came against my iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking
the human rats from me, and, holding the bar short, I thrust where I
judged their faces might be. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh
and bone under my blows, and for a moment I was free.
`The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting
came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena were lost, but I determined
to make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree,
swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was full of the stir
and cries of them. A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise to a
higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew faster. Yet none
came within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came
hope. What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the heels of that
came a strange thing. The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly
I began to see the Morlocks about me--three battered at my feet--and
then I recognized, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running,
in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through
the wood in front. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish.
As I stood agape, I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap
of starlight between the branches, and vanish. And at that I understood
the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now
into a gusty roar, the red glow, and the Morlocks' flight.
`Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw, through the
black pillars of the nearer trees, the flames of the burning forest.
It was my first fire coming after me. With that I looked for Weena,
but she was gone. The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive
thud as each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection.
My iron bar still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks' path. It was
a close race. Once the flames crept forward so swiftly on my right as
I ran that I was outflanked and had to strike off to the left. But at
last I emerged upon a small open space, and as I did so, a Morlock came
blundering towards me, and past me, and went on straight into the fire!
`And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing, I think, of
all that I beheld in that future age. This whole space was as bright
as day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock
or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another
arm of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from
it, completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hill-side
were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and
blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck furiously at
them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing
one and crippling several more. But when I had watched the gestures
of one of them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and heard
their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery
in the glare, and I struck no more of them.
`Yet every now and then one would come straight towards me, setting
loose a quivering horror that made me quick to elude him. At one time
the flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would
presently be able to see me. I was thinking of beginning the fight by
killing some of them before this should happen; but the fire burst out
again brightly, and I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among
them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena. But Weena was
gone.
`At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock, and watched this strange
incredible company of blind things groping to and fro, and making uncanny
noises to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on them. The coiling
uprush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through the rare tatters
of that red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe,
shone the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came blundering into me,
and I drove them off with blows of my fists, trembling as I did so.
`For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a nightmare.
I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake. I beat the
ground with my hands, and got up and sat down again, and wandered here
and there, and again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my eyes
and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their
heads down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames. But, at last,
above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming masses of black
smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing
numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light of the day.
`I searched again for traces of Weena, but there were none. It was plain
that they had left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot describe
how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful fate to which
it seemed destined. As I thought of that, I was almost moved to begin
a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, but I contained myself.
The hillock, as I have said, was a kind of island in the forest. From
its summit I could now make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of
Green Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings for the White
Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant of these damned souls still going
hither and thither and moaning, as the day grew clearer, I tied some
grass about my feet and limped on across smoking ashes and among black
stems, that still pulsated internally with fire, towards the hiding-place
of the Time Machine. I walked slowly, for I was almost exhausted, as
well as lame, and I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible
death of little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this
old familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a dream than an actual
loss. But that morning it left me absolutely lonely again--terribly
alone. I began to think of this house of mine, of this fireside, of
some of you, and with such thoughts came a longing that was pain.
`But as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning sky,
I made a discovery. In my trouser pocket were still some loose matches.
The box must have leaked before it was lost.
X
`About eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of yellow
metal from which I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival.
I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening and could not refrain
from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here was the same beautiful
scene, the same abundant foliage, the same splendid palaces and magnificent
ruins, the same silver river running between its fertile banks. The
gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the
trees. Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena,
and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain. And like blots upon the
landscape rose the cupolas above the ways to the Under-world. I understood
now what all the beauty of the Over- world people covered. Very pleasant
was their day, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Like
the cattle, they knew of no enemies and provided against no needs. And
their end was the same.
`I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been.
It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort
and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword,
it had attained its hopes--to come to this at last. Once, life and property
must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured
of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work.
No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem,
no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed.
`It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is
the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly
in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never
appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There
is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only
those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety
of needs and dangers.
`So, as I see it, the Upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble
prettiness, and the Under-world to mere mechanical industry. But that
perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical perfection--absolute
permanency. Apparently as time went on, the feeding of the Under-world,
however it was effected, had become disjointed. Mother Necessity, who
had been staved off for a few thousand years, came back again, and she
began below. The Under-world being in contact with machinery, which,
however perfect, still needs some little thought outside habit, had
probably retained perforce rather more initiative, if less of every
other human character, than the Upper. And when other meat failed them,
they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say I saw
it in my last view of the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven
Hundred and One. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could
invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give
it to you.
