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|
 'It may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could |
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| follow up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper |
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| way. I felt a peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They |
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| were just the half-bleached colour of the worms and things one |
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| sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum. And they were |
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| filthily cold to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely |
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| due to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi, whose disgust of |
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| the Morlocks I now began to appreciate. |
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|
| 'The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was |
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| a little disordered. I was oppressed with perplexity and doubt. |
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| Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could |
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| perceive no definite reason. I remember creeping noiselessly |
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| into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the |
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| moonlight—that night Weena was among them—and feeling |
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| reassured by their presence. It occurred to me even then, that |
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| in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last |
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| quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these |
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| unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new |
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| vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on |
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| both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an |
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| inevitable duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only |
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| to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground |
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|
| mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only I had had |
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| a companion it would have been different. But I was so horribly |
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| alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well |
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| appalled me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but |
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| I never felt quite safe at my back. |
|
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|
|
| 'It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that |
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| drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions. |
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|
| Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is |
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| now called Combe Wood, I observed far off, in the direction of |
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| nineteenth-century Banstead, a vast green structure, different in |
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| character from any I had hitherto seen. It was larger than the |
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| largest of the palaces or ruins I knew, and the facade had an |
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| Oriental look: the face of it having the lustre, as well as the |
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| pale-green tint, a kind of bluish-green, of a certain type of |
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| Chinese porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a |
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| difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore. But |
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| the day was growing late, and I had come upon the sight of the |
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| place after a long and tiring circuit; so I resolved to hold over |
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| the adventure for the following day, and I returned to the |
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| welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I |
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| perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace |
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| of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to |
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| shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I |
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| would make the descent without further waste of time, and started |
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| out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite |
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| and aluminium. |
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|
|
| 'Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, |
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| but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she |
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| seemed strangely disconcerted. "Good-bye, Little Weena," I said, |
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| kissing her; and then putting her down, I began to feel over the |
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| parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well |
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| confess, for I feared my courage might leak away! At first she |
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| watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most piteous cry, and |
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| running to me, she began to pull at me with her little hands. I |
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| think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her |
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| off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in the |
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| throat of the well. I saw her agonized face over the parapet, |
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| and smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the |
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| unstable hooks to which I clung. |
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|
|
| 'I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. |
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| The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting |
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| from the sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs |
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|
| of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was |
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| speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply |
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| fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and |
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| almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. For a moment I |
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| hung by one hand, and after that experience I did not dare to |
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| rest again. Though my arms and back were presently acutely |
|
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| painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent with as |
|
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| quick a motion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, |
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|
| a small blue disk, in which a star was visible, while little |
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|
| Weena's head showed as a round black projection. The thudding |
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| sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. |
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|
| Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark, and |
|
|
| when I looked up again Weena had disappeared. |
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|
|
| 'I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of |
|
|
| trying to go up the shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone. |
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|
| But even while I turned this over in my mind I continued to |
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|
| descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a |
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| foot to the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall. |
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|
| Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a narrow |
|
|
| horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It was not |
|
|
| too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was |
|
|
| trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the |
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|
| unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The |
|
|
| air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down |
|
|
| the shaft. |
|
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|
|
| 'I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand |
|
|
| touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my |
|
|
| matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white |
|
|
| creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, |
|
|
| hastily retreating before the light. Living, as they did, in |
|
|
| what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their eyes were |
|
|
| abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the pupils of the |
|
|
| abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way. I |
|
|
| have no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity, and |
|
|
| they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. |
|
|
| But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled |
|
|
| incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from |
|
|
| which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion. |
|
|
|
|
| 'I tried to call to them, but the language they had was |
|
|
| apparently different from that of the Over-world people; so that |
|
|
| I was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and the thought of |
|
|
| flight before exploration was even then in my mind. But I said |
|
|
| to myself, "You are in for it now," and, feeling my way along the |
|
|
| tunnel, I found the noise of machinery grow louder. Presently |
|
|
| the walls fell away from me, and I came to a large open space, |
|
|
| and striking another match, saw that I had entered a vast arched |
|
|
| cavern, which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of |
|
|
| my light. The view I had of it was as much as one could see in |
|
|
| the burning of a match. |
|
|
|
|
| 'Necessarily my memory is vague. Great shapes like big |
|
|
| machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black |
|
|
| shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. |
|
|
| The place, by the by, was very stuffy and oppressive, and the |
|
|
| faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air. Some way |
|
|
| down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid |
|
|
| with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were |
|
|
| carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large |
|
|
| animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It |
|
|
| was all very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning |
|
|
| shapes, the obscene figures lurking in the shadows, and only |
|
|
| waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the match |
|
|
| burned down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a wriggling red spot |
|
|
| in the blackness. |
|
|
|
|
| 'I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for |
|
|
| such an experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I |
|
|
| had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future |
|
|
| would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their |
|
|
| appliances. I had come without arms, without medicine, without |
|
|
| anything to smoke—at times I missed tobacco frightfully—even |
|
|
| without enough matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak! I |
|
|
| could have flashed that glimpse of the Underworld in a second, |
|
|
| and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood there with |
|
|
| only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me |
|
|
| with—hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety-matches that |
|
|
| still remained to me. |
|
|
|
|
| 'I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in |
|
|
| the dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I |
|
|
| discovered that my store of matches had run low. It had never |
|
|
| occurred to me until that moment that there was any need to |
|
|
| economize them, and I had wasted almost half the box in |
|
|
| astonishing the Upper-worlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now, |
|
|
| as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand |
|
|
| touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was |
|
|
| sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the |
|
|
| breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. I |
|
|
| felt the box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged, and |
|
|
| other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The sense of |
|
|
| these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. |
|
|
| The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking |
|
|
| and doing came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I shouted |
|
|
| at them as loudly as I could. They started away, and then I |
|
|
| could feel them approaching me again. They clutched at me more |
|
|
| boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered |
|
|
| violently, and shouted again rather discordantly. This time they |
|
|
| were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer laughing |
|
|
| noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly |
|
|
| frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape |
|
|
| under the protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the |
|
|
| flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my |
|
|
| retreat to the narrow tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when |
|
|
| my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the |
|
|
| Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like the |
|
|
| rain, as they hurried after me. |
|
|
|
|
| 'In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no |
|
|
| mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck |
|
|
| another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can |
|
|
| scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, |
|
|
| chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!—as they |
|
|
| stared in their blindness and bewilderment. But I did not stay to |
|
|
| look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match |
|
|
| had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when |
|
|
| I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge, |
|
|
| for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt |
|
|
| sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were |
|
|
| grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit |
|
|
| my last match . . . and it incontinently went out. But I had my |
|
|
| hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I |
|
|
| disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was |
|
|
| speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and |
|
|
| blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for |
|
|
| some way, and wellnigh secured my boot as a trophy. |
|
|
|
|
| 'That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty |
|
|
| or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the |
|
|
| greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a |
|
|
| frightful struggle against this faintness. Several times my head |
|
|
| swam, and I felt all the sensations of falling. At last, |
|
|
| however, I got over the well-mouth somehow, and staggered out of |
|
|
| the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even |
|
|
| the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my |
|
|
| hands and ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, |
|
|
| for a time, I was insensible. |
|
|
