’At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock,
and watched this strange incredible company of blind
things groping to and fro, and making uncanny noises
to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on them.
The coiling uprush of smoke streamed across the sky,
and through the rare tatters of that red canopy, remote
as though they belonged to another universe, shone
the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came
blundering into me, and I drove them off with blows
of my fists, trembling as I did so.
’For the most part of that night I was persuaded
it was a nightmare. I bit myself and screamed
in a passionate desire to awake. I beat the ground
with my hands, and got up and sat down again, and
wandered here and there, and again sat down. Then
I would fall to rubbing my eyes and calling upon God
to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their
heads down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames.
But, at last, above the subsiding red of the fire,
above the streaming masses of black smoke and the
whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing
numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light
of the day.
’I searched again for traces of Weena, but there
were none. It was plain that they had left her
poor little body in the forest. I cannot describe
how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the
awful fate to which it seemed destined. As I thought
of that, I was almost moved to begin a massacre of
the helpless abominations about me, but I contained
myself. The hillock, as I have said, was a kind
of island in the forest. From its summit I could
now make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of
Green Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings
for the White Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant
of these damned souls still going hither and thither
and moaning, as the day grew clearer, I tied some
grass about my feet and limped on across smoking ashes
and among black stems, that still pulsated internally
with fire, towards the hiding-place of the Time Machine.
I walked slowly, for I was almost exhausted, as well
as lame, and I felt the intensest wretchedness for
the horrible death of little Weena. It seemed
an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old familiar
room, it is more like the sorrow of a dream than an
actual loss. But that morning it left me absolutely
lonely again—terribly alone. I began
to think of this house of mine, of this fireside,
of some of you, and with such thoughts came a longing
that was pain.
’But as I walked over the smoking ashes under
the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In
my trouser pocket were still some loose matches.
The box must have leaked before it was lost.
