บทที่ บทที่ 16 · XVI. After the Story

fter the Story

“I know,” he said, after a pause, “that all this will be absolutely

incredible to you, but to me the one incredible thing is that I am here

tonight in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces and

telling you these strange adventures.” He looked at the Medical Man.

“No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie—or a prophecy.

Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon

the destinies of our race, until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my

assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest.

And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?”

He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap

with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary

stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the

carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller’s face, and looked round

at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam

before them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of

our host. The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar—the

sixth. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I

remember, were motionless.

The Editor stood up with a sigh. “What a pity it is you’re not a writer

of stories!” he said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller’s

shoulder.

“You don’t believe it?”

“Well——”

“I thought not.”

The Time Traveller turned to us. “Where are the matches?” he said. He

lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. “To tell you the truth... I

hardly believe it myself..... And yet...”

His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon

the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I

saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.

The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. “The

gynæceum’s odd,” he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see,

holding out his hand for a specimen.

“I’m hanged if it isn’t a quarter to one,” said the Journalist. “How

shall we get home?”

“Plenty of cabs at the station,” said the Psychologist.

“It’s a curious thing,” said the Medical Man; “but I certainly don’t

know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?”

The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: “Certainly not.”

“Where did you really get them?” said the Medical Man.

The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was

trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. “They were put into my

pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time.” He stared round the room.

“I’m damned if it isn’t all going. This room and you and the atmosphere

of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine,

or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life

is a dream, a precious poor dream at times—but I can’t stand another

that won’t fit. It’s madness. And where did the dream come from? … I

must look at that machine. If there is one!”

He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the

door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light

of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew, a

thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid

to the touch—for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it—and with

brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon

the lower parts, and one rail bent awry.

The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand

along the damaged rail. “It’s all right now,” he said. “The story I

told you was true. I’m sorry to have brought you out here in the cold.”

He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the

smoking-room.

He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat.

The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation,

told him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely. I

remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good-night.

I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a “gaudy lie.” For

my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so

fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay

awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day

and see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory,

and being on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory,

however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put

out my hand and touched the lever. At that the squat

substantial-looking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its

instability startled me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of

the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back

through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He

was coming from the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a

knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an

elbow to shake. “I’m frightfully busy,” said he, “with that thing in

there.”

“But is it not some hoax?” I said. “Do you really travel through time?”

“Really and truly I do.” And he looked frankly into my eyes. He

hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. “I only want half an hour,”

he said. “I know why you came, and it’s awfully good of you. There’s

some magazines here. If you’ll stop to lunch I’ll prove you this time

travelling up to the hilt, specimens and all. If you’ll forgive my

leaving you now?”

I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words,

and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the

laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper.

What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded

by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the

publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely

save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the

Time Traveller.

As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly

truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled

round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken

glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed

to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black

and brass for a moment—a figure so transparent that the bench behind

with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm

vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a

subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A

pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in.

I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had

happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange

thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened,

and the man-servant appeared.

We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. “Has Mr. —— gone out

that way?” said I.

“No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him

here.”

At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed

on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps

still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring

with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime.

The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows

now, he has never returned.

Chapter