upon them to notice the gradual diminution of the light, until

Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention. Then I saw that

the gallery ran down at last into a thick darkness. I hesitated, and

then, as I looked round me, I saw that the dust was less abundant

and its surface less even. Further away towards the dimness, it

appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow footprints. My

sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that.

I felt that I was wasting my time in the academic examination of

machinery. I called to mind that it was already far advanced in the

afternoon, and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means

of making a fire. And then down in the remote blackness of the

gallery I heard a peculiar pattering, and the same odd noises I had

heard down the well.

I took Weena's hand. Then, struck with a sudden idea, I left her

and turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike

those in a signal-box. Clambering upon the stand, and grasping this

lever in my hands, I put all my weight upon it sideways. Suddenly

Weena, deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had judged

the strength of the lever pretty correctly, for it snapped after a

minute's strain, and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than

sufficient, I judged, for any Morlock skull I might encounter. And I

longed very much to kill a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may

think, to want to go killing one's own descendants! But it was

impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the things. Only my

disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion that if I began to

The Time Machine