XI The Palace of Green Porcelain chapter 11 paragraph 10 among 14 paragraphs
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“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.
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“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 fossilised millions of
years ago. I was about to throw it away, but I remembered that it was
inflammable and burnt 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.
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“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, Phœnician, 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.
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“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 non-existence.
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“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.
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XII In the Darkness
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“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,
also, 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.
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“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 hillside, 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.
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“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.
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“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 lit 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.
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“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
behind 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 Underworld.
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.
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“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 it 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!
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“She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder
and rose to push on, and then there came a horrible realisation. In
manœuvring 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.
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“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 economise
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.
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“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.
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“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
recognised, 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.
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“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!
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“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 hillside
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 realise 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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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