The Time Machine - International World History Project

The Time Machinebeach. I fancied I saw some black object flopping aboutupon this bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it,and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and that theblack object was merely a rock. The stars in the sky wereintensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle very little.‘Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward outlineof the sun had changed; that a concavity, a bay, hadappeared in the curve. I saw this grow larger. For a minuteperhaps I stared aghast at this blackness that was creepingover the day, and then I realized that an eclipse wasbeginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury waspassing across the sun’s disk. Naturally, at first I took it tobe the moon, but there is much to incline me to believethat what I really saw was the transit of an inner planetpassing very near to the earth.‘The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blowin freshening gusts from the east, and the showering whiteflakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of thesea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless soundsthe world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to conveythe stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating ofsheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir thatmakes the background of our lives—all that was over. Asthe darkness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more136 of 148