Chapter Chapter 12 · XII. In the Darkness

n the Darkness

“We emerged from the Palace while the sun was still in part above the

horizon. I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next

morning, and ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods that had

stopped me on the previous journey. My plan was to go as far as

possible that night, and then, building a fire, to sleep in the

protection of its glare. Accordingly, as we went along I gathered any

sticks or dried grass I saw, and presently had my arms full of such

litter. Thus loaded, our progress was slower than I had anticipated,

and besides Weena was tired. And I, also, began to suffer from

sleepiness too; so that it was full night before we reached the wood.

Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped, fearing the

darkness before us; but a singular sense of impending calamity, that

should indeed have served me as a warning, drove me onward. I had been

without sleep for a night and two days, and I was feverish and

irritable. I felt sleep coming upon me, and the Morlocks with it.

“While we hesitated, among the black bushes behind us, and dim against

their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There was scrub and

long grass all about us, and I did not feel safe from their insidious

approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather less than a mile across.

If we could get through it to the bare hillside, there, as it seemed to

me, was an altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my

matches and my camphor I could contrive to keep my path illuminated

through the woods. Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish matches

with my hands I should have to abandon my firewood; so, rather

reluctantly, I put it down. And then it came into my head that I would

amaze our friends behind by lighting it. I was to discover the

atrocious folly of this proceeding, but it came to my mind as an

ingenious move for covering our retreat.

“I don’t know if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must be

in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. The sun’s heat is

rarely strong enough to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops, as

is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast

and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying

vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation,

but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the art of

fire-making had been forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went

licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to

Weena.

“She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would have

cast herself into it had I not restrained her. But I caught her up, and

in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the wood. For

a little way the glare of my fire lit the path. Looking back presently,

I could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the

blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved line of fire was

creeping up the grass of the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again

to the dark trees before me. It was very black, and Weena clung to me

convulsively, but there was still, as my eyes grew accustomed to the

darkness, sufficient light for me to avoid the stems. Overhead it was

simply black, except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us

here and there. I lit none of my matches because I had no hand free.

Upon my left arm I carried my little one, in my right hand I had my

iron bar.

“For some way I heard nothing but the crackling twigs under my feet,

the faint rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing and the

throb of the blood-vessels in my ears. Then I seemed to know of a

pattering behind me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more

distinct, and then I caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard

in the Underworld. There were evidently several of the Morlocks, and

they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at

my coat, then something at my arm. And Weena shivered violently, and

became quite still.

“It was time for a match. But to get one I must put her down. I did so,

and, as I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness

about my knees, perfectly silent on her part and with the same peculiar

cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft little hands, too, were creeping

over my coat and back, touching even my neck. Then the match scratched

and fizzed. I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of the Morlocks

in flight amid the trees. I hastily took a lump of camphor from my

pocket, and prepared to light it as soon as the match should wane. Then

I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching 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 split and flared up and drove back

the Morlocks and the shadows, I knelt down and lifted her. The wood

behind seemed full of the stir and murmur of a great company!

“She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder and

rose to push on, and then there came a horrible realisation. In

manœuvring with my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about several

times, and now I had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my

path. For all I knew, I might be facing back towards the Palace of

Green Porcelain. I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think rapidly

what to do. I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I

put Weena, still motionless, down upon a turfy bole, and very hastily,

as my first lump of camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and

leaves. Here and there out of the darkness round me the Morlocks’ eyes

shone like carbuncles.

“The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match, and as I did so,

two white forms that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away.

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. I 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 my arrival 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 economise my 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 towards me, and it must have made

me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapour of camphor was in the air.

My fire would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very

weary after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too, was full of a

slumbrous murmur that I did not understand. I seemed just to nod and

open my eyes. But all was dark, and the Morlocks 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 down. It was indescribably horrible

in the darkness to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt

as if I was in a monstrous spider’s web. I was overpowered, and went

down. I felt little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over, and as I

did so my hand came against my iron lever. It gave me strength. I

struggled up, shaking the human rats from me, and, 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 moment I

was free.

“The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard 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 movements grew faster. Yet none

came within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came

hope. What if the Morlocks were afraid? 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 recognised, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running,

in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through

the wood in front. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish.

As I stood agape, I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of

starlight between the branches, and vanish. And at that I understood

the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now

into a gusty roar, the red glow, and the Morlocks’ flight.

“Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw, through the

black pillars of the nearer trees, the flames of the burning forest. It

was my first fire coming after me. With that I looked 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.

My iron bar still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks’ path. It was a

close race. Once the flames crept forward 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 space, and as I did so, a Morlock came

blundering towards me, and past me, and went on straight into the fire!

“And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing, 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 centre was a hillock or

tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm

of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it,

completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside

were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and

blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.

At first I did not realise their blindness, and struck furiously at

them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing

one and crippling several more. But when I had watched the gestures of

one of them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and heard

their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery in

the glare, and I struck no more of them.

“Yet every now and then one would come straight towards me, setting

loose a quivering horror that made me quick to elude him. At one time

the flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would

presently be able to see me. I was thinking of beginning the fight by

killing some of them before this should happen; but the fire burst out

again brightly, and I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among

them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena. But Weena was

gone.

“At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock, and watched this

strange incredible company of blind things groping to and fro, and

making uncanny noises to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on

them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through

the rare tatters of that red canopy, remote as though they belonged to

another universe, shone the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came

blundering into me, and I drove them off with blows of my fists,

trembling as I did so.

“For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a nightmare. I

bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake. I beat the

ground with my hands, and got up and sat down again, and wandered here

and there, and again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my eyes and

calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their heads

down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames. But, at last, above

the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming masses of black

smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing

numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light of the day.

“I searched again for traces of Weena, but there were none. It was

plain that they had left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot

describe how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful fate

to which it seemed destined. As I thought of that, I was almost moved

to begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, but I

contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was a kind of island in

the forest. From its summit I could now make out through a haze of

smoke the Palace of Green Porcelain, and from that I could get my

bearings for the White Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant of these

damned souls still going hither and thither and moaning, as the day

grew clearer, I tied some grass about my feet and limped on across

smoking ashes and among black stems that still pulsated internally with

fire, towards the hiding-place of the Time Machine. I walked slowly,

for I was almost exhausted, as well as lame, and I felt the intensest

wretchedness for the horrible death of little Weena. It seemed an

overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old familiar room, it is more like

the sorrow of a dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left me

absolutely lonely again—terribly alone. I began to think of this house

of mine, of this fireside, of some of you, and with such thoughts came

a longing that was pain.

“But, as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning sky,

I made a discovery. In my trouser pocket were still some loose matches.

The box must have leaked before it was lost.

Chapte