"Chapter 1\n\n\nMr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne\n\nAs I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the\nblue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of\nastonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr.\nCavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have\nbeen any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself\nremoved from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had\ngone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the\nworld. \"Here, at any rate,\" said I, \"I shall find peace and a chance to\nwork!\"\n\nAnd this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is destiny with all\nthe little plans of men. I may perhaps mention here that very recently I\nhad come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now\nsurrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in\nadmitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my\ndisasters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are\ndirections in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of business\noperations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my youth\namong other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my capacity for\naffairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to\nme have rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether they have\nbrought any wisdom to light below it is a more doubtful matter.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that\nlanded me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business transactions\nthere is a strong spice of adventure. I took risks. In these things\nthere is invariably a certain amount of give and take, and it fell to me\nfinally to do the giving reluctantly enough. Even when I had got out of\neverything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. Perhaps you\nhave met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only\nfelt it. He ran me hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there was nothing\nfor it but to write a play, unless I wanted to drudge for my living as a\nclerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and I meant to\nmake a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In addition to\nmy belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in those days had\nan idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is not, I\nbelieve, a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do\noutside legitimate business transactions that has such opulent\npossibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had, indeed,\ngot into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a convenient\nlittle reserve put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had come, and I set\nto work.\n\nI soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business than I had\nsupposed; at first I had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to have a\npied-a-terre while it was in hand that I came to Lympne. I reckoned myself\nlucky in getting that little bungalow. I got it on a three years'\nagreement. I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in\nhand I did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs. Bond. And\nyet, you know, it had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, a sauce-pan for eggs,\nand one for potatoes, and a frying-pan for sausages and bacon--such was\nthe simple apparatus of my comfort. One cannot always be magnificent, but\nsimplicity is always a possible alternative. For the rest I laid in an\neighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a trustful baker came each\nday. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris, but I have had worse\ntimes. I was a little sorry for the baker, who was a very decent man\nindeed, but even for him I hoped.\n\nCertainly if any one wants solitude, the place is Lympne. It is in the\nclay part of Kent, and my bungalow stood on the edge of an old sea cliff\nand stared across the flats of Romney Marsh at the sea. In very wet\nweather the place is almost inaccessible, and I have heard that at times\nthe postman used to traverse the more succulent portions of his route with\nboards upon his feet. I never saw him doing so, but I can quite imagine\nit. Outside the doors of the few cottages and houses that make up the\npresent village big birch besoms are stuck, to wipe off the worst of the\nclay, which will give some idea of the texture of the district. I doubt if\nthe place would be there at all, if it were not a fading memory of things\ngone for ever. It was the big port of England in Roman times, Portus\nLemanis, and now the sea is four miles away. All down the steep hill are\nboulders and masses of Roman brickwork, and from it old Watling Street,\nstill paved in places, starts like an arrow to the north. I used to stand\non the hill and think of it all, the galleys and legions, the captives and\nofficials, the women and traders, the speculators like myself, all the\nswarm and tumult that came clanking in and out of the harbour. And now\njust a few lumps of rubble on a grassy slope, and a sheep or two--and I.\nAnd where the port had been were the levels of the marsh, sweeping round\nin a broad curve to distant Dungeness, and dotted here and there with tree\nclumps and the church towers of old medieval towns that are following\nLemanis now towards extinction.\n\nThat outlook on the marsh was, indeed, one of the finest views I have ever\nseen. I suppose Dungeness was fifteen miles away; it lay like a raft on\nthe sea, and farther westward were the hills by Hastings under the setting\nsun. Sometimes they hung close and clear, sometimes they were faded and\nlow, and often the drift of the weather took them clean out of sight. And\nall the nearer parts of the marsh were laced and lit by ditches and\ncanals.\n\nThe window at which I worked looked over the skyline of this crest, and it\nwas from this window that I first set eyes on Cavor. It was just as I was\nstruggling with my scenario, holding down my mind to the sheer hard work\nof it, and naturally enough he arrested my attention.\n\nThe sun had set, the sky was a vivid tranquillity of green and yellow, and\nagainst that he came out black--the oddest little figure.\n\nHe was a short, round-bodied, thin-legged little man, with a jerky quality\nin his motions; he had seen fit to clothe his extraordinary mind in a\ncricket cap, an overcoat, and cycling knickerbockers and stockings. Why he\ndid so I do not know, for he never cycled and he never played cricket. It\nwas a fortuitous concurrence of garments, arising I know not how. He\ngesticulated with his hands and arms, and jerked his head about and\nbuzzed. He buzzed like something electric. You never heard such buzzing.\nAnd ever and again he cleared his throat with a most extraordinary noise.\n\nThere had been rain, and that spasmodic walk of his was enhanced by the\nextreme slipperiness of the footpath. Exactly as he came against the sun\nhe stopped, pulled out a watch, hesitated. Then with a sort of convulsive\ngesture he turned and retreated with every manifestation of haste, no\nlonger gesticulating, but going with ample strides that showed the\nrelatively large size of his feet--they were, I remember, grotesquely\nexaggerated in size by adhesive clay--to the best possible advantage.\n\nThis occurred on the first day of my sojourn, when my play-writing energy\nwas at its height and I regarded the incident simply as an annoying\ndistraction--the waste of five minutes. I returned to my scenario. But\nwhen next evening the apparition was repeated with remarkable precision,\nand again the next evening, and indeed every evening when rain was not\nfalling, concentration upon the scenario became a considerable effort.\n\"Confound the man,\" I said, \"one would think he was learning to be a\nmarionette!\" and for several evenings I cursed him pretty heartily. Then\nmy annoyance gave way to amazement and curiosity. Why on earth should a\nman do this thing? On the fourteenth evening I could stand it no longer,\nand so soon as he appeared I opened the french window, crossed the\nverandah, and directed myself to the point where he invariably stopped.\n\nHe had his watch out as I came up to him. He had a chubby, rubicund face\nwith reddish brown eyes--previously I had seen him only against the\nlight. \"One moment, sir,\" said I as he turned. He stared. \"One moment,\"\nhe said, \"certainly. Or if you wish to speak to me for longer, and it is\nnot asking too much--your moment is up--would it trouble you to\naccompany me?\"\n\n\"Not in the least,\" said I, placing myself beside him.\n\n\"My habits are regular. My time for intercourse--limited.\"\n\n\"This, I presume, is your time for exercise?\"\n\n\"It is. I come here to enjoy the sunset.\"\n\n\"You don't.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"You never look at it.\"\n\n\"Never look at it?\"\n\n\"No. I've watched you thirteen nights, and not once have you looked at the\nsunset--not once.\"\n\nHe knitted his brows like one who encounters a problem.\n\n\"Well, I enjoy the sunlight--the atmosphere--I go along this path,\nthrough that gate\"--he jerked his head over his shoulder--\"and round--\"\n\n\"You don't. You never have been. It's all nonsense. There isn't a way.\nTo-night for instance--\"\n\n\"Oh! to-night! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had\nalready been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided\nthere was not time to go round, turned--\"\n\n\"You always do.\"\n\nHe looked at me--reflected. \"Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But\nwhat was it you wanted to speak to me about?\"\n\n\"Why, this!\"\n\n\"This?\"\n\n\"Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise--\"\n\n\"Making a noise?\"\n\n\"Like this.\" I imitated his buzzing noise. He looked at me, and it was\nevident the buzzing awakened distaste. \"Do I do that?\" he asked.\n\n\"Every blessed evening.\"\n\n\"I had no idea.\"\n\nHe stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. \"Can it be,\" he said, \"that I\nhave formed a Habit?\"\n\n\"Well, it looks like it. Doesn't it?\"\n\nHe pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a\npuddle at his feet.\n\n\"My mind is much occupied,\" he said. \"And you want to know why! Well, sir,\nI can assure you that not only do I not know why I do these things, but I\ndid not even know I did them. Come to think, it is just as you say;\nI never _have_ been beyond that field.... And these things annoy you?\"\n\nFor some reason I was beginning to relent towards him. \"Not annoy,\"\nI said. \"But--imagine yourself writing a play!\"\n\n\"I couldn't.\"\n\n\"Well, anything that needs concentration.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, \"of course,\" and meditated. His expression became so\neloquent of distress, that I relented still more. After all, there is a\ntouch of aggression in demanding of a man you don't know why he hums on\na public footpath.\n\n\"You see,\" he said weakly, \"it's a habit.\"\n\n\"Oh, I recognise that.\"\n\n\"I must stop it.\"\n\n\"But not if it puts you out. After all, I had no business--it's something\nof a liberty.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir,\" he said, \"not at all. I am greatly indebted to you. I\nshould guard myself against these things. In future I will. Could I\ntrouble you--once again? That noise?\"\n\n\"Something like this,\" I said. \"Zuzzoo, zuzzoo. But really, you know--\"\n\n\"I am greatly obliged to you. In fact, I know I am getting absurdly\nabsent-minded. You are quite justified, sir--perfectly justified. Indeed,\nI am indebted to you. The thing shall end. And now, sir, I have already\nbrought you farther than I should have done.\"\n\n\"I do hope my impertinence--\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir, not at all.\"\n\nWe regarded each other for a moment. I raised my hat and wished him a good\nevening. He responded convulsively, and so we went our ways.\n\nAt the stile I looked back at his receding figure. His bearing had changed\nremarkably, he seemed limp, shrunken. The contrast with his former\ngesticulating, zuzzoing self took me in some absurd way as pathetic. I\nwatched him out of sight. Then wishing very heartily I had kept to my own\nbusiness, I returned to my bungalow and my play.\n\nThe next evening I saw nothing of him, nor the next. But he was very much\nin my mind, and it had occurred to me that as a sentimental comic\ncharacter he might serve a useful purpose in the development of my plot.\nThe third day he called upon me.\n\nFor a time I was puzzled to think what had brought him. He made\nindifferent conversation in the most formal way, then abruptly he came to\nbusiness. He wanted to buy me out of my bungalow.\n\n\"You see,\" he said, \"I don't blame you in the least, but you've\ndestroyed a habit, and it disorganises my day. I've walked past here for\nyears--years. No doubt I've hummed.... You've made all that impossible!\"\n\nI suggested he might try some other direction.\n\n\"No. There is no other direction. This is the only one. I've inquired.\nAnd now--every afternoon at four--I come to a dead wall.\"\n\n\"But, my dear sir, if the thing is so important to you--\"\n\n\"It's vital. You see, I'm--I'm an investigator--I am engaged in a\nscientific research. I live--\" he paused and seemed to think. \"Just over\nthere,\" he said, and pointed suddenly dangerously near my eye. \"The house\nwith white chimneys you see just over the trees. And my circumstances are\nabnormal--abnormal. I am on the point of completing one of the most\nimportant--demonstrations--I can assure you one of the most important\ndemonstrations that have ever been made. It requires constant thought,\nconstant mental ease and activity. And the afternoon was my brightest\ntime!--effervescing with new ideas--new points of view.\"\n\n\"But why not come by still?\"\n\n\"It would be all different. I should be self-conscious. I should think of\nyou at your play--watching me irritated--instead of thinking of my work.\nNo! I must have the bungalow.\"\n\nI meditated. Naturally, I wanted to think the matter over thoroughly\nbefore anything decisive was said. I was generally ready enough for\nbusiness in those days, and selling always attracted me; but in the first\nplace it was not my bungalow, and even if I sold it to him at a good price\nI might get inconvenienced in the delivery of goods if the current owner\ngot wind of the transaction, and in the second I was, well--undischarged.\nIt was clearly a business that required delicate handling. Moreover,\nthe possibility of his being in pursuit of some valuable invention also\ninterested me. It occurred to me that I would like to know more of this\nresearch, not with any dishonest intention, but simply with an idea\nthat to know what it was would be a relief from play-writing. I threw\nout feelers.\n\nHe was quite willing to supply information. Indeed, once he was fairly\nunder way the conversation became a monologue. He talked like a man long\npent up, who has had it over with himself again and again. He talked for\nnearly an hour, and I must confess I found it a pretty stiff bit of\nlistening. But through it all there was the undertone of satisfaction one\nfeels when one is neglecting work one has set oneself. During that first\ninterview I gathered very little of the drift of his work. Half his words\nwere technicalities entirely strange to me, and he illustrated one or two\npoints with what he was pleased to call elementary mathematics, computing\non an envelope with a copying-ink pencil, in a manner that made it hard\neven to seem to understand. \"Yes,\" I said, \"yes. Go on!