`After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, and
in spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight
were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing
passed into dozing. Catching myself at that, I took my own hint, and
spreading myself out upon the turf I had a long and refreshing sleep.
`I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against being caught
napping by the Morlocks, and, stretching myself, I came on down the
hill towards the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and the
other hand played with the matches in my pocket.
`And now came a most unexpected thing. As I approached the pedestal
of the sphinx I found the bronze valves were open. They had slid down
into grooves.
`At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter.
`Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in the corner of
this was the Time Machine. I had the small levers in my pocket. So here,
after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx,
was a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to
use it.
`A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped towards the portal.
For once, at least, I grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks.
Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze
frame and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it had been
carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since that the Morlocks
had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way
to grasp its purpose.
`Now as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere touch
of the contrivance, the thing I had expected happened. The bronze panels
suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I was in the dark--trapped.
So the Morlocks thought. At that I chuckled gleefully.
`I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came towards
me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. I had only to fix on the
levers and depart then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little
thing. The matches were of that abominable kind that light only on the
box.
`You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were close
upon me. One touched me. I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them
with the levers, and began to scramble into the saddle of the machine.
Then came one hand upon me and then another. Then I had simply to fight
against their persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time
feel for the studs over which these fitted. One, indeed, they almost
got away from me. As it slipped from my hand, I had to butt in the dark
with my head--I could hear the Morlock's skull ring--to recover it.
It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think, this last
scramble.
`But at last the lever was fitted and pulled over. The clinging hands
slipped from me. The darkness presently fell from my eyes. I found myself
in the same grey light and tumult I have already described.
XI
`I have already told you of the sickness and confusion that comes with
time travelling. And this time I was not seated properly in the saddle,
but sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I clung
to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how I went,
and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to
find where I had arrived. One dial records days, and another thousands
of days, another millions of days, and another thousands of millions.
Now, instead of reversing the levers, I had pulled them over so as to
go forward with them, and when I came to look at these indicators I
found that the thousands hand was sweeping round as fast as the seconds
hand of a watch--into futurity.
`As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the appearance of things.
The palpitating greyness grew darker; then--though I was still travelling
with prodigious velocity--the blinking succession of day and night,
which was usually indicative of a slower pace, returned, and grew more
and more marked. This puzzled me very much at first. The alternations
of night and day grew slower and slower, and so did the passage of the
sun across the sky, until they seemed to stretch through centuries.
At last a steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight only broken
now and then when a comet glared across the darkling sky. The band of
light that had indicated the sun had long since disappeared; for the
sun had ceased to set--it simply rose and fell in the west, and grew
ever broader and more red. All trace of the moon had vanished. The circling
of the stars, growing slower and slower, had given place to creeping
points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and
very large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing
with a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction.
At one time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly again,
but it speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this
slowing down of its rising and setting that the work of the tidal drag
was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun, even
as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I
remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower
and slower went the circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless
and the daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower,
until the dim outlines of a desolate beach grew visible.
`I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round.
The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black, and out
of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead
it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter
to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull of
the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish
colour, and all the trace of life that I could see at first was the
intensely green vegetation that covered every projecting point on their
south-eastern face. It was the same rich green that one sees on forest
moss or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual
twilight.
`The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched away
to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the wan
sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was
stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing,
and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living. And along
the margin where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation
of salt--pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppression in
my head, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation
reminded me of my only experience of mountaineering, and from that I
judged the air to be more rarefied than it is now.
`Far away up the desolate slope I heard a harsh scream, and saw a thing
like a huge white butterfly go slanting and flittering up into the sky
and, circling, disappear over some low hillocks beyond. The sound of
its voice was so dismal that I shivered and seated myself more firmly
upon the machine. Looking round me again, I saw that, quite near, what
I had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly towards me.
Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous crab-like creature. Can
you imagine a crab as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving
slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long antennae, like
carters' whips, waving and feeling, and its stalked eyes gleaming at
you on either side of its metallic front? Its back was corrugated and
ornamented with ungainly bosses, and a greenish incrustation blotched
it here and there. I could see the many palps of its complicated mouth
flickering and feeling as it moved.
