1 The ground grew dim and the trees black.
2 I stood with my back to a tree, swinging the iron bar before me.
3 I laughed at that, and turned again to the dark trees before me.
4 The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees.
5 I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of the Morlocks in flight amid the trees.
6 So, instead of casting about among the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping up and dragging down branches.
7 I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away.
8 The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection.
9 All the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be.
10 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.
11 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.
12 From every hill I climbed I saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns.
13 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.