Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (33 page)

"I
do
not
know
how
long
I
lay.
I
was
roused
by
a
soft
hand touching
my
face.
Starting
up
in
the
darkness
I
snatched
at
my matches
and,
hastily
striking
one,
I
saw
three
stooping
white
creatures similar
to
the
one
I
had
seen
above
ground
in
the
ruin,
hastily retreating
before
the
light.
Living,
as
they
did,
in
what
appeared
to me
impenetrable
darkness,
their
eyes
were
abnormally
large
and
sensitive,
just
as
are
the
pupils
of
the
abysmal
fishes,
and
they
reflected the
light
in
the
same
way.
I
have
no
doubt
they
could
see
me
in
that rayless
obscurity,
and
they
did
not
seem
to
have
any
fear
of
me
apart from
the
light.
But,
so
soon
as
I
struck
a
match
in
order
to
see
them, they
fled
incontinently,
vanishing
into
dark
gutters
and
tunnels,
from which
their
eyes
glared
at
me
in
the
strangest
fashion.

"I
tried
to
call
to
them,
but
the
language
they
had
was
apparently different
from
that
of
the
Over-world
people;
so
that
I
was
needs left
to
my
own
unaided
efforts,
and
the
thought
of
flight
before
exploration
was
even
then
in
my
mind.
But
I
said
to
myself,
'You
are in
for
it
now,'
and,
feeling
my
way
along
the
tunnel,
I
found
the noise
of
machinery
grow
louder.
Presently
the
walls
fell
away
from me,
and
I
came
to
a
large
open
space,
and,
striking
another
match, saw
that
I
had
entered
a
vast
arched
cavern,
which
stretched
into utter
darkness
beyond
the
range
of
my
light.
The
view
I
had
of
it
was as
much
as
one
could
see
in
the
burning
of
a
match.

"Necessarily
my
memory
is
vague.
Great
shapes
like
big
machines rose
out
of
the
dimness,
and
cast
grotesque
black
shadows,
in
which dim
spectral
Morlocks
sheltered
from
the
glare.
The
place,
by
the bye,
was
very
stuffy
and
oppressive,
and
the
faint
halitus
of
freshly shed
blood
was
in
the
air.
Some
way
down
the
central
vista
was
a little
table
of
white
metal,
laid
with
what
seemed
a
meal.
The
Morlocks
at
any
rate
were
carnivorous!
Even
at
the
time,
I
remember wondering
what
large
animal
could
have
survived
to
furnish
the
red joint
I
saw.
It
was
all
very
indistinct:
the
heavy
smell,
the
big
unmeaning
shapes,
the
obscene
figures
lurking
in
the
shadows,
and
only waiting
for
the
darkness
to
come
at
me
again!
Then
the
match burned
down,
and
stung
my
fingers,
and
fell,
a
wriggling
red
spot
in the
blackness.

"I
have
thought
since
how
particularly
ill
equipped
I
was
for
such an
experience.
When
I
had
started
with
the
Time
Machine,
I
had started
with
the
absurd
assumption
that
the
men
of
the
Future
would certainly
be
infinitely
ahead
of
ourselves
in
all
their
appliances.
I
had come
without
arms,
without
medicine,
without
anything
to
smoke— at
times
I
missed
tobacco
frightfully—even
without
enough
matches. If
only
I
had
thought
of
a
Kodak!
I
could
have
flashed
that
glimpse of
the
underworld
in
a
second,
and
examined
it
at
leisure.
But,
as
it was,
I
stood
there
with
only
the
weapons
and
the
powers
that
Nature how
endowed
me
with—hands,
feet,
and
teeth;
these,
and
four
safety-matches
that
still
remained
to
me.