"I tried to call to them, but the language they had was
apparently different from that of the Upper-world people; so that I was 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 by, 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 had endowed me with hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety
matches that still remained to me.
"I was afraid to push my way in among all this
machinery in the dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I
discovered that my store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me
until that moment that there was any need to economize them, and I had wasted
almost half the box in astonishing the Upper-worlders, to whom fire was a
novelty. Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand
touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a
peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those
dreadful little beings about me. I felt the box of matches in my hand being
gently disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The sense
of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden
realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me
very vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They
started away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They clutched at
me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently, and
shouted again rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously
alarmed, and they made a queer laughing noise as they came back at me. I will
confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another match and
escape under the protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker
with a scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow
tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the
blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and
pattering like the rain, as they hurried after me.
"In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there
was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light,
and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly
inhuman they looked, those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless,
pinkish-grey eyes! as they stared in their blindness and bewilderment. But I
did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second
match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when I reached
the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge, for the throb of the great
pump below made me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and,
as I did so, my feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged
backward. I lit my last match . . . and it incontinently went out. But I had my
hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I disengaged myself from
the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while
they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who
followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as a trophy.
"That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last
twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the greatest
difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle
against this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I felt all the
sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the well-mouth somehow, and
staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even
the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and
ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, for a time, I was
insensible.
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