\" Nevertheless I\nmade out enough to convince me that he was no mere crank playing at\ndiscoveries. In spite of his crank-like appearance there was a force about\nhim that made that impossible. Whatever it was, it was a thing with\nmechanical possibilities. He told me of a work-shed he had, and of three\nassistants--originally jobbing carpenters--whom he had trained. Now,\nfrom the work-shed to the patent office is clearly only one step. He\ninvited me to see those things. I accepted readily, and took care, by a\nremark or so, to underline that. The proposed transfer of the bungalow\nremained very conveniently in suspense.\n\nAt last he rose to depart, with an apology for the length of his call.\nTalking over his work was, he said, a pleasure enjoyed only too rarely. It\nwas not often he found such an intelligent listener as myself, he mingled\nvery little with professional scientific men.\n\n\"So much pettiness,\" he explained; \"so much intrigue! And really, when one\nhas an idea--a novel, fertilising idea--I don't want to be uncharitable,\nbut--\"\n\nI am a man who believes in impulses. I made what was perhaps a rash\nproposition. But you must remember, that I had been alone, play-writing in\nLympne, for fourteen days, and my compunction for his ruined walk still\nhung about me. \"Why not,\" said I, \"make this your new habit? In the place\nof the one I spoilt? At least, until we can settle about the bungalow.\nWhat you want is to turn over your work in your mind. That you have always\ndone during your afternoon walk. Unfortunately that's over--you can't get\nthings back as they were. But why not come and talk about your work to me;\nuse me as a sort of wall against which you may throw your thoughts and\ncatch them again? It's certain I don't know enough to steal your ideas\nmyself--and I know no scientific men--\"\n\nI stopped. He was considering. Evidently the thing, attracted him. \"But\nI'm afraid I should bore you,\" he said.\n\n\"You think I'm too dull?\"\n\n\"Oh, no; but technicalities--\"\n\n\"Anyhow, you've interested me immensely this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Of course it would be a great help to me. Nothing clears up one's ideas\nso much as explaining them. Hitherto--\"\n\n\"My dear sir, say no more.\"\n\n\"But really can you spare the time?\"\n\n\"There is no rest like change of occupation,\" I said, with profound\nconviction.\n\nThe affair was over. On my verandah steps he turned. \"I am already greatly\nindebted to you,\" he said.\n\nI made an interrogative noise.\n\n\"You have completely cured me of that ridiculous habit of humming,\" he\nexplained.\n\nI think I said I was glad to be of any service to him, and he turned away.\n\nImmediately the train of thought that our conversation had suggested must\nhave resumed its sway. His arms began to wave in their former fashion.\nThe faint echo of \"zuzzoo\" came back to me on the breeze....\n\nWell, after all, that was not my affair....\n\nHe came the next day, and again the next day after that, and delivered\ntwo lectures on physics to our mutual satisfaction. He talked with an\nair of being extremely lucid about the \"ether\" and \"tubes of force,\" and\n\"gravitational potential,\" and things like that, and I sat in my other\nfolding-chair and said, \"Yes,\" \"Go on,\" \"I follow you,\" to keep him\ngoing. It was tremendously difficult stuff, but I do not think he ever\nsuspected how much I did not understand him. There were moments when I\ndoubted whether I was well employed, but at any rate I was resting from\nthat confounded play. Now and then things gleamed on me clearly for a\nspace, only to vanish just when I thought I had hold of them. Sometimes my\nattention failed altogether, and I would give it up and sit and stare at\nhim, wondering whether, after all, it would not be better to use him as a\ncentral figure in a good farce and let all this other stuff slide. And\nthen, perhaps, I would catch on again for a bit.\n\nAt the earliest opportunity I went to see his house. It was large and\ncarelessly furnished; there were no servants other than his three\nassistants, and his dietary and private life were characterised by a\nphilosophical simplicity. He was a water-drinker, a vegetarian, and all\nthose logical disciplinary things. But the sight of his equipment settled\nmany doubts. It looked like business from cellar to attic--an amazing\nlittle place to find in an out-of-the-way village. The ground-floor rooms\ncontained benches and apparatus, the bakehouse and scullery boiler had\ndeveloped into respectable furnaces, dynamos occupied the cellar, and\nthere was a gasometer in the garden. He showed it to me with all the\nconfiding zest of a man who has been living too much alone. His seclusion\nwas overflowing now in an excess of confidence, and I had the good luck to\nbe the recipient.\n\nThe three assistants were creditable specimens of the class of \"handy-men\"\nfrom which they came. Conscientious if unintelligent, strong, civil, and\nwilling. One, Spargus, who did the cooking and all the metal work, had\nbeen a sailor; a second, Gibbs, was a joiner; and the third was an\nex-jobbing gardener, and now general assistant. They were the merest\nlabourers. All the intelligent work was done by Cavor. Theirs was the\ndarkest ignorance compared even with my muddled impression.\n\nAnd now, as to the nature of these inquiries. Here, unhappily, comes a\ngrave difficulty. I am no scientific expert, and if I were to attempt to\nset forth in the highly scientific language of Mr. Cavor the aim to which\nhis experiments tended, I am afraid I should confuse not only the reader\nbut myself, and almost certainly I should make some blunder that would\nbring upon me the mockery of every up-to-date student of mathematical\nphysics in the country. The best thing I can do therefore is, I think to\ngive my impressions in my own inexact language, without any attempt to\nwear a garment of knowledge to which I have no claim.\n\nThe object of Mr. Cavor's search was a substance that should be\n\"opaque\"--he used some other word I have forgotten, but \"opaque\" conveys\nthe idea--to \"all forms of radiant energy.\" \"Radiant energy,\" he made me\nunderstand, was anything like light or heat, or those Rontgen Rays there\nwas so much talk about a year or so ago, or the electric waves of Marconi,\nor gravitation. All these things, he said, _radiate_ out from centres, and\nact on bodies at a distance, whence comes the term \"radiant energy.\" Now\nalmost all substances are opaque to some form or other of radiant energy.\nGlass, for example, is transparent to light, but much less so to heat, so\nthat it is useful as a fire-screen; and alum is transparent to light, but\nblocks heat completely. A solution of iodine in carbon bisulphide, on the\nother hand, completely blocks light, but is quite transparent to heat. It\nwill hide a fire from you, but permit all its warmth to reach you. Metals\nare not only opaque to light and heat, but also to electrical energy,\nwhich passes through both iodine solution and glass almost as though they\nwere not interposed. And so on.\n\nNow all known substances are \"transparent\" to gravitation. You can use\nscreens of various sorts to cut off the light or heat, or electrical\ninfluence of the sun, or the warmth of the earth from anything; you can\nscreen things by sheets of metal from Marconi's rays, but nothing will cut\noff the gravitational attraction of the sun or the gravitational\nattraction of the earth. Yet why there should be nothing is hard to say.\nCavor did not see why such a substance should not exist, and certainly I\ncould not tell him. I had never thought of such a possibility before. He\nshowed me by calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, no doubt, or\nProfessor Lodge, or Professor Karl Pearson, or any of those great\nscientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me to a\nhopeless muddle, that not only was such a substance possible, but that it\nmust satisfy certain conditions. It was an amazing piece of reasoning.\nMuch as it amazed and exercised me at the time, it would be impossible to\nreproduce it here. \"Yes,\" I said to it all, \"yes; go on!\" Suffice it for\nthis story that he believed he might be able to manufacture this possible\nsubstance opaque to gravitation out of a complicated alloy of metals and\nsomething new--a new element, I fancy--called, I believe, _helium_, which\nwas sent to him from London in sealed stone jars. Doubt has been thrown\nupon this detail, but I am almost certain it was _helium_ he had sent him\nin sealed stone jars. It was certainly something very gaseous and thin.\nIf only I had taken notes...\n\nBut then, how was I to foresee the necessity of taking notes?\n\nAny one with the merest germ of an imagination will understand the\nextraordinary possibilities of such a substance, and will sympathise a\nlittle with the emotion I felt as this understanding emerged from the haze\nof abstruse phrases in which Cavor expressed himself. Comic relief in a\nplay indeed! It was some time before I would believe that I had\ninterpreted him aright, and I was very careful not to ask questions that\nwould have enabled him to gauge the profundity of misunderstanding into\nwhich he dropped his daily exposition. But no one reading the story of it\nhere will sympathise fully, because from my barren narrative it will be\nimpossible to gather the strength of my conviction that this astonishing\nsubstance was positively going to be made.\n\nI do not recall that I gave my play an hour's consecutive work at any time\nafter my visit to his house. My imagination had other things to do. There\nseemed no limit to the possibilities of the stuff; whichever way I tried I\ncame on miracles and revolutions. For example, if one wanted to lift a\nweight, however enormous, one had only to get a sheet of this substance\nbeneath it, and one might lift it with a straw. My first natural impulse\nwas to apply this principle to guns and ironclads, and all the material\nand methods of war, and from that to shipping, locomotion, building, every\nconceivable form of human industry. The chance that had brought me into\nthe very birth-chamber of this new time--it was an epoch, no less--was\none of those chances that come once in a thousand years. The thing\nunrolled, it expanded and expanded. Among other things I saw in it my\nredemption as a business man. I saw a parent company, and daughter\ncompanies, applications to right of us, applications to left, rings and\ntrusts, privileges, and concessions spreading and spreading, until one\nvast, stupendous Cavorite company ran and ruled the world.\n\nAnd I was in it!\n\nI took my line straight away. I knew I was staking everything, but I\njumped there and then.\n\n\"We're on absolutely the biggest thing that has ever been invented,\" I\nsaid, and put the accent on \"we.\" \"If you want to keep me out of this,\nyou'll have to do it with a gun. I'm coming down to be your fourth\nlabourer to-morrow.\"\n\nHe seemed surprised at my enthusiasm, but not a bit suspicious or hostile.\nRather, he was self-depreciatory. He looked at me doubtfully. \"But do you\nreally think--?\" he said. \"And your play! How about that play?\"\n\n\"It's vanished!\" I cried. \"My dear sir, don't you see what you've got?\nDon't you see what you're going to do?\"\n\nThat was merely a rhetorical turn, but positively, he didn't. At first I\ncould not believe it. He had not had the beginning of the inkling of an\nidea. This astonishing little man had been working on purely theoretical\ngrounds the whole time! When he said it was \"the most important\" research\nthe world had ever seen, he simply meant it squared up so many theories,\nsettled so much that was in doubt; he had troubled no more about the\napplication of the stuff he was going to turn out than if he had been a\nmachine that makes guns. This was a possible substance, and he was going\nto make it! V'la tout, as the Frenchman says.\n\nBeyond that, he was childish! If he made it, it would go down to posterity\nas Cavorite or Cavorine, and he would be made an F.R.S., and his portrait\ngiven away as a scientific worthy with Nature, and things like that. And\nthat was all he saw! He would have dropped this bombshell into the world\nas though he had discovered a new species of gnat, if it had not happened\nthat I had come along. And there it would have lain and fizzled, like one\nor two other little things these scientific people have lit and dropped\nabout us.\n\nWhen I realised this, it was I did the talking, and Cavor who said, \"Go\non!\" I jumped up. I paced the room, gesticulating like a boy of twenty.\nI tried to make him understand his duties and responsibilities in the\nmatter--_our_ duties and responsibilities in the matter. I assured him we\nmight make wealth enough to work any sort of social revolution we fancied,\nwe might own and order the whole world. I told him of companies and\npatents, and the case for secret processes. All these things seemed to\ntake him much as his mathematics had taken me. A look of perplexity came\ninto his ruddy little face. He stammered something about indifference to\nwealth, but I brushed all that aside. He had got to be rich, and it was no\ngood his stammering. I gave him to understand the sort of man I was, and\nthat I had had very considerable business experience. I did not tell him\nI was an undischarged bankrupt at the time, because that was temporary,\nbut I think I reconciled my evident poverty with my financial claims. And\nquite insensibly, in the way such projects grow, the understanding of a\nCavorite monopoly grew up between us. He was to make the stuff, and I was\nto make the boom.\n\nI stuck like a leech to the \"we\"--\"you\" and \"I\" didn't exist for me.\n\nHis idea was that the profits I spoke of might go to endow research, but\nthat, of course, was a matter we had to settle later. \"That's all right,\"\nI shouted, \"that's all right.\" The great point, as I insisted, was to get\nthe thing done.\n\n\"Here is a substance,\" I cried, \"no home, no factory, no fortress, no ship\ncan dare to be without--more universally applicable even than a patent\nmedicine. There isn't a solitary aspect of it, not one of its ten thousand\npossible uses that will not make us rich, Cavor, beyond the dreams of\navarice!\"\n\n\"No!\" he said. \"I begin to see. It's extraordinary how one gets new points\nof view by talking over things!\"\n\n\"And as it happens you have just talked to the right man!\"\n\n\"I suppose no one,\" he said, \"is absolutely _averse_ to enormous wealth.\nOf course there is one thing--\"\n\nHe paused. I stood still.\n\n\"It is just possible, you know, that we may not be able to make it after\nall! It may be one of those things that are a theoretical possibility, but\na practical absurdity. Or when we make it, there may be some little\nhitch!\"\n\n\"We'll tackle the hitch when it comes.\" said I.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\n\n\n\nThe First Making of Cavorite\n\nBut Cavor's fears were groundless, so far as the actual making was\nconcerned. On the 14th of October, 1899, this incredible substance was\nmade!\n\nOddly enough, it was made at last by accident, when Mr. Cavor least\nexpected it. He had fused together a number of metals and certain other\nthings--I wish I knew the particulars now!--and he intended to leave\nthe mixture a week and then allow it to cool slowly. Unless he had\nmiscalculated, the last stage in the combination would occur when the\nstuff sank to a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But it chanced\nthat, unknown to Cavor, dissension had arisen about the furnace tending.