The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting
came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena were lost, but I determined
to make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back to a
tree, swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was full of the
stir and cries of them. A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise to
a higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew faster. Yet none
came within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came
hope. What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the heels of that
came a strange thing. The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly
I began to see the Morlocks about me three battered at my feet and then
I recognised, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running,
in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through
the wood in front. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish.
As I stood agape, I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of
starlight between the branches, and vanish. And at that I understood
the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now
into a gusty roar, the red glow, and the Morlocks flight.
Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw, through the
black pillars of the nearer trees, the flames of the burning forest. It
was my first fire coming after me. With that I looked for Weena, but
she was gone. The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud
as each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection.
My iron bar still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks path. It was a
close race. Once the flames crept forward so swiftly on my right as I
ran that I was outflanked and had to strike off to the left. But at
last I emerged upon a small open space, and as I did so, a Morlock came
blundering towards me, and past me, and went on straight into the fire!
And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing, I think, of
all that I beheld in that future age. This whole space was as bright as
day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock or
tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm
of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it,
completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside
were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and
blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
At first I did not realise their blindness, and struck furiously at
them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing
one and crippling several more. But when I had watched the gestures of
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