in the blackness.

'I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for such

an experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I had

started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would

certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances.

I had come without arms, without medicine, without anything to

smoke--at times I missed tobacco frightfully--even without enough

matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that

glimpse of the Underworld in a second, and examined it at leisure.

But, as it was, I stood there with only the weapons and the powers

that Nature had endowed me with--hands, feet, and teeth; these, and

four safety-matches that still remained to me.

'I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the

dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered

that my store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me

until that moment that there was any need to economize them, and I

had wasted almost half the box in astonishing the Upper-worlders, to

whom fire was a novelty. Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I

stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling

over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I

fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little

beings about me. I felt the box of matches in my hand being gently

disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The

sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably

The Time Machine