\nGibbs, who had previously seen to this, had suddenly attempted to shift\nit to the man who had been a gardener, on the score that coal was soil,\nbeing dug, and therefore could not possibly fall within the province of\na joiner; the man who had been a jobbing gardener alleged, however, that\ncoal was a metallic or ore-like substance, let alone that he was cook.\nBut Spargus insisted on Gibbs doing the coaling, seeing that he was a\njoiner and that coal is notoriously fossil wood. Consequently Gibbs\nceased to replenish the furnace, and no one else did so, and Cavor was\ntoo much immersed in certain interesting problems concerning a Cavorite\nflying machine (neglecting the resistance of the air and one or two\nother points) to perceive that anything was wrong. And the premature\nbirth of his invention took place just as he was coming across the field\nto my bungalow for our afternoon talk and tea.\n\nI remember the occasion with extreme vividness. The water was boiling, and\neverything was prepared, and the sound of his \"zuzzoo\" had brought me out\nupon the verandah. His active little figure was black against the autumnal\nsunset, and to the right the chimneys of his house just rose above a\ngloriously tinted group of trees. Remoter rose the Wealden Hills, faint\nand blue, while to the left the hazy marsh spread out spacious and serene.\nAnd then--\n\nThe chimneys jerked heavenward, smashing into a string of bricks as they\nrose, and the roof and a miscellany of furniture followed. Then overtaking\nthem came a huge white flame. The trees about the building swayed and\nwhirled and tore themselves to pieces, that sprang towards the flare. My\nears were smitten with a clap of thunder that left me deaf on one side for\nlife, and all about me windows smashed, unheeded.\n\nI took three steps from the verandah towards Cavor's house, and even as I\ndid so came the wind.\n\nInstantly my coat tails were over my head, and I was progressing in great\nleaps and bounds, and quite against my will, towards him. In the same\nmoment the discoverer was seized, whirled about, and flew through the\nscreaming air. I saw one of my chimney pots hit the ground within six\nyards of me, leap a score of feet, and so hurry in great strides towards\nthe focus of the disturbance. Cavor, kicking and flapping, came down\nagain, rolled over and over on the ground for a space, struggled up and\nwas lifted and borne forward at an enormous velocity, vanishing at last\namong the labouring, lashing trees that writhed about his house.\n\nA mass of smoke and ashes, and a square of bluish shining substance rushed\nup towards the zenith. A large fragment of fencing came sailing past me,\ndropped edgeways, hit the ground and fell flat, and then the worst was\nover. The aerial commotion fell swiftly until it was a mere strong gale,\nand I became once more aware that I had breath and feet. By leaning back\nagainst the wind I managed to stop, and could collect such wits as still\nremained to me.\n\nIn that instant the whole face of the world had changed. The tranquil\nsunset had vanished, the sky was dark with scurrying clouds, everything\nwas flattened and swaying with the gale. I glanced back to see if my\nbungalow was still in a general way standing, then staggered forwards\ntowards the trees amongst which Cavor had vanished, and through whose tall\nand leaf-denuded branches shone the flames of his burning house.\n\nI entered the copse, dashing from one tree to another and clinging to\nthem, and for a space I sought him in vain. Then amidst a heap of smashed\nbranches and fencing that had banked itself against a portion of his\ngarden wall I perceived something stir. I made a run for this, but before\nI reached it a brown object separated itself, rose on two muddy legs, and\nprotruded two drooping, bleeding hands. Some tattered ends of garment\nfluttered out from its middle portion and streamed before the wind.\n\nFor a moment I did not recognise this earthy lump, and then I saw that it\nwas Cavor, caked in the mud in which he had rolled. He leant forward\nagainst the wind, rubbing the dirt from his eyes and mouth.\n\nHe extended a muddy lump of hand, and staggered a pace towards me. His\nface worked with emotion, little lumps of mud kept falling from it. He\nlooked as damaged and pitiful as any living creature I have ever seen, and\nhis remark therefore amazed me exceedingly.\n\n\"Gratulate me,\" he gasped; \"gratulate me!\"\n\n\"Congratulate you!\" said I. \"Good heavens! What for?\"\n\n\"I've done it.\"\n\n\"You _have_. What on earth caused that explosion?\"\n\nA gust of wind blew his words away. I understood him to say that it wasn't\nan explosion at all. The wind hurled me into collision with him, and we\nstood clinging to one another.\n\n\"Try and get back--to my bungalow,\" I bawled in his ear. He did not hear\nme, and shouted something about \"three martyrs--science,\" and also\nsomething about \"not much good.\" At the time he laboured under the\nimpression that his three attendants had perished in the whirlwind.\nHappily this was incorrect. Directly he had left for my bungalow they had\ngone off to the public-house in Lympne to discuss the question of the\nfurnaces over some trivial refreshment.\n\nI repeated my suggestion of getting back to my bungalow, and this time he\nunderstood. We clung arm-in-arm and started, and managed at last to reach\nthe shelter of as much roof as was left to me. For a space we sat in\narm-chairs and panted. All the windows were broken, and the lighter\narticles of furniture were in great disorder, but no irrevocable damage\nwas done. Happily the kitchen door had stood the pressure upon it, so that\nall my crockery and cooking materials had survived. The oil stove was\nstill burning, and I put on the water to boil again for tea. And that\nprepared, I could turn on Cavor for his explanation.\n\n\"Quite correct,\" he insisted; \"quite correct. I've done it, and it's all\nright.\"\n\n\"But,\" I protested. \"All right! Why, there can't be a rick standing, or a\nfence or a thatched roof undamaged for twenty miles round....\"\n\n\"It's all right--_really_. I didn't, of course, foresee this little upset.\nMy mind was preoccupied with another problem, and I'm apt to disregard\nthese practical side issues. But it's all right--\"\n\n\"My dear sir,\" I cried, \"don't you see you've done thousands of pounds'\nworth of damage?\"\n\n\"There, I throw myself on your discretion. I'm not a practical man, of\ncourse, but don't you think they will regard it as a cyclone?\"\n\n\"But the explosion--\"\n\n\"It was not an explosion. It's perfectly simple. Only, as I say, I'm apt\nto overlook these little things. Its that zuzzoo business on a larger\nscale. Inadvertently I made this substance of mine, this Cavorite, in a\nthin, wide sheet....\"\n\nHe paused. \"You are quite clear that the stuff is opaque to gravitation,\nthat it cuts off things from gravitating towards each other?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, so soon as it reached a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit,\nand the process of its manufacture was complete, the air above it, the\nportions of roof and ceiling and floor above it ceased to have weight.\nI suppose you know--everybody knows nowadays--that, as a usual thing,\nthe air _has_ weight, that it presses on everything at the surface of the\nearth, presses in all directions, with a pressure of fourteen and a half\npounds to the square inch?\"\n\n\"I know that,\" said I. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"I know that too,\" he remarked. \"Only this shows you how useless\nknowledge is unless you apply it. You see, over our Cavorite this ceased\nto be the case, the air there ceased to exert any pressure, and the air\nround it and not over the Cavorite was exerting a pressure of fourteen\npounds and a half to the square in upon this suddenly weightless air. Ah!\nyou begin to see! The air all about the Cavorite crushed in upon the air\nabove it with irresistible force. The air above the Cavorite was forced\nupward violently, the air that rushed in to replace it immediately lost\nweight, ceased to exert any pressure, followed suit, blew the ceiling\nthrough and the roof off....\n\n\"You perceive,\" he said, \"it formed a sort of atmospheric fountain, a kind\nof chimney in the atmosphere. And if the Cavorite itself hadn't been loose\nand so got sucked up the chimney, does it occur to you what would have\nhappened?\"\n\nI thought. \"I suppose,\" I said, \"the air would be rushing up and up over\nthat infernal piece of stuff now.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" he said. \"A huge fountain--\"\n\n\"Spouting into space! Good heavens! Why, it would have squirted all the\natmosphere of the earth away! It would have robbed the world of air! It\nwould have been the death of all mankind! That little lump of stuff!\"\n\n\"Not exactly into space,\" said Cavor, \"but as bad--practically. It would\nhave whipped the air off the world as one peels a banana, and flung it\nthousands of miles. It would have dropped back again, of course--but on\nan asphyxiated world! From our point of view very little better than if it\nnever came back!\"\n\nI stared. As yet I was too amazed to realise how all my expectations had\nbeen upset. \"What do you mean to do now?\" I asked.\n\n\"In the first place if I may borrow a garden trowel I will remove some of\nthis earth with which I am encased, and then if I may avail myself of your\ndomestic conveniences I will have a bath. This done, we will converse more\nat leisure. It will be wise, I think\"--he laid a muddy hand on my arm--\"if\nnothing were said of this affair beyond ourselves. I know I have caused\ngreat damage--probably even dwelling-houses may be ruined here and there\nupon the country-side. But on the other hand, I cannot possibly pay for\nthe damage I have done, and if the real cause of this is published, it\nwill lead only to heartburning and the obstruction of my work. One cannot\nforesee everything, you know, and I cannot consent for one moment to\nadd the burthen of practical considerations to my theorising. Later\non, when you have come in with your practical mind, and Cavorite is\nfloated--floated is the word, isn't it?--and it has realised all you\nanticipate for it, we may set matters right with these persons. But not\nnow--not now. If no other explanation is offered, people, in the present\nunsatisfactory state of meteorological science, will ascribe all this to a\ncyclone; there might be a public subscription, and as my house has\ncollapsed and been burnt, I should in that case receive a considerable\nshare in the compensation, which would be extremely helpful to the\nprosecution of our researches. But if it is known that _I_ caused this,\nthere will be no public subscription, and everybody will be put out.\nPractically I should never get a chance of working in peace again. My\nthree assistants may or may not have perished. That is a detail. If they\nhave, it is no great loss; they were more zealous than able, and this\npremature event must be largely due to their joint neglect of the furnace.\nIf they have not perished, I doubt if they have the intelligence to\nexplain the affair. They will accept the cyclone story. And if during the\ntemporary unfitness of my house for occupation, I may lodge in one of the\nuntenanted rooms of this bungalow of yours--\"\n\nHe paused and regarded me.\n\nA man of such possibilities, I reflected, is no ordinary guest to\nentertain.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said I, rising to my feet, \"we had better begin by looking for\na trowel,\" and I led the way to the scattered vestiges of the greenhouse.\n\nAnd while he was having his bath I considered the entire question alone.\nIt was clear there were drawbacks to Mr. Cavor's society I had not\nforeseen. The absentmindedness that had just escaped depopulating the\nterrestrial globe, might at any moment result in some other grave\ninconvenience. On the other hand I was young, my affairs were in a mess,\nand I was in just the mood for reckless adventure--with a chance of\nsomething good at the end of it. I had quite settled in my mind that I was\nto have half at least in that aspect of the affair. Fortunately I held my\nbungalow, as I have already explained, on a three-year agreement, without\nbeing responsible for repairs; and my furniture, such as there was of it,\nhad been hastily purchased, was unpaid for, insured, and altogether devoid\nof associations. In the end I decided to keep on with him, and see the\nbusiness through.\n\nCertainly the aspect of things had changed very greatly. I no longer\ndoubted at all the enormous possibilities of the substance, but I began to\nhave doubts about the gun-carriage and the patent boots. We set to work at\nonce to reconstruct his laboratory and proceed with our experiments. Cavor\ntalked more on my level than he had ever done before, when it came to the\nquestion of how we should make the stuff next.\n\n\"Of course we must make it again,\" he said, with a sort of glee I had not\nexpected in him, \"of course we must make it again. We have caught a\nTartar, perhaps, but we have left the theoretical behind us for good and\nall. If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we\nwill. But--there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there\nalways are. And here, as a practical man, _you_ must come in. For my own\npart it seems to me we might make it edgeways, perhaps, and very thin. Yet\nI don't know. I have a certain dim perception of another method. I can\nhardly explain it yet. But curiously enough it came into my mind, while I\nwas rolling over and over in the mud before the wind, and very doubtful\nhow the whole adventure was to end, as being absolutely the thing I\nought to have done.\"\n\nEven with my aid we found some little difficulty, and meanwhile we kept at\nwork restoring the laboratory. There was plenty to do before it became\nabsolutely necessary to decide upon the precise form and method of our\nsecond attempt. Our only hitch was the strike of the three labourers, who\nobjected to my activity as a foreman. But that matter we compromised after\ntwo days' delay.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\n\n\n\nThe Building of the sphere\n\nI remember the occasion very distinctly when Cavor told me of his idea of\nthe sphere. He had had intimations of it before, but at the time it seemed\nto come to him in a rush. We were returning to the bungalow for tea, and\non the way he fell humming. Suddenly he shouted, \"That's it! That\nfinishes it! A sort of roller blind!\"\n\n\"Finishes what?\" I asked.\n\n\"Space--anywhere! The moon.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Mean? Why--it must be a sphere! That's what I mean!\"\n\nI saw I was out of it, and for a time I let him talk in his own fashion. I\nhadn't the ghost of an idea then of his drift. But after he had taken tea\nhe made it clear to me.\n\n\"It's like this,\" he said. \"Last time I ran this stuff that cuts things\noff from gravitation into a flat tank with an overlap that held it down.\nAnd directly it had cooled and the manufacture was completed all that\nuproar happened, nothing above it weighed anything, the air went squirting\nup, the house squirted up, and if the stuff itself hadn't squirted up too,\nI don't know what would have happened! But suppose the substance is loose,\nand quite free to go up?\"\n\n\"It will go up at once!\"\n\n\"Exactly. With no more disturbance than firing a big gun.\"\n\n\"But what good will that do?\"\n\n\"I'm going up with it!