THE TIME MACHINE

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light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very
large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with
a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction. At
one time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly again,
but it speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this
slowing down of its rising and setting that the work of the tidal
drag was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun,
even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously,
for I remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse
my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands until the
thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a
mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the dim outlines of a
desolate beach grew visible.

'I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round.
The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black,
and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale