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Sphinx, and dragged the Time Machine inside the pedestal, meaning to trap me. I had come to the Sphinx with a pebble and hammered at this panel – just here ; I ran over the decorations with my fingertips. I had flattened out some of the coils of the panel, though to no avail. Well, now I found those coils firm and round under my fingers, as good asnew. It was strange to think that the coils would not meet the fury of my stone for millennia yet – or perhaps, never at all .
    I determined to move away from the machine and proceed with my exploration. But the presence of the Sphinx had reminded me of my horror at losing the Time Machine to the clutches of the Morlocks. I patted my pocket – at least without my little levers the machine could not be operated – but there was no obstacle to those loathsome creatures crawling over my machine as soon as I was gone from it, perhaps dismantling it or stealing it again.
    And besides, in this darkened landscape, how should I avoid getting lost? How should I be sure of finding the machine again, once I had gone more than a few yards from it?
    I puzzled over this for a few moments, my desire to explore further battling with my apprehension. Then an idea struck me. I opened my knapsack and took out my candles and camphor blocks. With rough haste I shoved these articles into crevices in the Time Machine’s complex construction. Then I went around the machine with lighted matches until every one of the blocks and candles was ablaze.
    I stood back from my glowing handiwork with some pride. Candle flames glinted from the polished nickel and brass, so that the Time Machine was lit up like some Christmas ornament. In this darkened landscape, and with the machine poised on this denuded hill-side, I would be able to see my beacon from a fair distance. With any luck, the flames would deter any Morlocks – or if they did not, I should see the diminution of the flames immediately and could come running back, to join battle.
    I fingered the poker’s heavy handle. I think a part of me hoped for just such an outcome; my hands and lower arms tingled as I remembered the queer,soft sensation of my fists driving into Morlock faces!
    At any rate, now I was prepared for my expedition. I picked up my Kodak, lit a small oil lamp, and made my way across the hill, pausing after every few paces to be sure the Time Machine rested undisturbed.

5

THE WELL
    I raised my lamp, but its glow carried only a few feet. All was silent – there was not a breath of wind, not a trickle of water; and I wondered if the Thames still flowed.
    For lack of a definite destination, I decided to make towards the site of the great food hall which I remembered from Weena’s day. This lay a little distance to the north-west, further along the hill-side past the White Sphinx, and so this was the path I followed once more – reflecting in Space, if not in Time, my first walk in Weena’s world.
    When last I made this little journey, I remembered, there had been grass under my feet – untended and uncropped, but growing neat and short and free of weeds. Now, soft, gritty sand pulled at my boots as I tramped across the hill.
    My vision was becoming quite adapted to this night of patchy star-light, but, though there were buildings hereabout, silhouetted against the sky, I saw no sign of my hall. I remembered it quite distinctly: it had been a grey edifice, dilapidated and vast, of fretted stone, with a carved, ornate doorway; and as I had walked through its carved arch, the little Eloi, delicate and pretty, had fluttered about me with their pale limbs and soft robes.
    Before long I had walked so far that I knew I must have passed the site of the hall. Evidently – unlike theSphinx and the Morlocks – the food palace had not survived in this History – or perhaps had never been built , I thought with a shiver; perhaps I had walked – slept, even taken a meal! – in a building without existence.
    The path took me to a well, a