Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TIME and prepared to light it as soon as the match waned. “Then I looked at Weena. She was lying clutch- ing my feet and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With a sudden fright I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the ground, and as it spit and flared up and drove back the Mor- locks and the shadows, I knelt down and lifted up Weena. The wood behind seemed full of the stir and murmur of a great company of creatures. “Apparently she had fainted. I put her care- fully upon my shoulder and rose to push on, and then came a horrible realization. “While maneuvering with my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about several times, and now I had not the faintest idea in what direc- tion my path lay. For all I knew I might be fac- ing back toward the Palace of Green Porcelain. “I found myself in a cold perspiration. I had to think rapidly what to do. I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I put the mo- tionless Weena down upon a turfy bole. Very hastily, as my first lump of camphor waned, I be- gan collecting sticks and leaves. “Here and there out of the darkness round me the eyes of the Morlocks shone like carbuncles. “Presently the camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match, and as I did so saw two white forms that had been approaching Weena dash hastily back. One was so blinded by the light that he came straight for me, and I felt his bones grind under the blow of my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a little way, and fell down. “T lit another piece of camphor and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry was some of the foliage above me, for since I had arrived on the Time Machine, a matter of a week, no rain had fallen. So instead of casting about among the trees for fallen twigs I began leaping up and dragging down branches. Very soon I had a choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could save my other lumps of camphor. “Then I turned to where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I tried what I could to revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. “Now the smoke of the fire beat over toward me, and it must have made me suddenly heavy. More- over the vapor of camphor was in the air. My fire would not want replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very weary after my exertion and sat down. The wood, too, was full of slumberous murmur that I did not understand. a | SEEMED merely to nod and open my eyes. Then it was all dark around me, and the Mor- locks had their hands upon me. Flinging off their clinging fingers I hastily felt in my pocket for the match-box, and—it had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me again. “In a moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by the hair, by the arms, and pulled ‘own. It was indescribably horrible in the dark- me strength for another effort. MACHINE 173 ness to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was in a monstrous spider’s web. I was overpowered. Down I went. “I felt some little teeth nipping at my neck. Abruptly I rolled over, and as I did so, my hand came against my iron lever. Somehow this gave I struggled up, shaking off these human rats from me, and then holding the bar short, I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under my blows, and for a mo- ment I was free. “The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany 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 move- ments became faster. Yet none came within reach of me. I stood glaring at the blackness. suddenly came hope. “What if the Morlocks had no courage? “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 perceived with incredulous surprise that the others were run- ing, in an incessant stream, as it seemed to me, from behind me, and away through the wood in front of me. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish. “Then as I stood agape I saw, across a gap of starlight between the branches, a little red spark go drifting and vanish. And at that I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumberous mur- mur that was growing now into a gusty roaring, the red glow, and the flight of the Morlocks. “Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw through the back pillars of the nearer trees the flames of the burning forest. No doubt it was my first fire coming after me. With that I hastily looked round 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. With my iron bar still in hand I followed in the path of the Morlocks. “It was a close race. Once the flames crept for- ward 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 place, and as I did so, a Morlock came blundering toward me and passed me, and went on straight into the fire. “And now I was to see the most weird and hor- rible scene, 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 center was a small hillock or tumulus surmounted by a scorched haw- thorn. Beyond this hill was another arm of the burning forest from which yellow tongues were already writhing, and completely encircling the Space with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside were perhaps thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the Then | light and heat of the fireycretigh\@ ayer ewe)