The Time Ships

But now, it seemed to me, I was done with all that. I had had enough of perspective, of Infinities and Eternities; I felt impatient and taut. I was, and always had been, no more than a man, and now I was fully immersed once more in the gritty concerns of Humanity, and only my own projects filled my consciousness.

I dropped my eyes from the remote, unfathomable stars, and down to the woods before me. And now, even as I watched, a gentle, roseate glow began to spread across the south-western horizon. I got to my feet, and did a sort of dance step, such was my sudden elation. Here was confirmation that, after all my adventures, I had finished up on the right day, of all the possible days, here in this remote century! For that glow was a fire in the forest — a fire started, with careless abandon, by myself.

I struggled to remember what had come next on that fateful night — the precise sequence…

The fire I had started had been a quite new and wonderful thing to Weena, and she had wanted to play with its red sheets and flickers; I had been forced to restrain her from throwing her self into that liquid light. Then I picked her up — she had struggled — and I had plunged on into that wood, with the light of my fire illuminating my path.

Soon we had left the glow of those flames, and were proceeding in blackness, broken only by patches of deep blue sky beyond the trees’ stems. It had not been long, in all that oily darkness, before I had heard the pattering of narrow feet, the soft cooing of voices, all around me; I remembered a tug of my coat, and then at my sleeve. I had put Weena down so that I could find my matches, and there was a struggle about my knees, as those Morlocks, like persistent insects, had fallen on her poor body. I got a match lit when its head flared I had seen a row of white Morlock faces, illuminated as if by a flash lamp, all turned up towards me with their red gray eyes — and then, in a second, they had fled.

I had determined to build a new fire and wait for the morning. I had lit camphor and cast it on the ground. I had dragged down dry branches from the trees above, and built a choking fire of green wood…

I raised myself, now, onto the tips of my toes, and cast about over the forest. You must imagine me in all that inky darkness, under a sky without a moon, and the only illumination corning from that spreading fire on the far side of the forest.

There — I had it! — a thread of smoke that curled up into the air, forming a sort of narrow silhouette against the greater blaze behind it. That must be the site at which I had decided to make my stand. It was some distance from me — perhaps two miles to the east, and in the depths of the wood — and, without allowing myself further contemplation, I plunged into the forest.

For some distance I heard nothing but the cracking of twigs under my feet, and a remote, slumberous roar that must have been the voice of the greater fire. The darkness was broken only by the remote glow of the fire, and by patches of deep blue sky overhead; and I could see the boles and roots about me only by silhouette, and I stumbled several times. Then I heard a pattering around me, as soft as rainfall, and I caught that queer, gurgling sound that is the voice of the Morlock. I felt a tug at my shirt-sleeve, a soft pull at my belt, fingers at my neck.

I swung my arms about. I co

It was a return to my deepest nightmare, to that horrible dark I have dreaded all my life! — But I persisted, and they did not attack me — not outright, at any rate. Already I detected a certain agitation about them — the Morlocks ran about with increasing rapidity — as the glow of that remote blaze grew brighter.

And then, of a sudden, there was a new scent on the air: it was faint, nearly overpowered by the smoke…

It was camphor vapor.

I could be only yards from the place the Morlocks had fallen on me and Weena as we slept — the place where I had fought, and Weena had been lost!

I came upon a great host of Morlocks — a density of them, just visible through the next line of trees. They swarmed over each other like maggots; eager to join the fray or the feast, in a mass such as I did not remember seeing before. I saw a man struggling to rise in their midst. He was obscured by a great weight of Morlocks, and they caught at his neck, hair and arms, and down he went. But then I saw an arm emerge from the melee holding an iron bar — it had been torn from a machine in the Palace of Green Porcelain, I remembered — and he laid about the Morlocks with a vigor. They fell away from him, briefly, and soon he had backed himself up against a tree. His hair stuck out from all around his broad scalp, and he wore, on his feet, only torn and blood-stained socks. The Morlocks, frenetic, came at him again, and he swung his iron bar, and I heard the soft, pulpy crushing of Morlock faces.

For a moment I thought of falling in with him; but I knew it was u

But Weena was already gone from here, I realized: by this point in the conflict, I had already lost her to the Morlocks!

I whirled about in desperation. Again I had allowed my concentration to lapse. Had I already failed? — had I lost her again?

By this time the panic among the Morlocks at the fire had taken a strong hold, and they fled in a stream away from the blaze, their hunched, hairy backs stained red. Then I saw a leash of Morlocks, four of them, stumbling through the trees, away from the direction of the fire. They were carrying something, I saw now: something still, pale, limp, with a hint of white and gold…

I roared, and I crashed forward through the undergrowth. The Morlocks’ four heads snapped about until their huge, red-gray eyes were fixed on me; and then, my fists raised, I fell on them.

It was not much of a fight. The Morlocks dropped their precious bundle; they faced me, but they were distracted all the time by the growing glow behind them. One little brute got his teeth locked into my wrist, but I pounded at his face, feeling the grinding of bone, and in a few seconds he released me; and the four of them fled.

I bent and scooped up Weena from the ground — the poor mite was as light as a doll — and my heart could have broken at her condition. Her dress was torn and stained, her face and golden hair were smudged with soot and smoke, and I thought she had suffered a burn down one side of her cheek. I noticed, too, the small, pinprick imprints of Morlock teeth in the soft flesh of her neck and upper arms.

She was quite insensible, and I could not tell if she was breathing; I thought she might already be dead.

With Weena cradled in my arms, I ran through the forest.

In the smoky darkness, my vision was obscured; there was the fire which provided a yellow and red glow, but it turned the forest into a place of shadows, shifting and deceiving of the eye. Several times I blundered into trees, or tripped over some hummock; and I am afraid poor Weena got quite thrown about in the course of it.

We were in the midst of a stream of Morlocks, all fleeing the blaze with as much vigor as myself. Their hairy backs shone red in the flames, and their eyes were discs of palpable pain. They stumbled about the forest, clattering into trees and striking at each other with little fists; or else they crawled across the floor, moaning, seeking some illusory relief from the heat and light. When they collided with me, I punched and kicked at them to keep them off; but it was clear enough that, blinded as they were, they could offer me no threat, and after a time I found it was sufficient simply to push them away.