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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twelve of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Cliff Stone of Sydney, Australia, Chapter twelve. In the darkness,
we emerged from the palace while the sun was still
in part above the horizon. I was determined to reach
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the White Sphinx early the next morning, and ere the
dusk I purposed pushing through the woods that had stopped
me on their previous journey. My plan was to go
as far as possible that night, and then building a
fire to sleep in the protection of its glare. Accordingly,
as we went along, I gathered any sticks or dried
grass I saw, and presently had my arms full of
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such litter. Thus loaded. Our progress was slower than I
had anticipated, And besides, Weena was tired, and I also
began to suffer from sleepiness too, so that it was
full night before we reached the wood upon the shrubby
hill of its edge. Weena would have stopped, fearing the
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darkness before us, but a singular sense of impending calamity
that should indeed have served me as a warning, drove
me onward. I had been without sleep for a night,
and two days, and I was feverish and irritable. I
felt sleep coming upon me, and the morlocks with it.
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While we hesitated among the black bushes behind us and
dim against their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There
was scrub and long grass all about us, and I
did not feel safe from their insidious approach. The forest,
I calculated, was rather less than a mile across if
we could get through it to the bare hill side, there,
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as it seemed to me, was an altogether safer resting place.
I thought that with my matches and my camphor, I
could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods.
Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish
menature with my hands, I should have to abandon my firewood.
So rather reluctantly I put it down, And then it
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came into my head that I would amaze our friends
behind by lighting it. I was to discover the atrocious
folly of this proceeding, but it came to my mind
as an ingenious move for covering our retreat. I don't
know if you have ever thought what a rare thing
flame must be in the absence of man and in
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a temperate climate. The sun's heat is rarely strong enough
to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops, as
is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may
blast and blacken, but it really gives rise to widespread fire.
Decaying vegetation may occasionally smolder with the heat of its fermentation,
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but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too,
the art of fire making had been forgotten on the earth.
The red tongues that went licking up my heap of
wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
She wanted to run to it and play with it.
I believe she would have cast herself into it had
I not restrained her. But I caught her up, and,
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in spite of his struggles, plunged boldly before me into
the wood for a little way. The glare of my
fire lit the path. Looking back presently, I could see
through the crowded stems that from my heap of sticks,
the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a
curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of
the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to
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the dark trees before me. It was very black, and
Weena clung to me convulsively, But there was still, as
my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for
me to avoid the stems. Overhead, it was simply black,
except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down
upon us. Here and there I let none of my matches,
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because I had no hand free upon my left arm.
I carried my little one in my right hand, and
I had my iron bar for some way. I heard
nothing but the crackling twigs under my feet, the faint
rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing, and
the throb of the blood vessels in my ears. Then
I seemed to know of a pattering behind me. I
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pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then
I caught the same queer sound and voices I had
heard in the underworld. There were evidently several of the Morlocks,
and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute,
I felt a tug at my coat, then something at
my arm, and Weena shivered violently and became quite still.
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It was time for a match, but to get one
I must put her down. I did so, and as
I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the
darkness about my knees, perfectly silent on her part, and
with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft
little hands, too, were creeping over my coat and back,
touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed.
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I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of
the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. I hastily took
a lump of camphor from my pocket and prepared to
light it as soon as the match should wane. Then
I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet
and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With
a sudden fright, I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely
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to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung
it to the ground, and as it split and flared
up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I
knelt down and lifted her up. The wood behind seemed
full of the stir and murmur of a great company.
She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon
my shoulder and rose to push on. And then there
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came a horrible realization. In maneuvering with my matches and weener.
I had turned myself about several times, and now I
had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path.
For all I knew I might be facing back towards
the palace of green porcelain. I found myself in a
cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do.
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I determined to build a fire, and in camp where
we were, I put Wiener, still motionless, down upon a
turfy bowl, and very hastily, as my first lump of
camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and leaves here and there.
Out of the darkness round me. The morlock's eyes shone
like carbuncles. The camphor flickered and went out. I let
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a mansion. As I did so, two white forms that
had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One was so
blinded by the light that he came straight for me,
and I felt his bones grind under the blow of
my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a
little way, and fell down. I let another piece of
camphor and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed
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how dry was some of the foliage above me, for
since my arrival on the time machine a matter of
a week, no rain had fallen. So instead of casting
about among the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping
up and dragging down branches. Very soon I had a choking,
smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could
economize my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay
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beside my iron mace. I tried what I could to
revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could
not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. Now,
the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and
it must have made me heavy of a sudden Moreover,
the vapor of camphor was in the air. My fire
would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I
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felt very weary after my exertion, and sat down. The word, too,
was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did not understand.
