Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark, and when

I looked up again Weena had disappeared.

'I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to go

up the shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone. But even while

I turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with

intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a

slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the

aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and

rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I

was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the

unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air

was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the

shaft.

'I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching

my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and,

hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar

to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating

before the light. Living, as they did, in what appeared to me

impenetrable darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and

sensitive, just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they

reflected the light in the same way. I have no doubt they could see

me in that rayless obscurity, and they did not seem to have any fear

of me apart from the light. But, so soon as I struck a match in

order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark

The Time Machine