`As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling towards me, I felt
a tickling on my cheek as though a fly had lighted there. I tried to
brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost
immediately came another by my ear. I struck at this, and caught something
threadlike. It was drawn swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm,
I turned, and I saw that I had grasped the antenna of another monster
crab that stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were wriggling on their
stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly
claws, smeared with an algal slime, were descending upon me. In a moment
my hand was on the lever, and I had placed a month between myself and
these monsters. But I was still on the same beach, and I saw them distinctly
now as soon as I stopped. Dozens of them seemed to be crawling here
and there, in the sombre light, among the foliated sheets of intense
green.
`I cannot convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over the
world. The red eastern sky, the northward blackness, the salt Dead Sea,
the stony beach crawling with these foul, slow-stirring monsters, the
uniform poisonous-looking green of the lichenous plants, the thin air
that hurts one's lungs: all contributed to an appalling effect. I moved
on a hundred years, and there was the same red sun--a little larger,
a little duller--the same dying sea, the same chill air, and the same
crowd of earthy crustacea creeping in and out among the green weed and
the red rocks. And in the westward sky, I saw a curved pale line like
a vast new moon.
`So I travelled, stopping ever and again, in great strides of a thousand
years or more, drawn on by the mystery of the earth's fate, watching
with a strange fascination the sun grow larger and duller in the westward
sky, and the life of the old earth ebb away. At last, more than thirty
million years hence, the huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to obscure
nearly a tenth part of the darkling heavens. Then I stopped once more,
for the crawling multitude of crabs had disappeared, and the red beach,
save for its livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless. And
now it was flecked with white. A bitter cold assailed me. Rare white
flakes ever and again came eddying down. To the north-eastward, the
glare of snow lay under the starlight of the sable sky and I could see
an undulating crest of hillocks pinkish white. There were fringes of
ice along the sea margin, with drifting masses further out; but the
main expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset,
was still unfrozen.
`I looked about me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A certain
indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the machine.
But I saw nothing moving, in earth or sky or sea. The green slime on
the rocks alone testified that life was not extinct. A shallow sandbank
had appeared in the sea and the water had receded from the beach. I
fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon this bank, but it
became motionless as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had been
deceived, and that the black object was merely a rock. The stars in
the sky were intensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle very little.
`Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward outline of the sun had
changed; that a concavity, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this
grow larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this blackness
that was creeping over the day, and then I realized that an eclipse
was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across
the sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there
is much to incline me to believe that what I really saw was the transit
of an inner planet passing very near to the earth.
`The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts
from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in
number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these
lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey
the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the
cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background
of our lives--all that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying
flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the
air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other,
the white peaks of the distant hills vanished into blackness. The breeze
rose to a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse
sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible.
All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.
`A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to
my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered,
and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared
the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt
giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and
confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal--there was no mistake
now that it was a moving thing--against the red water of the sea. It
was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger,
and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering
blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was
fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and
awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.
XII
`So I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible upon the
machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed,
the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with greater freedom.
The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun
backward upon the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses,
the evidences of decadent humanity. These, too, changed and passed,
and others came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened
speed. I began to recognize our own petty and familiar architecture,
the thousands hand ran back to the starting-point, the night and day
flapped slower and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came
round me. Very gently, now, I slowed the mechanism down.
`I saw one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think I have told you
that when I set out, before my velocity became very high, Mrs. Watchett
had walked across the room, travelling, as it seemed to me, like a rocket.
As I returned, I passed again across that minute when she traversed
the laboratory. But now her every motion appeared to be the exact inversion
of her previous ones. The door at the lower end opened, and she glided
quietly up the laboratory, back foremost, and disappeared behind the
door by which she had previously entered. Just before that I seemed
to see Hillyer for a moment; but he passed like a flash.
`Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old familiar
laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them. I got off
the thing very shaky, and sat down upon my bench. For several minutes
I trembled violently. Then I became calmer. Around me was my old workshop
again, exactly as it had been. I might have slept there, and the whole
thing have been a dream.
`And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the south-east corner
of the laboratory. It had come to rest again in the north-west, against
the wall where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance from my
little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx, into which the Morlocks
had carried my machine.
