XIV The Further Vision chapter 14 paragraph 6 among 12 paragraphs
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“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.
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“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.
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“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 farther out; but the main expanse of
that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset, was still
unfrozen.
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“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.
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“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 realised 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.
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“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.
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“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.
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XV The Time Traveller’s Return
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“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 recognise our own pretty 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.
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“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.
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“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 shakily, 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.
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“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.
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“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 today, 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.
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XVI After the Story
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“I know,” he said, after a pause, “that all this will be
absolutely incredible to you, but to me the one incredible thing is that I
am here tonight 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?”
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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.
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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.
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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...”
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