readjustments by which the conquest of animated nature had been
attained. Then we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but
singularly ill-lit, the floor of it running downward at a slight angle
from the end at which I entered. At intervals white globes hung from
the ceiling many of them cracked and smashed which suggested that
originally the place had been artificially lit. Here I was more in my
element, for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big
machines, all greatly corroded and many broken down, but some still
fairly complete. You know I have a certain weakness for mechanism, and
I was inclined to linger among these; the more so as for the most part
they had the interest of puzzles, and I could make only the vaguest
guesses at what they were for. I fancied that if I could solve their
puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers that might be of
use against the Morlocks.
Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So suddenly that she
startled me. Had it not been for her I do not think I should have
noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all. [Footnote: It may
be, of course, that the floor did not slope, but that the museum was
built into the side of a hill. ED.] The end I had come in at was quite
above ground, and was lit by rare slit-like windows. As you went down
the length, the ground came up against these windows, until at last
there was a pit like the area of a London house before each, and only
a narrow line of daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling
about the machines, and had been too intent 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 this 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
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