XVI.
After the Story
"I know," he said, after a pause, "that all this will be absolutely
incredible to you, but to me the one incredible thing is that I am here
tonight in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces and
telling you these strange adventures." He looked at the Medical Man.
"No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy.
Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon
the destinies of our race, until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my
assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest.
And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?"
He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap
with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary
stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the
carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round
at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam
before them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of
our host. The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar--the
sixth. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I
remember, were motionless.
The Editor stood up with a sigh. "What a pity it is you're not a writer
of stories!" he said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller's
shoulder.
"You don't believe it?"
"Well----"
"I thought not."
The Time Traveller turned to us. "Where are the matches?" he said. He
lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. "To tell you the truth... I
hardly believe it myself..... And yet..."
His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon
the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I
saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.
The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. "The
gynaeceum's odd," he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see,
holding out his hand for a specimen.
"I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one," said the Journalist. "How
shall we get home?"
"Plenty of cabs at the station," said the Psychologist.
"It's a curious thing," said the Medical Man; "but I certainly don't
know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?"
The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: "Certainly not."
"Where did you really get them?" said the Medical Man.
The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was
trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. "They were put into my
pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time." He stared round the room.
"I'm damned if it isn't all going. This room and you and the atmosphere
of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine,
or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life
is a dream, a precious poor dream at times--but I can't stand another
that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the dream come from? ... I
must look at that machine. If there is one!"
He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the
door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light
of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew, a
thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid
to the touch--for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it--and with
brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon
the lower parts, and one rail bent awry.
The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand
along the damaged rail. "It's all right now," he said. "The story I
told you was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out here in the cold."
He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the
smoking-room.
He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat.
The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation,
told him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely. I
remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good-night.
I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a "gaudy lie." For
my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so
fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay
awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day
and see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory,
and being on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory,
however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put
out my hand and touched the lever. At that the squat
substantial-looking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its
instability startled me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of
the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back
through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He
was coming from the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a
knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an
elbow to shake. "I'm frightfully busy," said he, "with that thing in
there."
"But is it not some hoax?" I said. "Do you really travel through time?"
"Really and truly I do." And he looked frankly into my eyes. He
hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. "I only want half an hour,"
he said. "I know why you came, and it's awfully good of you. There's
some magazines here. If you'll stop to lunch I'll prove you this time
travelling up to the hilt, specimens and all. If you'll forgive my
leaving you now?"
I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words,
and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the
laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper.
What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded
by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the
publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely
save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the
Time Traveller.
As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly
truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled
round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken
glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed
to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black
and brass for a moment--a figure so transparent that the bench behind
with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm
vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a
subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A
pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in.
I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had
happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange
thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened,
and the man-servant appeared.
We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. "Has Mr. ---- gone out
that way?" said I.
"No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him
here."
At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed
on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps
still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring
with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime.
The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows
now, he has never returned.
[ END OF CHAPTER, MOVE TO EPILOGUE ]