XII In the Darkness chapter 12 paragraph 10 among 17 paragraphs
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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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“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.
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XIII The Trap of the White Sphinx
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“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 Underworld. I understood
now what all the beauty of the Overworld 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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“So, as I see it, the Upperworld man had drifted towards his
feeble prettiness, and the Underworld 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 an Underworld, 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 Underworld 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.
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“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
theorising 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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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