Page:The Time Machine (1st edition).djvu/209

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THE FURTHER VISION.
197

complicated mouth flickering and feeling as it approached.

"As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling toward me, I felt a tickling on my cheeks as though a fly had alighted there.

"I tried to brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost immediately after another came near my ear. I struck at this and caught something threadlike. It was drawn swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm I turned and saw I had grasped the antennae of another monster crab that stood immediately behind me. Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws, smeared with green slime, were descending upon me.

"In a moment my hand was on the lever of the Time Machine, and I had place a month between myself and these monsters. But I found I was still on the same beach and I saw