The Time Machine — EN

XII
In the Darkness

“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.