The Time Ships

I sat on the familiar hill-side. The light of the sun was brilliant, and I had to shade my eyes. Because I had launched the machine from the garden at the rear of the house rather than the laboratory, I was perhaps twenty yards further down that little rhododendron lawn than when I had first arrived here. Behind me, a little higher up the Hill, I saw the familiar profile of the White Sphinx, with its inscrutable half-smile fixed forever. The bronze base remained thick with verdigris, although here and there I could see where the molded inlays had been flattened by my futile attempts to break into the chamber within, and to retrieve the stolen Time Machine; and the grass was scarred and cut, showing where the Morlocks had dragged my machine off into the pedestal.

The stolen machine was in there now, I realized with a jolt. It was odd to think of that other machine sitting mere yards from me in the obscurity of that chamber, while I sat on this copy, perfect in every way, which glittered on the grass!

I detached and pocketed my control levers, and stepped onto the ground. From the angle of the sun, I judged it to be perhaps three in the afternoon, and the air was warm and moist.

To get a better view of things, I walked perhaps a half-mile to the southeast, to the brow of what had been Richmond Hill. In my day the Terrace had stood here, with its expensive frontage and wide views of the river and the country beyond to the west; now, a loose stand of trees had climbed over the Hill’s crest — there was no sign of the Terrace, and I imagined that even the founds of the houses must have been obliterated by the action of tree-roots — but still, just as it had in 1891, the countryside fell away to the south and west, most attractively.

There was a bench set here, of that yellow metal I had seen before; it was corroded with a red rust, and its arm-rests were filed into the semblance of the creatures of some forgotten myth. A nettle, with large leaves tinted beautifully brown, had climbed over the chair, but I pulled this away — it was without stings — and I sat down, for I was already warm and perspiring.

The sun lay quite low in the sky, to the west, and its light glimmered from the scattered architecture and the bodies of water which punctuated the verdant landscape. The haze of heat lay everywhere on the land. Time, and the patient evolutions of geology, had metamorphosed this landscape from my day; but I could recognize several features, reshaped though they were, and there was still a dreamy beauty about the poet’s “matchless vale of Thames.” The silver ribbon of the river was some distance removed from me; as I have noted elsewhere, the Thames had cut through a bow in its course and now progressed direct from Hampton to Kew. And it had deepened its valley; thus Richmond was now set high on the side of a broad valley, perhaps a mile from the water. I thought I recognized what had been Glover’s Island as a sort of wooded knoll in the center of the old bed. Petersham Meadows retained much of its modern profile; but it was raised far above the level of the river now, and I imagined the area to be much less marshy than in my day.

The great buildings of this Age were dotted about, with their intricate parapets and tall columns, elegant and abandoned: they were spikes of architectural bone protruding from the hill-side’s green-clad flank. Perhaps a mile from me I saw that large building, a mass of granite and aluminum, to which I had climbed on my first evening. Here and there huge figures, as beautiful and enigmatic as my Sphinx, lifted their heads from the general greenery, and everywhere I saw the cupolas and chimneys that were the signatures of the Morlocks. The huge flowers of this latter day were everywhere, with their gleaming white petals and shining leaves. Not for the first time, this landscape, with its extraordinary and beautiful blooms, its pagodas and cupolas nestling among the green, reminded me of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in my day; but it was a Kew that had covered all of England, and had grown wild and neglected.

On the horizon there was a large building I had not noticed before. It was almost lost in the mists of the north-west, in the direction of modern Windsor; but it was too remote and faint for me to make out details. I promised myself that some day I should make the trek out to Windsor, for surely, if anything of my day had survived the evolution and neglect of the intervening mille

I turned now and saw how the countryside fell away in the direction of modern Banstead, and I made out that pattern of copses and hills, with here and there the glint of water, which had become familiar to me during my earlier explorations. And it was in that direction — perhaps eighteen or twenty miles distant — that the Palace of Green Porcelain lay. Peering that way now I thought I could make out a hint of that structure’s pi

I had hiked to that Palace, with Weena, in search of weapons and other provisions with which to take the fight to the Morlocks. Indeed, if I remembered correctly, I — my earlier self — must be rooting about within those polished green walls even now!

Perhaps ten miles away, a barrier interposed between myself and the Palace: a knot of dark forest. Even in the daylight it made a dark, sinister splash, at least a mile thick. Carrying Weena, I had made through that wood safely enough the first time, for we had waited for daylight to make the crossing; but the second time, on our return from the Palace (tonight!) I would let my impatience and fatigue get the better of me. Determined to return to the Sphinx as soon as possible, and to set to work retrieving my machine, I would push into that wood in the darkness — and fall asleep — and the Morlocks would descend on us, and take Weena.

I had been lucky to escape that folly with my life, I knew; and as for poor Weena…

But I put aside these feelings of shame, now, for I was here, I reminded myself, to make amends for all that.

It was early enough for me to reach that wood before the daylight faded. I was without weapons, of course, but my purpose here was not to fight the Morlocks — I had done with that — but simply to rescue Weena. And for that, I calculated, I should need no more powerful weapons than my intellect and my fists.

[2]

A Walk

The Time Machine itself looked very exposed, there on the hill-side with its brass and nickel glittering, and — although I had no intention to use it again — I decided to conceal it. There was a copse nearby, and I dragged the squat machine there and covered it with branches and leaves. This took me some effort — the machine was a bulky affair — and I was left perspiring, and the rails cut deep grooves in the turf where I had hauled it.

I rested for a few minutes, and then, with a will, I set off down the hill-side in the direction of Banstead.

I had traveled barely a hundred yards when I heard voices. For a moment I was startled, thinking — despite the daylight — that it might be Morlocks. But the voices were quite human, and speaking that peculiar, simple sing-song which is characteristic of the Eloi; and now a party, five or six, of those little people emerged from a copse onto a pathway leading up to my Sphinx. I was struck afresh at how slight and small they were — no larger than the children of my time, male and female alike — and clad in those simple purple tunics and sandals.

The similarities with my first arrival in this Age struck me immediately; for I had been chanced upon by a party of Eloi in just such a fashion. I remembered how they had approached me without fear — more with curiosity — and had laughed and spoken to me.

Now, though, they came up with circumspection: in fact, I thought they shied away. I opened my hands and smiled, in tending to show that I meant no harm; but I knew well enough the cause of this changed perception: it was what they had seen already of the dangerous and erratic behavior of my earlier self, especially during my unhinging after the theft of the Time Machine. These Eloi were entitled to their caution!