THE TIME MACHINE

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'At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of
losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world.
The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could
feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing. In another
moment I was in a passion of fear and running with great leaping
strides down the slope. Once I fell headlong and cut my face; I lost
no time in stanching the blood, but jumped up and ran on, with a
warm trickle down my cheek and chin. All the time I ran I was saying
to myself: "They have moved it a little, pushed it under the bushes
out of the way." Nevertheless, I ran with all my might. All the
time, with the certainty that sometimes comes with excessive dread,
I knew that such assurance was folly, knew instinctively that the
machine was removed out of my reach. My breath came with pain. I
suppose I covered the whole distance from the hill crest to the
little lawn, two miles perhaps, in ten minutes. And I am not a young
man. I cursed aloud, as I ran, at my confident folly in leaving the
machine, wasting good breath thereby. I cried aloud, and none