‘From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either to the right or the left. Feeling tired—my feet, in particular, were very sore—I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches one would be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other lurking danger—a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon—there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike against.

‘I was very tired, too, after the excitements of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but would pass the night upon the open hill.

‘Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The hill-side was quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood there came now and then a stir of living things. Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me; it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend.

‘Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional cycle that the pole of the earth describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And during these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought of the Great Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, her face white and starlike under the stars, and forthwith dismissed the thought.

‘Through that long night I held my mind off the Morlocks as well as I could, and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear, except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of some colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and peaked and white. And close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the dawn came, pale at first, and then growing pink and warm. No Morlocks had approached us. Indeed, I had seen none upon the hill that night. And in the confidence of renewed day it almost seemed to me that my fear had been unreasonable. I stood up and found my foot with the loose heel swollen at the ankle and painful under the heel; so I sat down again, took off my shoes, and flung them away.

Main IndexPage 000000
Page 000001
Page 000002
Page 000003
Page 000004
Page 000005
Page 000006
Page 000007
Page 000008
Page 000009
Page 000010
Page 000011
Page 000012
Page 000013
Page 000014
Page 000015
Page 000016
Page 000017
Page 000018
Page 000019
Page 000020
Page 000021
Page 000022
Page 000023
Page 000024
Page 000025
Page 000026
Page 000027
Page 000028
Page 000029
Page 000030
Page 000031
Page 000032
Page 000033
Page 000034
Page 000035
Page 000036
Page 000037
Page 000038
Page 000039
Page 000040
Page 000041
Page 000042
Page 000043
Page 000044
Page 000045
Page 000046
Page 000047
Page 000048
Page 000049
Page 000050
Page 000051
Page 000052

List of other EBooks available for download

The Crystal Stopper
Aaron's Rod
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Woman In Love
Frankenstein
Dracula
Lair Of The White Worm
Pride And Prejudice
Rob Roy
Mrs Dalloway
Kidnapped
The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Treasure Island
Around The World In 80 Days
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
Moby Dick
The Invisible Man
The Island Of Doctor Moreau
The Time Machine
The War Of The Worlds
Animal Farm
Robinson Crusoe
A Tale Of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
A Study In Scarlet
His Last Bow
The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
The Case Book Of Sherlock Holmes
The Hound Of The Baskervilles
The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes
The Return Of Sherlock Holmes
The Sign Of Four
The Valley Of Fear
The Count Of Monte Cristo
The Three Musketeers