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of their wells, examined their cattle and took as many as they needed for their food.
However, I was not so helpless as these little people. I could at least fight and defend myself. I decided to find some tool to break the pedestal of the Sphinx and get my Time Machine.
About eight or nine in the morning I came to the lawn where the Sphinx was. My plan was to break the walls of the pedestal with my iron bar and get in.
And now came a most unexpected thing. As I came to the Sphinx, I found that the pedestal was opened.
I stopped, hesitating to enter. I could see my Time Machine inside. The levers were in my pocket.
Suddenly I understood what the Un-dergrounders thought. Laughing to myself I stepped into the pedestal. As I was standing near the Time Machine and examining it, there happened just what I had expected. The door of the bronze pedestal closed. I was in the dark — trapped. So the Undergroun-ders thought. And I laughed.
I was sitting in the saddle and fixing the levers, when they came and tried to seize me. I pressed the starting lever, and they disappeared. The darkness fell from my eyes. I was going back to my own time. When I was near, I slowed the Machine down little by little, remembering my fall when I had stopped it suddenly. At last the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Very gently I stopped the Machine. I got off and sat down on a bench. For several minutes I trembled. Then I became calmer. Around me I saw my old workshop again, exactly as it had been.
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