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