\"\n\nI put down my teacup and stared at him.\n\n\"Imagine a sphere,\" he explained, \"large enough to hold two people and\ntheir luggage. It will be made of steel lined with thick glass; it will\ncontain a proper store of solidified air, concentrated food, water\ndistilling apparatus, and so forth. And enamelled, as it were, on the\nouter steel--\"\n\n\"Cavorite?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But how will you get inside?\"\n\n\"There was a similar problem about a dumpling.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. But how?\"\n\n\"That's perfectly easy. An air-tight manhole is all that is needed. That,\nof course, will have to be a little complicated; there will have to be a\nvalve, so that things may be thrown out, if necessary, without much loss\nof air.\"\n\n\"Like Jules Verne's thing in _A Trip to the Moon_.\"\n\nBut Cavor was not a reader of fiction.\n\n\"I begin to see,\" I said slowly. \"And you could get in and screw yourself\nup while the Cavorite was warm, and as soon as it cooled it would become\nimpervious to gravitation, and off you would fly--\"\n\n\"At a tangent.\"\n\n\"You would go off in a straight line--\" I stopped abruptly. \"What is to\nprevent the thing travelling in a straight line into space for ever?\" I\nasked. \"You're not safe to get anywhere, and if you do--how will you get\nback?\"\n\n\"I've just thought of that,\" said Cavor. \"That's what I meant when I said\nthe thing is finished. The inner glass sphere can be air-tight, and,\nexcept for the manhole, continuous, and the steel sphere can be made in\nsections, each section capable of rolling up after the fashion of a roller\nblind. These can easily be worked by springs, and released and checked by\nelectricity conveyed by platinum wires fused through the glass. All that\nis merely a question of detail. So you see, that except for the thickness\nof the blind rollers, the Cavorite exterior of the sphere will consist of\nwindows or blinds, whichever you like to call them. Well, when all these\nwindows or blinds are shut, no light, no heat, no gravitation, no radiant\nenergy of any sort will get at the inside of the sphere, it will fly on\nthrough space in a straight line, as you say. But open a window, imagine\none of the windows open. Then at once any heavy body that chances to be in\nthat direction will attract us--\"\n\nI sat taking it in.\n\n\"You see?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, I _see_.\"\n\n\"Practically we shall be able to tack about in space just as we wish. Get\nattracted by this and that.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. That's clear enough. Only--\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I don't quite see what we shall do it for! It's really only jumping off\nthe world and back again.\"\n\n\"Surely! For example, one might go to the moon.\"\n\n\"And when one got there? What would you find?\"\n\n\"We should see--Oh! consider the new knowledge.\"\n\n\"Is there air there?\"\n\n\"There may be.\"\n\n\"It's a fine idea,\" I said, \"but it strikes me as a large order all the\nsame. The moon! I'd much rather try some smaller things first.\"\n\n\"They're out of the question, because of the air difficulty.\"\n\n\"Why not apply that idea of spring blinds--Cavorite blinds in strong\nsteel cases--to lifting weights?\"\n\n\"It wouldn't work,\" he insisted. \"After all, to go into outer space is not\nso much worse, if at all, than a polar expedition. Men go on polar\nexpeditions.\"\n\n\"Not business men. And besides, they get paid for polar expeditions. And\nif anything goes wrong there are relief parties. But this--it's just\nfiring ourselves off the world for nothing.\"\n\n\"Call it prospecting.\"\n\n\"You'll have to call it that.... One might make a book of it perhaps,\" I\nsaid.\n\n\"I have no doubt there will be minerals,\" said Cavor.\n\n\"For example?\"\n\n\"Oh! sulphur, ores, gold perhaps, possibly new elements.\"\n\n\"Cost of carriage,\" I said. \"You know you're not a practical man. The\nmoon's a quarter of a million miles away.\"\n\n\"It seems to me it wouldn't cost much to cart any weight anywhere if you\npacked it in a Cavorite case.\"\n\nI had not thought of that. \"Delivered free on head of purchaser, eh?\"\n\n\"It isn't as though we were confined to the moon.\"\n\n\"You mean?\"\n\n\"There's Mars--clear atmosphere, novel surroundings, exhilarating sense\nof lightness. It might be pleasant to go there.\"\n\n\"Is there air on Mars?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\"\n\n\"Seems as though you might run it as a sanatorium. By the way, how\nfar is Mars?\"\n\n\"Two hundred million miles at present,\" said Cavor airily; \"and you go\nclose by the sun.\"\n\nMy imagination was picking itself up again. \"After all,\" I said,\n\"there's something in these things. There's travel--\"\n\nAn extraordinary possibility came rushing into my mind. Suddenly I saw,\nas in a vision, the whole solar system threaded with Cavorite liners\nand spheres deluxe. \"Rights of pre-emption,\" came floating into my\nhead--planetary rights of pre-emption. I recalled the old Spanish\nmonopoly in American gold. It wasn't as though it was just this planet\nor that--it was all of them. I stared at Cavor's rubicund face, and\nsuddenly my imagination was leaping and dancing. I stood up, I walked\nup and down; my tongue was unloosened.\n\n\"I'm beginning to take it in,\" I said; \"I'm beginning to take it in.\" The\ntransition from doubt to enthusiasm seemed to take scarcely any time at\nall. \"But this is tremendous!\" I cried. \"This is Imperial! I haven't\nbeen dreaming of this sort of thing.\"\n\nOnce the chill of my opposition was removed, his own pent-up excitement\nhad play. He too got up and paced. He too gesticulated and shouted. We\nbehaved like men inspired. We _were_ men inspired.\n\n\"We'll settle all that!\" he said in answer to some incidental difficulty\nthat had pulled me up. \"We'll soon settle that! We'll start the drawings\nfor mouldings this very night.\"\n\n\"We'll start them now,\" I responded, and we hurried off to the laboratory\nto begin upon this work forthwith.\n\nI was like a child in Wonderland all that night. The dawn found us both\nstill at work--we kept our electric light going heedless of the day. I\nremember now exactly how these drawings looked. I shaded and tinted while\nCavor drew--smudged and haste-marked they were in every line, but\nwonderfully correct. We got out the orders for the steel blinds and frames\nwe needed from that night's work, and the glass sphere was designed within\na week. We gave up our afternoon conversations and our old routine\naltogether. We worked, and we slept and ate when we could work no longer\nfor hunger and fatigue. Our enthusiasm infected even our three men, though\nthey had no idea what the sphere was for. Through those days the man Gibbs\ngave up walking, and went everywhere, even across the room, at a sort of\nfussy run.\n\nAnd it grew--the sphere. December passed, January--I spent a day\nwith a broom sweeping a path through the snow from bungalow to\nlaboratory--February, March. By the end of March the completion was in\nsight. In January had come a team of horses, a huge packing-case; we\nhad our thick glass sphere now ready, and in position under the crane\nwe had rigged to sling it into the steel shell. All the bars and blinds\nof the steel shell--it was not really a spherical shell, but polyhedral,\nwith a roller blind to each facet--had arrived by February, and the\nlower half was bolted together. The Cavorite was half made by March, the\nmetallic paste had gone through two of the stages in its manufacture,\nand we had plastered quite half of it on to the steel bars and blinds.\nIt was astonishing how closely we kept to the lines of Cavor's first\ninspiration in working out the scheme. When the bolting together of\nthe sphere was finished, he proposed to remove the rough roof of the\ntemporary laboratory in which the work was done, and build a furnace\nabout it. So the last stage of Cavorite making, in which the paste is\nheated to a dull red glow in a stream of helium, would be accomplished\nwhen it was already on the sphere.\n\nAnd then we had to discuss and decide what provisions we were to\ntake--compressed foods, concentrated essences, steel cylinders containing\nreserve oxygen, an arrangement for removing carbonic acid and waste from\nthe air and restoring oxygen by means of sodium peroxide, water\ncondensers, and so forth. I remember the little heap they made in the\ncorner--tins, and rolls, and boxes--convincingly matter-of-fact.\n\nIt was a strenuous time, with little chance of thinking. But one day,\nwhen we were drawing near the end, an odd mood came over me. I had been\nbricking up the furnace all the morning, and I sat down by these\npossessions dead beat. Everything seemed dull and incredible.\n\n\"But look here, Cavor,\" I said. \"After all! What's it all for?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"The thing now is to go.\"\n\n\"The moon,\" I reflected. \"But what do you expect? I thought the moon was\na dead world.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"We're going to see.\"\n\n\"Are we?\" I said, and stared before me.\n\n\"You are tired,\" he remarked. \"You'd better take a walk this afternoon.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said obstinately; \"I'm going to finish this brickwork.\"\n\nAnd I did, and insured myself a night of insomnia. I don't think I have\never had such a night. I had some bad times before my business collapse,\nbut the very worst of those was sweet slumber compared to this infinity of\naching wakefulness. I was suddenly in the most enormous funk at the thing\nwe were going to do.\n\nI do not remember before that night thinking at all of the risks we were\nrunning. Now they came like that array of spectres that once beleaguered\nPrague, and camped around me. The strangeness of what we were about to do,\nthe unearthliness of it, overwhelmed me. I was like a man awakened out of\npleasant dreams to the most horrible surroundings. I lay, eyes wide open,\nand the sphere seemed to get more flimsy and feeble, and Cavor more unreal\nand fantastic, and the whole enterprise madder and madder every moment.\n\nI got out of bed and wandered about. I sat at the window and stared at\nthe immensity of space. Between the stars was the void, the unfathomable\ndarkness! I tried to recall the fragmentary knowledge of astronomy I had\ngained in my irregular reading, but it was all too vague to furnish any\nidea of the things we might expect. At last I got back to bed and snatched\nsome moments of sleep--moments of nightmare rather--in which I fell and\nfell and fell for evermore into the abyss of the sky.\n\nI astonished Cavor at breakfast. I told him shortly, \"I'm not coming with\nyou in the sphere.\"\n\nI met all his protests with a sullen persistence. \"The thing's too mad,\"\nI said, \"and I won't come. The thing's too mad.\"\n\nI would not go with him to the laboratory. I fretted bout my bungalow for\na time, and then took hat and stick and set out alone, I knew not whither.\nIt chanced to be a glorious morning: a warm wind and deep blue sky, the\nfirst green of spring abroad, and multitudes of birds singing. I lunched\non beef and beer in a little public-house near Elham, and startled the\nlandlord by remarking apropos of the weather, \"A man who leaves the world\nwhen days of this sort are about is a fool!\"\n\n\"That's what I says when I heerd on it!\" said the landlord, and I found\nthat for one poor soul at least this world had proved excessive, and there\nhad been a throat-cutting. I went on with a new twist to my thoughts.\n\nIn the afternoon I had a pleasant sleep in a sunny place, and went on my\nway refreshed. I came to a comfortable-looking inn near Canterbury. It\nwas bright with creepers, and the landlady was a clean old woman and took\nmy eye. I found I had just enough money to pay for my lodging with her. I\ndecided to stop the night there. She was a talkative body, and among many\nother particulars learnt she had never been to London. \"Canterbury's as\nfar as ever I been,\" she said. \"I'm not one of your gad-about sort.\"\n\n\"How would you like a trip to the moon?\" I cried.\n\n\"I never did hold with them ballooneys,\" she said evidently under the\nimpression that this was a common excursion enough. \"I wouldn't go up in\none--not for ever so.\"\n\nThis struck me as being funny. After I had supped I sat on a bench by the\ndoor of the inn and gossiped with two labourers about brickmaking, and\nmotor cars, and the cricket of last year. And in the sky a faint new\ncrescent, blue and vague as a distant Alp, sank westward over the sun.\n\nThe next day I returned to Cavor. \"I am coming,\" I said. \"I've been a\nlittle out of order, that's all.\"\n\nThat was the only time I felt any serious doubt our enterprise. Nerves\npurely! After that I worked a little more carefully, and took a trudge for\nan hour every day. And at last, save for the heating in the furnace, our\nlabours were at an end.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\n\n\n\nInside the Sphere\n\n\"Go on,\" said Cavor, as I sat across the edge of the manhole, and looked\ndown into the black interior of the sphere. We two were alone. It was\nevening, the sun had set, and the stillness of the twilight was upon\neverything.\n\nI drew my other leg inside and slid down the smooth glass to the bottom of\nthe sphere, then turned to take the cans of food and other impedimenta\nfrom Cavor. The interior was warm, the thermometer stood at eighty, and as\nwe should lose little or none of this by radiation, we were dressed in\nshoes and thin flannels. We had, however, a bundle of thick woollen\nclothing and several thick blankets to guard against mischance.\n\nBy Cavor's direction I placed the packages, the cylinders of oxygen, and\nso forth, loosely about my feet, and soon we had everything in. He walked\nabout the roofless shed for a time seeking anything we had overlooked, and\nthen crawled in after me. I noted something in his hand.\n\n\"What have you got there?\" I asked.\n\n\"Haven't you brought anything to read?\"\n\n\"Good Lord! No.\"\n\n\"I forgot to tell you. There are uncertainties-- The voyage may last--\nWe may be weeks!\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"We shall be floating in this sphere with absolutely no occupation.\"\n\n\"I wish I'd known--\"\n\nHe peered out of the manhole. \"Look!\" he said. \"There's something\nthere!\"\n\n\"Is there time?\"\n\n\"We shall be an hour.\"\n\nI looked out. It was an old number of _Tit-Bits_ that one of the men must\nhave brought. Farther away in the corner I saw a torn _Lloyd's News_. I\nscrambled back into the sphere with these things. \"What have you got?\" I\nsaid.\n\nI took the book from his hand and read, \"The Works of William\nShakespeare\".\n\nHe coloured slightly. \"My education has been so purely scientific--\"\nhe said apologetically.\n\n\"Never read him?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"He knew a little, you know--in an irregular sort of way.\"\n\n\"Precisely what I am told,\" said Cavor.\n\nI assisted him to screw in the glass cover of the manhole, and then he\npressed a stud to close the corresponding blind in the outer case. The\nlittle oblong of twilight vanished. We were in darkness. For a time\nneither of us spoke. Although our case would not be impervious to sound,\neverything was very still. I perceived there was nothing to grip when the\nshock of our start should come, and I realised that I should be\nuncomfortable for want of a chair.\n\n\"Why have we no chairs?