hand came against my iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled

up, shaking the human rats from me, and, holding the bar short,

I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I could feel the

succulent giving of flesh and bone under my blows, and for a moment

I was free.

'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 recognized,

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.

103

The Time Machine