’As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought
that in this simple explanation I had mastered the
problem of the world—mastered the whole
secret of these delicious people. Possibly the
checks they had devised for the increase of population
had succeeded too well, and their numbers had rather
diminished than kept stationary. That would account
for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation,
and plausible enough—as most wrong theories
are!
’As I stood there musing over this too perfect
triumph of man, the full moon, yellow and gibbous,
came up out of an overflow of silver light in the
north-east. The bright little figures ceased to
move about below, a noiseless owl flitted by, and
I shivered with the chill of the night. I determined
to descend and find where I could sleep.
’I looked for the building I knew. Then
my eye travelled along to the figure of the White
Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct
as the light of the rising moon grew brighter.
I could see the silver birch against it. There
was the tangle of rhododendron bushes, black in the
pale light, and there was the little lawn. I
looked at the lawn again. A queer doubt chilled
my complacency. “No,” said I stoutly
to myself, “that was not the lawn.”
’But it was the lawn. For the white
leprous face of the sphinx was towards it. Can
you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home
to me? But you cannot. The Time Machine was
gone!
’At once, like a lash across the face, came
the possibility of losing my own age, of being left
helpless in this strange new world. The bare
thought of it was an actual physical sensation.
I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my
breathing. In another moment I was in a passion
of fear and running with great leaping strides down
the slope. Once I fell headlong and cut my face;
I lost no time in stanching the blood, but jumped
up and ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and
chin. All the time I ran I was saying to myself:
“They have moved it a little, pushed it under
the bushes out of the way.” Nevertheless,
I ran with all my might. All the time, with the
certainty that sometimes comes with excessive dread,
I knew that such assurance was folly, knew instinctively
that the machine was removed out of my reach.
My breath came with pain. I suppose I covered
the whole distance from the hill crest to the little
lawn, two miles perhaps, in ten minutes. And I
am not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I ran,
at my confident folly in leaving the machine, wasting
good breath thereby. I cried aloud, and none
answered. Not a creature seemed to be stirring
in that moonlit world.
’When I reached the lawn my worst fears were
realized. Not a trace of the thing was to be
seen. I felt faint and cold when I faced the
empty space among the black tangle of bushes.
I ran round it furiously, as if the thing might be
hidden in a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with
my hands clutching my hair. Above me towered
the sphinx, upon the bronze pedestal, white, shining,
leprous, in the light of the rising moon. It
seemed to smile in mockery of my dismay.