`For a time my brain went stagnant. Presently I got up and came through
the passage here, limping, because my heel was still painful, and feeling
sorely begrimed. I saw the PALL MALL GAZETTE on the table by the door.
I found the date was indeed to-day, and looking at the timepiece, saw
the hour was almost eight o'clock. I heard your voices and the clatter
of plates. I hesitated--I felt so sick and weak. Then I sniffed good
wholesome meat, and opened the door on you. You know the rest. I washed,
and dined, and now I am telling you the story.
`I know,' he said, after a pause, `that all this will be absolutely
incredible to you. To me the one incredible thing is that I am here
to-night in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces
and telling you these strange adventures.'
He looked at the Medical Man. `No. I cannot expect you to believe it.
Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider
I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have
hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke
of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you
think of it?'
He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap
with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary
stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the carpet.
I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round at his
audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before
them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host.
The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar--the sixth. The
Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I remember,
were motionless.
The Editor stood up with a sigh. `What a pity it is you're not a writer
of stories!' he said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller's shoulder.
`You don't believe it?'
`Well----'
`I thought not.'
The Time Traveller turned to us. `Where are the matches?' he said. He
lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. `To tell you the truth . .
. I hardly believe it myself. . . . And yet . . .'
His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon
the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and
I saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.
The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. `The
gynaeceum's odd,' he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see, holding
out his hand for a specimen.
`I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one,' said the Journalist. `How
shall we get home?'
`Plenty of cabs at the station,' said the Psychologist.
`It's a curious thing,' said the Medical Man; `but I certainly don't
know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?'
The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: `Certainly not.'
`Where did you really get them?' said the Medical Man.
The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was
trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. 'They were put into
my pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time.' He stared round the
room. `I'm damned if it isn't all going. This room and you and the atmosphere
of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine,
or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life
is a dream, a precious poor dream at times--but I can't stand another
that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the dream come from? . .
. I must look at that machine. If there is one!'
He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through
the door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering
light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew;
a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid
to the touch--for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it--and with
brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon
the lower parts, and one rail bent awry.
The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand
along the damaged rail. `It's all right now,' he said. 'The story I
told you was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out here in the cold.'
He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the
smoking-room.
He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat.
The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation,
told him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely.
I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good night.
I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a `gaudy lie.' For
my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so fantastic
and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay awake most
of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day and see
the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and being
on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory, however,
was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out my
hand and touched the lever. At that the squat substantial-looking mass
swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its instability startled me
extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when
I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back through the corridor.
The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the
house. He had a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the
other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an elbow to shake. `I'm
frightfully busy,' said he, `with that thing in there.'
`But is it not some hoax?' I said. `Do you really travel through time?'
`Really and truly I do.' And he looked frankly into my eyes. He hesitated.
His eye wandered about the room. `I only want half an hour,' he said.
`I know why you came, and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines
here. If you'll stop to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up
to the hilt, specimen and all. If you'll forgive my leaving you now?'
I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words,
and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the
laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper.
What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded
by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher,
at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely save that
engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the Time Traveller.
As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly
truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled
round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken
glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed
to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black
and brass for a moment--a figure so transparent that the bench behind
with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm
vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a
subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty.
A pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in.
I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had
happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange
thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened,
and the man-servant appeared.
We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. `Has Mr. ---- gone
out that way?' said I.
`No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him
here.'
At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed
on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps
still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring
with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime.
The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows
now, he has never returned.
EPILOGUE
One cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he
swept back into the past, and fell among the blood-drinking, hairy savages
of the Age of Unpolished Stone; into the abysses of the Cretaceous Sea;
or among the grotesque saurians, the huge reptilian brutes of the Jurassic
times. He may even now--if I may use the phrase--be wandering on some
plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline
lakes of the Triassic Age. Or did he go forward, into one of the nearer
ages, in which men are still men, but with the riddles of our own time
answered and its wearisome problems solved? Into the manhood of the
race: for I, for my own part cannot think that these latter days of
weak experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord are indeed man's
culminating time! I say, for my own part. He, I know--for the question
had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made--thought
but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing
pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall
back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains
for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is still
black and blank--is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by
the memory of his story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange
white flowers --shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle--to witness
that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness
still lived on in the heart of man.
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