"I made a plan. With Weena I went to a great ruined museum, and there I found a lever of iron and a box of old matches. On the way back through the forest the Morlocks came at us in the dark. I made a fire to keep them away, and the whole wood began to burn. In that terrible night I lost Weena. In the morning I came to the White Sphinx, and the bronze doors stood open. The Morlocks had put my machine there as a trap. I walked in; the doors fell shut behind me; small hands took hold of me in the blackness. But I had the machine. I struck about me with the iron bar, climbed into the saddle, and pulled the lever. But I did not go back at once. I pushed the lever forward, and the years ran on. The sun grew larger and redder, and it stopped moving in the sky. The air was thin and bitterly cold. The sea lay still, and there was no sound at all. On the red beach a huge thing like a crab moved slowly among the rocks. I went on further, until the last life on earth was a round black shape with tentacles, hopping in the shallow water under an eclipsed sun. Then I turned the machine and came home."