\" I asked.\n\n\"I've settled all that,\" said Cavor. \"We won't need them.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You will see,\" he said, in the tone of a man who refuses to talk.\n\nI became silent. Suddenly it had come to me clear and vivid that I was a\nfool to be inside that sphere. Even now, I asked myself, is to too late to\nwithdraw? The world outside the sphere, I knew, would be cold and\ninhospitable enough for me--for weeks I had been living on subsidies from\nCavor--but after all, would it be as cold as the infinite zero, as\ninhospitable as empty space? If it had not been for the appearance of\ncowardice, I believe that even then I should have made him let me out. But\nI hesitated on that score, and hesitated, and grew fretful and angry, and\nthe time passed.\n\nThere came a little jerk, a noise like champagne being uncorked in another\nroom, and a faint whistling sound. For just one instant I had a sense of\nenormous tension, a transient conviction that my feet were pressing\ndownward with a force of countless tons. It lasted for an infinitesimal\ntime.\n\nBut it stirred me to action. \"Cavor!\" I said into the darkness, \"my\nnerve's in rags. I don't think--\"\n\nI stopped. He made no answer.\n\n\"Confound it!\" I cried; \"I'm a fool! What business have I here? I'm not\ncoming, Cavor. The thing's too risky. I'm getting out.\"\n\n\"You can't,\" he said.\n\n\"Can't! We'll soon see about that!\"\n\nHe made no answer for ten seconds. \"It's too late for us to quarrel now,\nBedford,\" he said. \"That little jerk was the start. Already we are flying\nas swiftly as a bullet up into the gulf of space.\"\n\n\"I--\" I said, and then it didn't seem to matter what happened. For a time\nI was, as it were, stunned; I had nothing to say. It was just as if I had\nnever heard of this idea of leaving the world before. Then I perceived an\nunaccountable change in my bodily sensations. It was a feeling of\nlightness, of unreality. Coupled with that was a queer sensation in the\nhead, an apoplectic effect almost, and a thumping of blood vessels at the\nears. Neither of these feelings diminished as time went on, but at last I\ngot so used to them that I experienced no inconvenience.\n\nI heard a click, and a little glow lamp came into being.\n\nI saw Cavor's face, as white as I felt my own to be. We regarded one\nanother in silence. The transparent blackness of the glass behind him made\nhim seem as though he floated in a void.\n\n\"Well, we're committed,\" I said at last.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"we're committed.\"\n\n\"Don't move,\" he exclaimed, at some suggestion of a gesture. \"Let your\nmuscles keep quite lax--as if you were in bed. We are in a little\nuniverse of our own. Look at those things!\"\n\nHe pointed to the loose cases and bundles that had been lying on the\nblankets in the bottom of the sphere. I was astonished to see that they\nwere floating now nearly a foot from the spherical wall. Then I saw from\nhis shadow that Cavor was no longer leaning against the glass. I thrust\nout my hand behind me, and found that I too was suspended in space, clear\nof the glass.\n\nI did not cry out nor gesticulate, but fear came upon me. It was like\nbeing held and lifted by something--you know not what. The mere touch of\nmy hand against the glass moved me rapidly. I understood what had\nhappened, but that did not prevent my being afraid. We were cut off from\nall exterior gravitation, only the attraction of objects within our sphere\nhad effect. Consequently everything that was not fixed to the glass was\nfalling--slowly because of the slightness of our masses--towards the\ncentre of gravity of our little world, which seemed to be somewhere about\nthe middle of the sphere, but rather nearer to myself than Cavor, on\naccount of my greater weight.\n\n\"We must turn round,\" said Cavor, \"and float back to back, with the things\nbetween us.\"\n\nIt was the strangest sensation conceivable, floating thus loosely in\nspace, at first indeed horribly strange, and when the horror passed, not\ndisagreeable at all, exceeding restful; indeed, the nearest thing in\nearthly experience to it that I know is lying on a very thick, soft\nfeather bed. But the quality of utter detachment and independence! I had\nnot reckoned on things like this. I had expected a violent jerk at\nstarting, a giddy sense of speed. Instead I felt--as if I were\ndisembodied. It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the\nbeginning of a dream.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\n\n\n\nThe Journey to the Moon\n\nPresently Cavor extinguished the light. He said we had not overmuch\nenergy stored, and that what we had we must economise for reading. For a\ntime, whether it was long or short I do not know, there was nothing but\nblank darkness.\n\nA question floated up out of the void. \"How are we pointing?\" I said.\n\"What is our direction?\"\n\n\"We are flying away from the earth at a tangent, and as the moon is\nnear her third quarter we are going somewhere towards her. I will open\na blind--\"\n\nCame a click, and then a window in the outer case yawned open. The sky\noutside was as black as the darkness within the sphere, but the shape of\nthe open window was marked by an infinite number of stars.\n\nThose who have only seen the starry sky from the earth cannot imagine its\nappearance when the vague, half luminous veil of our air has been\nwithdrawn. The stars we see on earth are the mere scattered survivors that\npenetrate our misty atmosphere. But now at last I could realise the\nmeaning of the hosts of heaven!\n\nStranger things we were presently to see, but that airless, star-dusted\nsky! Of all things, I think that will be one of the last I shall forget.\n\nThe little window vanished with a click, another beside it snapped open\nand instantly closed, and then a third, and for a moment I had to close my\neyes because of the blinding splendour of the waning moon.\n\nFor a space I had to stare at Cavor and the white-lit things about me to\nseason my eyes to light again, before I could turn them towards that\npallid glare.\n\nFour windows were open in order that the gravitation of the moon might act\nupon all the substances in our sphere. I found I was no longer floating\nfreely in space, but that my feet were resting on the glass in the\ndirection of the moon. The blankets and cases of provisions were also\ncreeping slowly down the glass, and presently came to rest so as to block\nout a portion of the view. It seemed to me, of course, that I looked\n\"down\" when I looked at the moon. On earth \"down\" means earthward, the way\nthings fall, and \"up\" the reverse direction. Now the pull of gravitation\nwas towards the moon, and for all I knew to the contrary our earth was\noverhead. And, of course, when all the Cavorite blinds were closed, \"down\"\nwas towards the centre of our sphere, and \"up\" towards its outer wall.\n\nIt was curiously unlike earthly experience, too, to have the light coming\nup to one. On earth light falls from above, or comes slanting down\nsideways, but here it came from beneath our feet, and to see our shadows\nwe had to look up.\n\nAt first it gave me a sort of vertigo to stand only on thick glass and\nlook down upon the moon through hundreds of thousands of miles of vacant\nspace; but this sickness passed very speedily. And then--the splendour of\nthe sight!\n\nThe reader may imagine it best if he will lie on the ground some warm\nsummer's night and look between his upraised feet at the moon, but for\nsome reason, probably because the absence of air made it so much more\nluminous, the moon seemed already considerably larger than it does from\nearth. The minutest details of its surface were acutely clear. And since\nwe did not see it through air, its outline was bright and sharp, there was\nno glow or halo about it, and the star-dust that covered the sky came\nright to its very margin, and marked the outline of its unilluminated\npart. And as I stood and stared at the moon between my feet, that\nperception of the impossible that had been with me off and on ever since\nour start, returned again with tenfold conviction.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, \"this takes me queerly. Those companies we were going to\nrun, and all that about minerals?\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I don't see 'em here.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Cavor; \"but you'll get over all that.\"\n\n\"I suppose I'm made to turn right side up again. Still, _this_--\nFor a moment I could half believe there never was a world.\"\n\n\"That copy of _Lloyd's News_ might help you.\"\n\nI stared at the paper for a moment, then held it above the level of my\nface, and found I could read it quite easily. I struck a column of mean\nlittle advertisements. \"A gentleman of private means is willing to lend\nmoney,\" I read. I knew that gentleman. Then somebody eccentric wanted to\nsell a Cutaway bicycle, \"quite new and cost 15 pounds,\" for five pounds;\nand a lady in distress wished to dispose of some fish knives and forks, \"a\nwedding present,\" at a great sacrifice. No doubt some simple soul was\nsagely examining these knives and forks, and another triumphantly riding\noff on that bicycle, and a third trustfully consulting that benevolent\ngentleman of means even as I read. I laughed, and let the paper drift from\nmy hand.\n\n\"Are we visible from the earth?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I knew some one who was rather interested in astronomy. It occurred to me\nthat it would be rather odd if--my friend--chanced to be looking through\nsome telescope.\"\n\n\"It would need the most powerful telescope on earth even now to see us as\nthe minutest speck.\"\n\nFor a time I stared in silence at the moon.\n\n\"It's a world,\" I said; \"one feels that infinitely more than one ever did\non earth. People perhaps--\"\n\n\"People!\" he exclaimed. \"No! Banish all that! Think yourself a sort of\nultra-arctic voyager exploring the desolate places of space. Look at it!\"\n\nHe waved his hand at the shining whiteness below. \"It's dead--dead! Vast\nextinct volcanoes, lava wildernesses, tumbled wastes of snow, or frozen\ncarbonic acid, or frozen air, and everywhere landslip seams and cracks and\ngulfs. Nothing happens. Men have watched this planet systematically with\ntelescopes for over two hundred years. How much change do you think they\nhave seen?\"\n\n\"None.\"\n\n\"They have traced two indisputable landslips, a doubtful crack, and one\nslight periodic change of colour, and that's all.\"\n\n\"I didn't know they'd traced even that.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. But as for people--!\"\n\n\"By the way,\" I asked, \"how small a thing will the biggest telescopes show\nupon the moon?\"\n\n\"One could see a fair-sized church. One could certainly see any towns or\nbuildings, or anything like the handiwork of men. There might perhaps be\ninsects, something in the way of ants, for example, so that they could\nhide in deep burrows from the lunar light, or some new sort of creatures\nhaving no earthly parallel. That is the most probable thing, if we are to\nfind life there at all. Think of the difference in conditions! Life must\nfit itself to a day as long as fourteen earthly days, a cloudless\nsun-blaze of fourteen days, and then a night of equal length, growing\never colder and colder under these, cold, sharp stars. In that night\nthere must be cold, the ultimate cold, absolute zero, 273 degrees\nCentigrade, below the earthly freezing point. Whatever life there is\nmust hibernate through that, and rise again each day.\"\n\nHe mused. \"One can imagine something worm-like,\" he said, \"taking its\nair solid as an earth-worm swallows earth, or thick-skinned monsters--\"\n\n\"By the bye,\" I said, \"why didn't we bring a gun?\"\n\nHe did not answer that question. \"No,\" he concluded, \"we just have to go.\nWe shall see when we get there.\"\n\nI remembered something. \"Of course, there's my minerals, anyhow,\" I said;\n\"whatever the conditions may be.\"\n\nPresently he told me he wished to alter our course a little by letting the\nearth tug at us for a moment. He was going to open one earthward blind\nfor thirty seconds. He warned me that it would make my head swim, and\nadvised me to extend my hands against the glass to break my fall. I did as\nhe directed, and thrust my feet against the bales of food cases and air\ncylinders to prevent their falling upon me. Then with a click the window\nflew open. I fell clumsily upon hands and face, and saw for a moment\nbetween my black extended fingers our mother earth--a planet in a\ndownward sky.\n\nWe were still very near--Cavor told me the distance was perhaps eight\nhundred miles and the huge terrestrial disc filled all heaven. But already\nit was plain to see that the world was a globe. The land below us was in\ntwilight and vague, but westward the vast gray stretches of the Atlantic\nshone like molten silver under the receding day. I think I recognised the\ncloud-dimmed coast-lines of France and Spain and the south of England, and\nthen, with a click, the shutter closed again, and I found myself in a\nstate of extraordinary confusion sliding slowly over the smooth glass.\n\nWhen at last things settled themselves in my mind again, it seemed quite\nbeyond question that the moon was \"down\" and under my feet, and that the\nearth was somewhere away on the level of the horizon--the earth that had\nbeen \"down\" to me and my kindred since the beginning of things.\n\nSo slight were the exertions required of us, so easy did the practical\nannihilation of our weight make all we had to do, that the necessity for\ntaking refreshment did not occur to us for nearly six hours (by Cavor's\nchronometer) after our start. I was amazed at that lapse of time. Even\nthen I was satisfied with very little. Cavor examined the apparatus for\nabsorbing carbonic acid and water, and pronounced it to be in satisfactory\norder, our consumption of oxygen having been extraordinarily slight. And\nour talk being exhausted for the time, and there being nothing further\nfor us to do, we gave way to a curious drowsiness that had come upon us,\nand spreading our blankets on the bottom of the sphere in such a manner as\nto shut out most of the moonlight, wished each other good-night, and\nalmost immediately fell asleep.\n\nAnd so, sleeping, and sometimes talking and reading a little, and at times\neating, although without any keenness of appetite,[*] but for the most part\nin a sort of quiescence that was neither waking nor slumber, we fell\nthrough a space of time that had neither night nor day in it, silently,\nsoftly, and swiftly down towards the moon.\n\n[* Footnote: It is a curious thing, that while we were in the sphere we\nfelt not the slightest desire for food, nor did we feel the want of it when\nwe abstained. At first we forced our appetites, but afterwards we fasted\ncompletely. Altogether we did not consume one-hundredth part of the\ncompressed provisions we had brought with us. The amount of carbonic acid\nwe breathed was also unnaturally low, but why this was, I am quite unable\nto explain.]