sun had long since disappeared; for the sun had ceased to set--it

simply rose and fell in the west, and grew ever broader and more

red. All trace of the moon had vanished. The circling of the stars,

growing slower and slower, had given place to creeping points of

light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very

large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with

a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction. At

one time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly again,

but it speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this

slowing down of its rising and setting that the work of the tidal

drag was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun,

even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously,

for I remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse

my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands until the

thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a

mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the dim outlines of a

desolate beach grew visible.

I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round.

The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black,

and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale

white stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and

south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by

the horizon, lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless. The

rocks about me were of a harsh reddish colour, and all the trace of

life that I could see at first was the intensely green vegetation

114

The Time Machine