Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

THE TIME Necessity, who had been staved off for a few thou- sand years, came back again, and she began below. The underworld, being in contact with machinery which, however perfect, still needs some little thought outside of habit, had probably retained, perforce, rather more initiative, if less of every other human character, than the upper. And when other meat failed them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say I saw it in my last view of the world of 810,701. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could in- vent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give it to you. “After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, and in spite of my grief, this seat _and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing passed into dozing. Catching myself at that I took my own hint, and spreading myself out upon the turf, I had a long and refresh- ing sleep. “TI awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against being caught napping by the Mor- locks, and stretching myself I came on down the hill toward the white sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and the other played with the matches in my pocket. “And now came a most unexpected thing. As I approached the pedestal of the sphinx I found the bronze panels were open. They had slid down into grooves. “At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter. “Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in the corner of this was the Time Machine. I had the small levers in my pocket. So here, after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the white sphinx, was a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to use it. “A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped toward the portal. For once at least I grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks. Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose. “Now, as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I was in the dark—trapped. So the Morlocks thought. At that I chuckled gleefully. “T could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came toward me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. I had only to fix on the levers and depart then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little thing. The matches were of that abom- inable kind that light only on the box. “You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were close upon me. One touched me. I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them with the lever, and began to scramble into the saddle of the Machine. Then came one hand upon me and then another. MACHINE “Then I had simply to fight against their per- sistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time feel for the studs over which these fitted. One, indeed, they almost got away from me. As it slipped from my hand I had to butt in the dark with my head—I could hear the Morlock’s skull ring—to recover it. It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think, this last scramble. “But at last the lever was fixed and pulled over. The clinging hands slipped from me. The dark- ness presently fell from my eyes. I found myself in the same gray light and tumult I have already described. 66 | confusion that comes with time traveling. And this time I was not seated properly in the saddle, but sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheed- ing how I went, and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to find where I had arrived. One dial records days, another thou- sands of days, another millions of days, and an- others thousands of millions. Now instead of re- versing the levers I had pulled them over so as to go forward with them, and when I came to look at these indicators I found that the thousands hand was sweeping round as fast as the seconds hand of a watch, into futurity. “Very cautiously, for I remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands, until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the gray haze around me became dis- tincter, and dim outlines of a low hill and a sea became visible. : “But aS my motion became slower there was, I found, no blinking change of day and night. A steady twilight brooded over the earth. And the band of light that had indicated the sun had, I now noticed, become fainter, had faded indeed to in- visibility in the east, and in the west was increas- ingly broader and redder. The circling of the stars growing slower and slower had given place to creeping points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very large, halted mo- tionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with a dull heat. The work of the tidal drag was accomplished. ‘The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. “I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine looking round me. “The sky was no longer blue. Northeastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Over- head it was a deep Indian red, and starless, and southeastward it grew brighter to where, cut by the horizon, lay the motionless hull of the huge red sun. “The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish CHAPTER XIII The Further Vision HAVE already told you of the sickness and 175 - color, and all the trace of (@{@)Ani(C OMA) KEecc(s) m