\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\n\n\n\nThe Landing on the Moon\n\nI remember how one day Cavor suddenly opened six of our shutters and\nblinded me so that I cried aloud at him. The whole area was moon, a\nstupendous scimitar of white dawn with its edge hacked out by notches of\ndarkness, the crescent shore of an ebbing tide of darkness, out of which\npeaks and pinnacles came glittering into the blaze of the sun. I take it\nthe reader has seen pictures or photographs of the moon and that I need\nnot describe the broader features of that landscape, those spacious\nring-like ranges vaster than any terrestrial mountains, their summits\nshining in the day, their shadows harsh and deep, the gray disordered\nplains, the ridges, hills, and craterlets, all passing at last from a\nblazing illumination into a common mystery of black. Athwart this world\nwe were flying scarcely a hundred miles above its crests and pinnacles.\nAnd now we could see, what no eye on earth will ever see, that under the\nblaze of the day the harsh outlines of the rocks and ravines of the\nplains and crater floor grew gray and indistinct under a thickening\nhaze, that the white of their lit surfaces broke into lumps and patches,\nand broke again and shrank and vanished, and that here and there strange\ntints of brown and olive grew and spread.\n\nBut little time we had for watching then. For now we had come to the real\ndanger of our journey. We had to drop ever closer to the moon as we spun\nabout it, to slacken our pace and watch our chance, until at last we could\ndare to drop upon its surface.\n\nFor Cavor that was a time of intense exertion; for me it was an anxious\ninactivity. I seemed perpetually to be getting out of his way. He leapt\nabout the sphere from point to point with an agility that would have been\nimpossible on earth. He was perpetually opening and closing the Cavorite\nwindows, making calculations, consulting his chronometer by means of the\nglow lamp during those last eventful hours. For a long time we had all our\nwindows closed and hung silently in darkness hurling through space.\n\nThen he was feeling for the shutter studs, and suddenly four windows were\nopen. I staggered and covered my eyes, drenched and scorched and blinded\nby the unaccustomed splendour of the sun beneath my feet. Then again the\nshutters snapped, leaving my brain spinning in a darkness that pressed\nagainst the eyes. And after that I floated in another vast, black silence.\n\nThen Cavor switched on the electric light, and told me he proposed to bind\nall our luggage together with the blankets about it, against the\nconcussion of our descent. We did this with our windows closed, because in\nthat way our goods arranged themselves naturally at the centre of the\nsphere. That too was a strange business; we two men floating loose in that\nspherical space, and packing and pulling ropes. Imagine it if you can! No\nup nor down, and every effort resulting in unexpected movements. Now I\nwould be pressed against the glass with the full force of Cavor's thrust,\nnow I would be kicking helplessly in a void. Now the star of the electric\nlight would be overhead, now under foot. Now Cavor's feet would float up\nbefore my eyes, and now we would be crossways to each other. But at last\nour goods were safely bound together in a big soft bale, all except two\nblankets with head holes that we were to wrap about ourselves.\n\nThen for a flash Cavor opened a window moonward, and we saw that we were\ndropping towards a huge central crater with a number of minor craters\ngrouped in a sort of cross about it. And then again Cavor flung our little\nsphere open to the scorching, blinding sun. I think he was using the\nsun's attraction as a brake. \"Cover yourself with a blanket,\" he cried,\nthrusting himself from me, and for a moment I did not understand.\n\nThen I hauled the blanket from beneath my feet and got it about me and\nover my head and eyes. Abruptly he closed the shutters again, snapped one\nopen again and closed it, then suddenly began snapping them all open, each\nsafely into its steel roller. There came a jar, and then we were rolling\nover and over, bumping against the glass and against the big bale of our\nluggage, and clutching at each other, and outside some white substance\nsplashed as if we were rolling down a slope of snow....\n\nOver, clutch, bump, clutch, bump, over....\n\nCame a thud, and I was half buried under the bale of our possessions, and\nfor a space everything was still. Then I could hear Cavor puffing and\ngrunting, and the snapping of a shutter in its sash. I made an effort,\nthrust back our blanket-wrapped luggage, and emerged from beneath it. Our\nopen windows were just visible as a deeper black set with stars.\n\nWe were still alive, and we were lying in the darkness of the shadow of\nthe wall of the great crater into which we had fallen.\n\nWe sat getting our breath again, and feeling the bruises on our limbs. I\ndon't think either of us had had a very clear expectation of such rough\nhandling as we had received. I struggled painfully to my feet. \"And now,\"\nsaid I, \"to look at the landscape of the moon! But--! It's tremendously\ndark, Cavor!\"\n\nThe glass was dewy, and as I spoke I wiped at it with my blanket. \"We're\nhalf an hour or so beyond the day,\" he said. \"We must wait.\"\n\nIt was impossible to distinguish anything. We might have been in a sphere\nof steel for all that we could see. My rubbing with the blanket simply\nsmeared the glass, and as fast as I wiped it, it became opaque again with\nfreshly condensed moisture mixed with an increasing quantity of blanket\nhairs. Of course I ought not to have used the blanket. In my efforts to\nclear the glass I slipped upon the damp surface, and hurt my shin against\none of the oxygen cylinders that protruded from our bale.\n\nThe thing was exasperating--it was absurd. Here we were just arrived upon\nthe moon, amidst we knew not what wonders, and all we could see was the\ngray and streaming wall of the bubble in which we had come.\n\n\"Confound it!\" I said, \"but at this rate we might have stopped at home;\"\nand I squatted on the bale and shivered, and drew my blanket closer about\nme.\n\nAbruptly the moisture turned to spangles and fronds of frost. \"Can you\nreach the electric heater,\" said Cavor. \"Yes--that black knob. Or we\nshall freeze.\"\n\nI did not wait to be told twice. \"And now,\" said I, \"what are we to do?\"\n\n\"Wait,\" he said.\n\n\"Wait?\"\n\n\"Of course. We shall have to wait until our air gets warm again, and then\nthis glass will clear. We can't do anything till then. It's night here\nyet; we must wait for the day to overtake us. Meanwhile, don't you feel\nhungry?\"\n\nFor a space I did not answer him, but sat fretting. I turned reluctantly\nfrom the smeared puzzle of the glass and stared at his face. \"Yes,\"\nI said, \"I am hungry. I feel somehow enormously disappointed. I had\nexpected--I don't know what I had expected, but not this.\"\n\nI summoned my philosophy, and rearranging my blanket about me sat down on\nthe bale again and began my first meal on the moon. I don't think I\nfinished it--I forget. Presently, first in patches, then running rapidly\ntogether into wider spaces, came the clearing of the glass, came the\ndrawing of the misty veil that hid the moon world from our eyes.\n\nWe peered out upon the landscape of the moon.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\n\n\n\nSunrise on the Moon\n\nAs we saw it first it was the wildest and most desolate of scenes. We were\nin an enormous amphitheatre, a vast circular plain, the floor of the giant\ncrater. Its cliff-like walls closed us in on every side. From the westward\nthe light of the unseen sun fell upon them, reaching to the very foot of\nthe cliff, and showed a disordered escarpment of drab and grayish rock,\nlined here and there with banks and crevices of snow. This was perhaps a\ndozen miles away, but at first no intervening atmosphere diminished in the\nslightest the minutely detailed brilliancy with which these things glared\nat us. They stood out clear and dazzling against a background of starry\nblackness that seemed to our earthly eyes rather a gloriously spangled\nvelvet curtain than the spaciousness of the sky.\n\nThe eastward cliff was at first merely a starless selvedge to the starry\ndome. No rosy flush, no creeping pallor, announced the commencing day.\nOnly the Corona, the Zodiacal light, a huge cone-shaped, luminous haze,\npointing up towards the splendour of the morning star, warned us of the\nimminent nearness of the sun.\n\nWhatever light was about us was reflected by the westward cliffs. It\nshowed a huge undulating plain, cold and gray, a gray that deepened\neastward into the absolute raven darkness of the cliff shadow. Innumerable\nrounded gray summits, ghostly hummocks, billows of snowy substance,\nstretching crest beyond crest into the remote obscurity, gave us our first\ninkling of the distance of the crater wall. These hummocks looked like\nsnow. At the time I thought they were snow. But they were not--they were\nmounds and masses of frozen air.\n\nSo it was at first; and then, sudden, swift, and amazing, came the lunar\nday.\n\nThe sunlight had crept down the cliff, it touched the drifted masses at\nits base and incontinently came striding with seven-leagued boots towards\nus. The distant cliff seemed to shift and quiver, and at the touch of the\ndawn a reek of gray vapour poured upward from the crater floor, whirls and\npuffs and drifting wraiths of gray, thicker and broader and denser, until\nat last the whole westward plain was steaming like a wet handkerchief held\nbefore the fire, and the westward cliffs were no more than refracted glare\nbeyond.\n\n\"It is air,\" said Cavor. \"It must be air--or it would not rise like\nthis--at the mere touch of a sun-beam. And at this pace....\"\n\nHe peered upwards. \"Look!\" he said.\n\n\"What?\" I asked.\n\n\"In the sky. Already. On the blackness--a little touch of blue. See! The\nstars seem larger. And the little ones and all those dim nebulosities we\nsaw in empty space--they are hidden!\"\n\nSwiftly, steadily, the day approached us. Gray summit after gray summit\nwas overtaken by the blaze, and turned to a smoking white intensity. At\nlast there was nothing to the west of us but a bank of surging fog, the\ntumultuous advance and ascent of cloudy haze. The distant cliff had\nreceded farther and farther, had loomed and changed through the whirl,\nand foundered and vanished at last in its confusion.\n\nNearer came that steaming advance, nearer and nearer, coming as fast as\nthe shadow of a cloud before the south-west wind. About us rose a thin\nanticipatory haze.\n\nCavor gripped my arm. \"What?\" I said.\n\n\"Look! The sunrise! The sun!\"\n\nHe turned me about and pointed to the brow of the eastward cliff, looming\nabove the haze about us, scarce lighter than the darkness of the sky. But\nnow its line was marked by strange reddish shapes, tongues of vermilion\nflame that writhed and danced. I fancied it must be spirals of vapour that\nhad caught the light and made this crest of fiery tongues against the sky,\nbut indeed it was the solar prominences I saw, a crown of fire about the\nsun that is forever hidden from earthly eyes by our atmospheric veil.\n\nAnd then--the sun!\n\nSteadily, inevitably came a brilliant line, came a thin edge of\nintolerable effulgence that took a circular shape, became a bow, became a\nblazing sceptre, and hurled a shaft of heat at us as though it was a\nspear.\n\nIt seemed verily to stab my eyes! I cried aloud and turned about blinded,\ngroping for my blanket beneath the bale.\n\nAnd with that incandescence came a sound, the first sound that had reached\nus from without since we left the earth, a hissing and rustling, the\nstormy trailing of the aerial garment of the advancing day. And with the\ncoming of the sound and the light the sphere lurched, and blinded and\ndazzled we staggered helplessly against each other. It lurched again, and\nthe hissing grew louder. I had shut my eyes perforce, I was making clumsy\nefforts to cover my head with my blanket, and this second lurch sent me\nhelplessly off my feet. I fell against the bale, and opening my eyes had a\nmomentary glimpse of the air just outside our glass. It was running--it\nwas boiling--like snow into which a white-hot rod is thrust. What had\nbeen solid air had suddenly at the touch of the sun become a paste, a\nmud, a slushy liquefaction, that hissed and bubbled into gas.\n\nThere came a still more violent whirl of the sphere and we had clutched\none another. In another moment we were spun about again. Round we went and\nover, and then I was on all fours. The lunar dawn had hold of us. It meant\nto show us little men what the moon could do with us.\n\nI caught a second glimpse of things without, puffs of vapour, half liquid\nslush, excavated, sliding, falling, sliding. We dropped into darkness. I\nwent down with Cavor's knees in my chest. Then he seemed to fly away from\nme, and for a moment I lay with all the breath out of my body staring\nupward. A toppling crag of the melting stuff had splashed over us, buried\nus, and now it thinned and boiled off us. I saw the bubbles dancing on the\nglass above. I heard Cavor exclaiming feebly.\n\nThen some huge landslip in the thawing air had caught us, and spluttering\nexpostulation, we began to roll down a slope, rolling faster and faster,\nleaping crevasses and rebounding from banks, faster and faster, westward\ninto the white-hot boiling tumult of the lunar day.\n\nClutching at one another we spun about, pitched this way and that, our\nbale of packages leaping at us, pounding at us. We collided, we gripped,\nwe were torn asunder--our heads met, and the whole universe burst into\nfiery darts and stars! On the earth we should have smashed one another a\ndozen times, but on the moon, luckily for us, our weight was only\none-sixth of what it is terrestrially, and we fell very mercifully. I\nrecall a sensation of utter sickness, a feeling as if my brain were upside\ndown within my skull, and then--\n\nSomething was at work upon my face, some thin feelers worried my ears.\nThen I discovered the brilliance of the landscape around was mitigated by\nblue spectacles. Cavor bent over me, and I saw his face upside down, his\neyes also protected by tinted goggles. His breath came irregularly, and\nhis lip was bleeding from a bruise. \"Better?\" he said, wiping the blood\nwith the back of his hand.\n\nEverything seemed swaying for a space, but that was simply my giddiness. I\nperceived that he had closed some of the shutters in the outer sphere to\nsave me--from the direct blaze of the sun. I was aware that everything\nabout us was very brilliant.\n\n\"Lord!\" I gasped. \"But this--\"\n\nI craned my neck to see. I perceived there was a blinding glare outside,\nan utter change from the gloomy darkness of our first impressions. \"Have I\nbeen insensible long?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't know--the chronometer is broken. Some little time.... My dear\nchap! I have been afraid...\"\n\nI lay for a space taking this in. I saw his face still bore evidences of\nemotion. For a while I said nothing. I passed an inquisitive hand over my\ncontusions, and surveyed his face for similar damages. The back of my\nright hand had suffered most, and was skinless and raw. My forehead was\nbruised and had bled. He handed me a little measure with some of the\nrestorative--I forget the name of it--he had brought with us. After a\ntime I felt a little better. I began to stretch my limbs carefully. Soon\nI could talk.\n\n\"It wouldn't have done,\" I said, as though there had been no interval.\n\n\"No! it _wouldn't_.\"\n\nHe thought, his hands hanging over his knees. He peered through the glass\nand then stared at me.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" he said. \"No!\"\n\n\"What has happened?\" I asked after a pause. \"Have we jumped to the\ntropics?