I seemed just to nod and open my eyes, But
all was dark, and the morlocks had their hands upon me,
flinging off their clinging fingers. I hastily felt in my
pocket for the match box, and it had gone. Then
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they gripped and closed with me again and in a
moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and
my fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death
came over my soul. The forest seemed full of the
smell of burning wood. I was caught by the neck,
by the hair, by the arms, and pulled down. It
was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all these
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soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I
was in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered and
went down. I felt little teeth nipping at my neck.
I rolled over, and as I did so, my hand
came against my iron lever. It gave me strength. I
struggled up, shaking the human rats from me and holding
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the bar short. I thrust where I judged their faces
might be. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh
and bone under my blows, and for a moment I
was free. The strange exultation that so often seems to
accompany fighting came upon me. I knew that both I
and Weener were lost, but I determined to make the
morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back
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to a tree, swinging the iron bar before me. The
whole wood was full of the stir and cries of them.
A minute passed, their voices seemed to rise to a
higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew faster, yet
none came within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness.
Then suddenly came hope, what if the morlocks were afraid?
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And close on the heels of that came a strange sting.
The darkness seemed to grow luminous, very dimly. I began
to see the morlocks about me, Three battered at my feet,
and then I recognized, with incredulous surprise that the others
were running in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from
behind me and away through the wood in front, and
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their backs seemed no longer white but reddish. As I
a gape, I saw a little red spark go drifting
across a gap of starlight between the branches and vanish
And at that I understood the smell of burning wood,
the slumbrous murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar,
the red glow, and the morlock's flight. Stepping out from
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behind my tree, and looking back, I saw through the
black pillars of the nearer trees the flames of the
burning forest. It was my first fire coming after me.
With that, I looked for Weena, but she was gone.
The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as
each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection.
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My iron bars still gripped, I followed in the morlock's path.
It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward
so swiftly on my right as I ran that I
was outflanked and had to strike off to the left.
But at last I emerged upon a small open space,
and as I did so, a morlock came blundering towards
me and passed me and went on straight into the fire.
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And now I was to see the most weird and
horrible thing I think of all that I beheld in
that future age. This whole space was as bright as
day with the reflection of the fire. In the center
was a hilloc or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn.
Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with
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yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space
with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside was some
thirty or forty morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat,
and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck
furiously at them with my bar in a frenzy of
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fear as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more.
But when I had watched the gestures of one of
them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
heard their moans, I was as short of their absolute
helplessness and misery in the glare, and I struck no
more of them. Yet every now and then one would
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come straight towards me, setting looser, quivering horror that made
ME quick to elude him. At one time, the flames
died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would
presently be able to see me. I was thinking of
beginning the fight by killing some of them before this
should happen. But the fire burst out again brightly, and
I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among
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them and avoided them, looking for some traces of Weena,
but Weena was gone. At last, I sat down on
the summit of the hillock, and watched this strange, incredible
company of blind things, groping to and fro and making
uncanny noises to each other as the glare of the
fire beat on them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed
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across the sky and through the rare tatters of that
red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe,
shone the little stars. Two or three morlocks came blundering
into me, and I drove them off with blows of
my fists, trembling as I did so. For the most
part of that night, I was persuaded it was a nightmare.
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I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake.
I beat the ground with my hands, and got up
and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and
again sat down. Then I would fall to rub in
my eyes and calling upon God to let me awake.
Thrice I saw morlocks put their heads down in a
kind of agony, and rush into the flames. But at last,
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above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming
masses of black smoke, and the whitening and blackening tree stumps,
and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures came the
white light of day. I searched again for traces of Weena,
but there were none. It was plain that they had
left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot
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describe how it relieved me to think that it had
escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined. As
I thought of that, I was almost moved to begin
a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, But I
contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was a
kind of island in the forest. From its summit I
could now make out, through a haze of smoke, the
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palace of green porcelain, and from that I could get
my bearings for the white Sphinx, and so leaving the
remnant of these damned souls still going hither and thither
and moaning. As the day grew clearer, I tied some
grass about my feet and limped on across smoking ashes
and among black stems that still pulsated internally with fire,
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towards the hiding place of the time machine. I walked slowly,
for I was almost exhausted as well as lame, and
I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of
little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old,
familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a
dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left
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me absolutely lonely again, terribly alone. I began to think
of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some
of you, and with such thoughts came a longing that
was pain. But as I walked over the smoking ashes
under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In
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my trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The box
must have leaked before it was lost. End of Chapter twelve.