Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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154 with the others. The Journalist tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The Time Traveler devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the appetite of a tramp. The Medi- cal Man smoked a cigarette, and watched the Time Traveler through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and drank champagne with regularity and determination out of sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveler pushed his plate away, and looked round us. “I suppose I must apologize,” he said. “I was simply starving. I’ve had a most amazing time.” He reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. “But come into the smoking room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy plates.” And ring- ing the bell in passing, he led the way into the ad- joining room. “You have told Blank and Dash and Chose about the machine?” he said to me, leaning back in his easy chair and naming the three new guests. “But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor. “I can’t argue to-night. I don’t mind telling you the story, but I can’t argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o’clock, and since then—— I’ve lived eight days—such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no inter- ruptions! Is it agreed?” “Agreed!” said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed “Agreed!” And with that the Time Trav- eler began his story as I have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterward he got more animated. In writ- ing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink—and, above all, my own inadequacy—to express its quality. You read, I will suppose, attentively enough; but you cannot - See the speaker’s white, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Jour- nalist and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveler’s face. CHAPTER III The Story Begins ‘¢@ TOLD some of you last Thursday of the prin- | of the Time Machine, and showed you . «ithe actual thing itself, incomplete, in the work- shop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it is sound enough. I ex- pected to finish it on Friday; but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so that the thing AMAZING STORIES was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o’clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began its carrer. I gave it a last tap, tried all the Screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a sui- cide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the Same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stop- ping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling: and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had any- thing happened? For a moment I Suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it Seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten: now it was nearly half- past three! “I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the start- ing lever with both my hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in, and walked, apparently without seeing me, toward the garden door. I sup- pose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still, An eddying murmur filled my ears and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind. “I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sen- Sations of time-traveling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback—of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, day fol- lowed night, like the flap, flap, flap of some rotat- ing body. The dim suggestion of the laboratory Seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed, and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impres- Sion of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The Slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then in the intermittent darkness, I saw the moon Spinning Swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Pres- ently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the pal- pitation of night and day merged into one con- tinuous grayness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch in space, the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see noth- ing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. “The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hillside upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me gray and dim. I saw trees growing 37.2) Yai ayevs3 Ake qt)