\"\n\n\"It was as I expected. This air has evaporated--if it is air. At any\nrate, it has evaporated, and the surface of the moon is showing. We are\nlying on a bank of earthy rock. Here and there bare soil is exposed. A\nqueer sort of soil!\"\n\nIt occurred to him that it was unnecessary to explain. He assisted me into\na sitting position, and I could see with my own eyes.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\n\n\n\nA Lunar Morning\n\nThe harsh emphasis, the pitiless black and white of scenery had altogether\ndisappeared. The glare of the sun had taken upon itself a faint tinge of\namber; the shadows upon the cliff of the crater wall were deeply purple.\nTo the eastward a dark bank of fog still crouched and sheltered from the\nsunrise, but to the westward the sky was blue and clear. I began to\nrealise the length of my insensibility.\n\nWe were no longer in a void. An atmosphere had arisen about us. The\noutline of things had gained in character, had grown acute and varied;\nsave for a shadowed space of white substance here and there, white\nsubstance that was no longer air but snow, the arctic appearance had gone\naltogether. Everywhere broad rusty brown spaces of bare and tumbled earth\nspread to the blaze of the sun. Here and there at the edge of the\nsnowdrifts were transient little pools and eddies of water, the only\nthings stirring in that expanse of barrenness. The sunlight inundated the\nupper two blinds of our sphere and turned our climate to high summer, but\nour feet were still in shadow, and the sphere was lying upon a drift of\nsnow.\n\nAnd scattered here and there upon the slope, and emphasised by little\nwhite threads of unthawed snow upon their shady sides, were shapes like\nsticks, dry twisted sticks of the same rusty hue as the rock upon which\nthey lay. That caught one's thoughts sharply. Sticks! On a lifeless\nworld? Then as my eye grew more accustomed to the texture of their\nsubstance, I perceived that almost all this surface had a fibrous texture,\nlike the carpet of brown needles one finds beneath the shade of pine\ntrees.\n\n\"Cavor!\" I said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It may be a dead world now--but once--\"\n\nSomething arrested my attention. I had discovered among these needles a\nnumber of little round objects. And it seemed to me that one of these had\nmoved. \"Cavor,\" I whispered.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nBut I did not answer at once. I stared incredulous. For an instant I\ncould not believe my eyes. I gave an inarticulate cry. I gripped his arm.\nI pointed. \"Look!\" I cried, finding my tongue. \"There! Yes! And there!\"\n\nHis eyes followed my pointing finger. \"Eh?\" he said.\n\nHow can I describe the thing I saw? It is so petty a thing to state, and\nyet it seemed so wonderful, so pregnant with emotion. I have said that\namidst the stick-like litter were these rounded bodies, these little oval\nbodies that might have passed as very small pebbles. And now first one and\nthen another had stirred, had rolled over and cracked, and down the crack\nof each of them showed a minute line of yellowish green, thrusting outward\nto meet the hot encouragement of the newly-risen sun. For a moment that\nwas all, and then there stirred, and burst a third!\n\n\"It is a seed,\" said Cavor. And then I heard him whisper very softly,\n\"Life!\"\n\n\"Life!\" And immediately it poured upon us that our vast journey had not\nbeen made in vain, that we had come to no arid waste of minerals, but to a\nworld that lived and moved! We watched intensely. I remember I kept\nrubbing the glass before me with my sleeve, jealous of the faintest\nsuspicion of mist.\n\nThe picture was clear and vivid only in the middle of the field. All about\nthat centre the dead fibres and seeds were magnified and distorted by the\ncurvature of the glass. But we could see enough! One after another all\ndown the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped\napart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths.\nthat drank in the heat and light pouring in a cascade from the newly-risen\nsun.\n\nEvery moment more of these seed coats ruptured, and even as they did so\nthe swelling pioneers overflowed their rent-distended seed-cases, and\npassed into the second stage of growth. With a steady assurance, a swift\ndeliberation, these amazing seeds thrust a rootlet downward to the earth\nand a queer little bundle-like bud into the air. In a little while the\nwhole slope was dotted with minute plantlets standing at attention in the\nblaze of the sun.\n\nThey did not stand for long. The bundle-like buds swelled and strained and\nopened with a jerk, thrusting out a coronet of little sharp tips,\nspreading a whorl of tiny, spiky, brownish leaves, that lengthened\nrapidly, lengthened visibly even as we watched. The movement was slower\nthan any animal's, swifter than any plant's I have ever seen before. How\ncan I suggest it to you--the way that growth went on? The leaf tips grew\nso that they moved onward even while we looked at them. The brown\nseed-case shrivelled and was absorbed with an equal rapidity. Have you\never on a cold day taken a thermometer into your warm hand and watched the\nlittle thread of mercury creep up the tube? These moon plants grew like\nthat.\n\nIn a few minutes, as it seemed, the buds of the more forward of these\nplants had lengthened into a stem and were even putting forth a second\nwhorl of leaves, and all the slope that had seemed so recently a lifeless\nstretch of litter was now dark with the stunted olive-green herbage of\nbristling spikes that swayed with the vigour of their growing.\n\nI turned about, and behold! along the upper edge of a rock to the eastward\na similar fringe in a scarcely less forward condition swayed and bent,\ndark against the blinding glare of the sun. And beyond this fringe was the\nsilhouette of a plant mass, branching clumsily like a cactus, and swelling\nvisibly, swelling like a bladder that fills with air.\n\nThen to the westward also I discovered that another such distended form\nwas rising over the scrub. But here the light fell upon its sleek sides,\nand I could see that its colour was a vivid orange hue. It rose as one\nwatched it; if one looked away from it for a minute and then back, its\noutline had changed; it thrust out blunt congested branches until in a\nlittle time it rose a coralline shape of many feet in height. Compared\nwith such a growth the terrestrial puff-ball, which will sometimes swell a\nfoot in diameter in a single night, would be a hopeless laggard. But then\nthe puff-ball grows against a gravitational pull six times that of the\nmoon. Beyond, out of gullies and flats that had been hidden from us, but\nnot from the quickening sun, over reefs and banks of shining rock, a\nbristling beard of spiky and fleshy vegetation was straining into view,\nhurrying tumultuously to take advantage of the brief day in which it must\nflower and fruit and seed again and die. It was like a miracle, that\ngrowth. So, one must imagine, the trees and plants arose at the Creation\nand covered the desolation of the new-made earth.\n\nImagine it! Imagine that dawn! The resurrection of the frozen air, the\nstirring and quickening of the soil, and then this silent uprising of\nvegetation, this unearthly ascent of fleshiness and spikes. Conceive it\nall lit by a blaze that would make the intensest sunlight of earth seem\nwatery and weak. And still around this stirring jungle, wherever there was\nshadow, lingered banks of bluish snow. And to have the picture of our\nimpression complete, you must bear in mind that we saw it all through a\nthick bent glass, distorting it as things are distorted by a lens, acute\nonly in the centre of the picture, and very bright there, and towards the\nedges magnified and unreal.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\n\n\n\nProspecting Begins\n\nWe ceased to gaze. We turned to each other, the same thought, the same\nquestion in our eyes. For these plants to grow, there must be some air,\nhowever attenuated, air that we also should be able to breathe.\n\n\"The manhole?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes!\" said Cavor, \"if it is air we see!\"\n\n\"In a little while,\" I said, \"these plants will be as high as we are.\nSuppose--suppose after all-- Is it certain? How do you know that stuff\n_is_ air? It may be nitrogen--it may be carbonic acid even!\"\n\n\"That's easy,\" he said, and set about proving it. He produced a big piece\nof crumpled paper from the bale, lit it, and thrust it hastily through the\nman-hole valve. I bent forward and peered down through the thick glass for\nits appearance outside, that little flame on whose evidence depended so\nmuch!\n\nI saw the paper drop out and lie lightly upon the snow. The pink flame of\nits burning vanished. For an instant it seemed to be extinguished. And\nthen I saw a little blue tongue upon the edge of it that trembled, and\ncrept, and spread!\n\nQuietly the whole sheet, save where it lay in immediate contact with the\nsnow, charred and shrivelled and sent up a quivering thread of smoke.\nThere was no doubt left to me; the atmosphere of the moon was either pure\noxygen or air, and capable therefore--unless its tenuity was excessive--of\nsupporting our alien life. We might emerge--and live!\n\nI sat down with my legs on either side of the manhole and prepared to\nunscrew it, but Cavor stopped me. \"There is first a little precaution,\"\nhe said. He pointed out that although it was certainly an oxygenated\natmosphere outside, it might still be so rarefied as to cause us grave\ninjury. He reminded me of mountain sickness, and of the bleeding that\noften afflicts aeronauts who have ascended too swiftly, and he spent some\ntime in the preparation of a sickly-tasting drink which he insisted on my\nsharing. It made me feel a little numb, but otherwise had no effect on me.\nThen he permitted me to begin unscrewing.\n\nPresently the glass stopper of the manhole was so far undone that the\ndenser air within our sphere began to escape along the thread of the\nscrew, singing as a kettle sings before it boils. Thereupon he made me\ndesist. It speedily became evident that the pressure outside was very much\nless than it was within. How much less it was we had no means of telling.\n\nI sat grasping the stopper with both hands, ready to close it again if, in\nspite of our intense hope, the lunar atmosphere should after all prove too\nrarefied for us, and Cavor sat with a cylinder of compressed oxygen at\nhand to restore our pressure. We looked at one another in silence, and\nthen at the fantastic vegetation that swayed and grew visibly and\nnoiselessly without. And ever that shrill piping continued.\n\nMy blood-vessels began to throb in my ears, and the sound of Cavor's\nmovements diminished. I noted how still everything had become, because of\nthe thinning of the air.\n\nAs our air sizzled out from the screw the moisture of it condensed in\nlittle puffs.\n\nPresently I experienced a peculiar shortness of breath that lasted indeed\nduring the whole of the time of our exposure to the moon's exterior\natmosphere, and a rather unpleasant sensation about the ears and\nfinger-nails and the back of the throat grew upon my attention, and\npresently passed off again.\n\nBut then came vertigo and nausea that abruptly changed the quality of my\ncourage. I gave the lid of the manhole half a turn and made a hasty\nexplanation to Cavor; but now he was the more sanguine. He answered me in\na voice that seemed extraordinarily small and remote, because of the\nthinness of the air that carried the sound. He recommended a nip of\nbrandy, and set me the example, and presently I felt better. I turned the\nmanhole stopper back again. The throbbing in my ears grew louder, and then\nI remarked that the piping note of the outrush had ceased. For a time I\ncould not be sure that it had ceased.\n\n\"Well?\" said Cavor, in the ghost of a voice.\n\n\"Well?\" said I.\n\n\"Shall we go on?\"\n\nI thought. \"Is this all?\"\n\n\"If you can stand it.\"\n\nBy way of answer I went on unscrewing. I lifted the circular operculum\nfrom its place and laid it carefully on the bale. A flake or so of snow\nwhirled and vanished as that thin and unfamiliar air took possession of\nour sphere. I knelt, and then seated myself at the edge of the manhole,\npeering over it. Beneath, within a yard of my face, lay the untrodden snow\nof the moon.\n\nThere came a little pause. Our eyes met.\n\n\"It doesn't distress your lungs too much?\" said Cavor.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"I can stand this.\"\n\nHe stretched out his hand for his blanket, thrust his head through its\ncentral hole, and wrapped it about him. He sat down on the edge of the\nmanhole, he let his feet drop until they were within six inches of the\nlunar ground. He hesitated for a moment, then thrust himself forward,\ndropped these intervening inches, and stood upon the untrodden soil of the\nmoon.\n\nAs he stepped forward he was refracted grotesquely by the edge of the\nglass. He stood for a moment looking this way and that. Then he drew\nhimself together and leapt.\n\nThe glass distorted everything, but it seemed to me even then to be an\nextremely big leap. He had at one bound become remote. He seemed twenty or\nthirty feet off. He was standing high upon a rocky mass and gesticulating\nback to me. Perhaps he was shouting--but the sound did not reach me. But\nhow the deuce had he done this? I felt like a man who has just seen a new\nconjuring trick.\n\nIn a puzzled state of mind I too dropped through the manhole. I stood up.\nJust in front of me the snowdrift had fallen away and made a sort of\nditch. I made a step and jumped.\n\nI found myself flying through the air, saw the rock on which he stood\ncoming to meet me, clutched it and clung in a state of infinite amazement.\n\nI gasped a painful laugh. I was tremendously confused. Cavor bent down\nand shouted in piping tones for me to be careful.\n\nI had forgotten that on the moon, with only an eighth part of the earth's\nmass and a quarter of its diameter, my weight was barely a sixth what it\nwas on earth. But now that fact insisted on being remembered.\n\n\"We are out of Mother Earth's leading-strings now,\" he said.\n\nWith a guarded effort I raised myself to the top, and moving as cautiously\nas a rheumatic patient, stood up beside him under the blaze of the sun.\nThe sphere lay behind us on its dwindling snowdrift thirty feet away.\n\nAs far as the eye could see over the enormous disorder of rocks that\nformed the crater floor, the same bristling scrub that surrounded us was\nstarting into life, diversified here and there by bulging masses of a\ncactus form, and scarlet and purple lichens that grew so fast they seemed\nto crawl over the rocks. The whole area of the crater seemed to me then to\nbe one similar wilderness up to the very foot of the surrounding cliff.\n\nThis cliff was apparently bare of vegetation save at its base, and with\nbuttresses and terraces and platforms that did not very greatly attract\nour attention at the time. It was many miles away from us in every\ndirection; we seemed to be almost at the centre of the crater, and we saw\nit through a certain haziness that drove before the wind. For there was\neven a wind now in the thin air, a swift yet weak wind that chilled\nexceedingly but exerted little pressure. It was blowing round the\ncrater, as it seemed, to the hot illuminated side from the foggy darkness\nunder the sunward wall. It was difficult to look into this eastward fog;\nwe had to peer with half-closed eyes beneath the shade of our hands,\nbecause of the fierce intensity of the motionless sun.\n\n\"It seems to be deserted,\" said Cavor, \"absolutely desolate.\"\n\nI looked about me again. I retained even then a clinging hope of some\nquasi-human evidence, some pinnacle of building, some house or engine, but\neverywhere one looked spread the tumbled rocks in peaks and crests, and\nthe darting scrub and those bulging cacti that swelled and swelled, a flat\nnegation as it seemed of all such hope.\n\n\"It looks as though these plants had it to themselves,\" I said. \"I see no\ntrace of any other creature.\"\n\n\"No insects--no birds, no! Not a trace, not a scrap nor particle of\nanimal life. If there was--what would they do in the night? ... No;\nthere's just these plants alone.\"\n\nI shaded my eyes with my hand. \"It's like the landscape of a dream. These\nthings are less like earthly land plants than the things one imagines\namong the rocks at the bottom of the sea. Look at that yonder! One might\nimagine it a lizard changed into a plant. And the glare!\"\n\n\"This is only the fresh morning,\" said Cavor.\n\nHe sighed and looked about him. \"This is no world for men,\" he said. \"And\nyet in a way--it appeals.\"\n\nHe became silent for a time, then commenced his meditative humming.\n\nI started at a gentle touch, and found a thin sheet of livid lichen\nlapping over my shoe. I kicked at it and it fell to powder, and each speck\nbegan to grow.\n\nI heard Cavor exclaim sharply, and perceived that one of the fixed\nbayonets of the scrub had pricked him. He hesitated, his eyes sought\namong the rocks about us. A sudden blaze of pink had crept up a ragged\npillar of crag. It was a most extraordinary pink, a livid magenta.\n\n\"Look!\" said I, turning, and behold Cavor had vanished.\n\nFor an instant I stood transfixed. Then I made a hasty step to look over\nthe verge of the rock. But in my surprise at his disappearance I forgot\nonce more that we were on the moon. The thrust of my foot that I made in\nstriding would have carried me a yard on earth; on the moon it carried me\nsix--a good five yards over the edge. For the moment the thing had\nsomething of the effect of those nightmares when one falls and falls. For\nwhile one falls sixteen feet in the first second of a fall on earth, on\nthe moon one falls two, and with only a sixth of one's weight. I fell, or\nrather I jumped down, about ten yards I suppose. It seemed to take quite a\nlong time, five or six seconds, I should think. I floated through the air\nand fell like a feather, knee-deep in a snow-drift in the bottom of a\ngully of blue-gray, white-veined rock.\n\nI looked about me. \"Cavor!\" I cried; but no Cavor was visible.\n\n\"Cavor!\" I cried louder, and the rocks echoed me.\n\nI turned fiercely to the rocks and clambered to the summit of them.\n\"Cavor!\" I cried. My voice sounded like the voice of a lost lamb.\n\nThe sphere, too, was not in sight, and for a moment a horrible feeling of\ndesolation pinched my heart.\n\nThen I saw him. He was laughing and gesticulating to attract my attention.\nHe was on a bare patch of rock twenty or thirty yards away. I could not\nhear his voice, but \"jump\" said his gestures. I hesitated, the distance\nseemed enormous. Yet I reflected that surely I must be able to clear a\ngreater distance than Cavor.\n\nI made a step back, gathered myself together, and leapt with all my might.\nI seemed to shoot right up in the air as though I should never come down.\n\nIt was horrible and delightful, and as wild as a nightmare, to go flying\noff in this fashion. I realised my leap had been altogether too violent.\nI flew clean over Cavor's head and beheld a spiky confusion in a gully\nspreading to meet my fall. I gave a yelp of alarm. I put out my hands and\nstraightened my legs.\n\nI hit a huge fungoid bulk that burst all about me, scattering a mass of\norange spores in every direction, and covering me with orange powder. I\nrolled over spluttering, and came to rest convulsed with breathless\nlaughter.\n\nI became aware of Cavor's little round face peering over a bristling\nhedge. He shouted some faded inquiry. \"Eh?\" I tried to shout, but could\nnot do so for want of breath. He made his way towards me, coming gingerly\namong the bushes.\n\n\"We've got to be careful,\" he said. \"This moon has no discipline. She'll\nlet us smash ourselves.\"\n\nHe helped me to my feet. \"You exerted yourself too much,\" he said, dabbing\nat the yellow stuff with his hand to remove it from my garments.\n\nI stood passive and panting, allowing him to beat off the jelly from my\nknees and elbows and lecture me upon my misfortunes. \"We don't quite\nallow for the gravitation. Our muscles are scarcely educated yet. We must\npractise a little, when you have got your breath.\"\n\nI pulled two or three little thorns out of my hand, and sat for a time on\na boulder of rock. My muscles were quivering, and I had that feeling of\npersonal disillusionment that comes at the first fall to the learner of\ncycling on earth.\n\nIt suddenly occurred to Cavor that the cold air in the gully, after the\nbrightness of the sun, might give me a fever. So we clambered back into\nthe sunlight. We found that beyond a few abrasions I had received no\nserious injuries from my tumble, and at Cavor's suggestion we were\npresently looking round for some safe and easy landing-place for my next\nleap. We chose a rocky slab some ten yards off, separated from us by a\nlittle thicket of olive-green spikes.\n\n\"Imagine it there!\" said Cavor, who was assuming the airs of a trainer,\nand he pointed to a spot about four feet from my toes. This leap I managed\nwithout difficulty, and I must confess I found a certain satisfaction in\nCavor's falling short by a foot or so and tasting the spikes of the scrub.\n\"One has to be careful you see,\" he said, pulling out his thorns, and with\nthat he ceased to be my mentor and became my fellow-learner in the art of\nlunar locomotion.\n\nWe chose a still easier jump and did it without difficulty, and then leapt\nback again, and to and fro several times, accustoming our muscles to the\nnew standard. I could never have believed had I not experienced it, how\nrapid that adaptation would be. In a very little time indeed, certainly\nafter fewer than thirty leaps, we could judge the effort necessary for a\ndistance with almost terrestrial assurance.\n\nAnd all this time the lunar plants were growing around us, higher and\ndenser and more entangled, every moment thicker and taller, spiked plants,\ngreen cactus masses, fungi, fleshy and lichenous things, strangest radiate\nand sinuous shapes. But we were so intent upon our leaping, that for a\ntime we gave no heed to their unfaltering expansion.\n\nAn extraordinary elation had taken possession of us. Partly, I think, it\nwas our sense of release from the confinement of the sphere. Mainly,\nhowever, the thin sweetness of the air, which I am certain contained a\nmuch larger proportion of oxygen than our terrestrial atmosphere. In spite\nof the strange quality of all about us, I felt as adventurous and\nexperimental as a cockney would do placed for the first time among\nmountains and I do not think it occurred to either of us, face to face\nthough we were with the unknown, to be very greatly afraid.\n\nWe were bitten by a spirit of enterprise. We selected a lichenous kopje\nperhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the\nother. \"Good!\" we cried to each other; \"good!\" and Cavor made three steps\nand went off to a tempting slope of snow a good twenty yards and more\nbeyond. I stood for a moment struck by the grotesque effect of his\nsoaring figure--his dirty cricket cap, and spiky hair, his little round\nbody, his arms and his knicker-bockered legs tucked up tightly--against\nthe weird spaciousness of the lunar scene. A gust of laughter seized me,\nand then I stepped off to follow. Plump! I dropped beside him.\n\nWe made a few gargantuan strides, leapt three or four times more, and sat\ndown at last in a lichenous hollow. Our lungs were painful. We sat holding\nour sides and recovering our breath, looking appreciation to one another.\nCavor panted something about \"amazing sensations.\" And then came a thought\ninto my head. For the moment it did not seem a particularly appalling\nthought, simply a natural question arising out of the situation.\n\n\"By the way,\" I said, \"where exactly is the sphere?\"\n\nCavor looked at me. \"Eh?\"\n\nThe full meaning of what we were saying struck me sharply.\n\n\"Cavor!\" I cried, laying a hand on his arm, \"where is the sphere?\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\n\n\n\nLost Men in the Moon\n\nHis face caught something of my dismay. He stood up and stared about him\nat the scrub that fenced us in and rose about us, straining upward in a\npassion of growth. He put a dubious hand to his lips. He spoke with a\nsudden lack of assurance. \"I think,\" he said slowly, \"we left it ...\nsomewhere ... about _there_.\"\n\nHe pointed a hesitating finger that wavered in an arc.\n\n\"I'm not sure.\" His look of consternation deepened. \"Anyhow,\" he said,\nwith his eyes on me, \"it can't be far.\"\n\nWe had both stood up. We made unmeaning ejaculations, our eyes sought in\nthe twining, thickening jungle round about us.\n\nAll about us on the sunlit slopes frothed and swayed the darting shrubs,\nthe swelling cactus, the creeping lichens, and wherever the shade remained\nthe snow-drifts lingered. North, south, east, and west spread an identical\nmonotony of unfamiliar forms. And somewhere, buried already among this\ntangled confusion, was our sphere, our home, our only provision, our only\nhope of escape from this fantastic wilderness of ephemeral growths into\nwhich we had come.\n\n\"I think after all,\" he said, pointing suddenly, \"it might be over there.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"We have turned in a curve. See! here is the mark of my\nheels. It's clear the thing must be more to the eastward, much more.\nNo--the sphere must be over there.\"\n\n\"I _think_,\" said Cavor, \"I kept the sun upon my right all the time.\"\n\n\"Every leap, it seems to me,\" I said, \"my shadow flew before me.\"\n\nWe stared into one another's eyes. The area of the crater had become\nenormously vast to our imaginations, the growing thickets already\nimpenetrably dense.\n\n\"Good heavens! What fools we have been!\"\n\n\"It's evident that we must find it again,\" said Cavor, \"and that soon.\nThe sun grows stronger. We should be fainting with the heat already if\nit wasn't so dry. And ... I'm hungry.\"\n\nI stared at him. I had not suspected this aspect of the matter before. But\nit came to me at once--a positive craving. \"Yes,\" I said with emphasis.\n\"I am hungry too.\"\n\nHe stood up with a look of active resolution. \"Certainly we must find the\nsphere.\"\n\nAs calmly as possible we surveyed the interminable reefs and thickets that\nformed the floor of the crater, each of us weighing in silence the chances\nof our finding the sphere before we were overtaken by heat and hunger.\n\n\"It can't be fifty yards from here,\" said Cavor, with indecisive gestures.\n\"The only thing is to beat round about until we come upon it.\"\n\n\"That is all we can do,\" I said, without any alacrity to begin our hunt.\n\"I wish this confounded spike bush did not grow so fast!\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" said Cavor. \"But it was lying on a bank of snow.\"\n\nI stared about me in the vain hope of recognising some knoll or shrub that\nhad been near the sphere. But everywhere was a confusing sameness,\neverywhere the aspiring bushes, the distending fungi, the dwindling snow\nbanks, steadily and inevitably changed. The sun scorched and stung, the\nfaintness of an unaccountable hunger mingled with our infinite perplexity.\nAnd even as we stood there, confused and lost amidst unprecedented things,\nwe became aware for the first time of a sound upon the moon other than the\nair of the growing plants, the faint sighing of the wind, or those that we\nourselves had made.\n\nBoom.... Boom.... Boom.\n\nIt came from beneath our feet, a sound in the earth. We seemed to hear it\nwith our feet as much as with our ears. Its dull resonance was muffled by\ndistance, thick with the quality of intervening substance. No sound that I\ncan imagine could have astonished us more, or have changed more completely\nthe quality of things about us. For this sound, rich, slow, and\ndeliberate, seemed to us as though it could be nothing but the striking of\nsome gigantic buried clock.\n\nBoom.... Boom.... Boom.\n\nSound suggestive of still cloisters, of sleepless nights in crowded\ncities, of vigils and the awaited hour, of all that is orderly and\nmethodical in life, booming out pregnant and mysterious in this fantastic\ndesert! To the eye everything was unchanged: the desolation of bushes and\ncacti waving silently in the wind, stretched unbroken to the distant\ncliffs, the still dark sky was empty overhead, and the hot sun hung and\nburned. And through it all, a warning, a threat, throbbed this enigma of\nsound.\n\nBoom.... Boom.... Boom....\n\nWe questioned one another in faint and faded voices.\n\n\"A clock?\"\n\n\"Like a clock!\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"What can it be?\"\n\n\"Count,\" was Cavor's belated suggestion, and at that word the striking\nceased.\n\nThe silence, the rhythmic disappointment of the silence, came as a fresh\nshock. For a moment one could doubt whether one had ever heard a sound. Or\nwhether it might not still be going on. Had I indeed heard a sound?\n\nI felt the pressure of Cavor's hand upon my arm. He spoke in an\nundertone, as though he feared to wake some sleeping thing. \"Let us keep\ntogether,\" he whispered, \"and look for the sphere. We must get back to the\nsphere. This is beyond our understanding.\"\n\n\"Which way shall we go?\"\n\nHe hesitated. An intense persuasion of presences, of unseen things about\nus and near us, dominated our minds. What could they be? Where could they\nbe? Was this arid desolation, alternately frozen and scorched, only the\nouter rind and mask of some subterranean world? And if so, what sort of\nworld? What sort of inhabitants might it not presently disgorge upon us?\n\nAnd then, stabbing the aching stillness as vivid and sudden as an\nunexpected thunderclap, came a clang and rattle as though great gates of\nmetal had suddenly been flung apart.\n\nIt arrested our steps. We stood gaping helplessly. Then Cavor stole\ntowards me.\n\n\"I do not understand!\" he whispered close to my face. He waved his hand\nvaguely skyward, the vague suggestion of still vaguer thoughts.\n\n\"A hiding-place! If anything came...\"\n\nI looked about us. I nodded my head in assent to him.\n\nWe started off, moving stealthily with the most exaggerated precautions\nagainst noise. We went towards a thicket of scrub. A clangour like hammers\nflung about a boiler hastened our steps. \"We must crawl,\" whispered Cavor.\n\nThe lower leaves of the bayonet plants, already overshadowed by the newer\nones above, were beginning to wilt and shrivel so that we could thrust our\nway in among the thickening stems without serious injury. A stab in the\nface or arm we did not heed. At the heart of the thicket I stopped, and\nstared panting into Cavor's face.\n\n\"Subterranean,\" he whispered. \"Below.\"\n\n\"They may come out.\"\n\n\"We must find the sphere!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"but how?\"\n\n\"Crawl till we come to it.\"\n\n\"But if we don't?\"\n\n\"Keep hidden. See what they are like.\"\n\n\"We will keep together,\" said I.\n\nHe thought. \"Which way shall we go?\"\n\n\"We must take our chance.\"\n\nWe peered this way and that. Then very circumspectly, we began to crawl\nthrough the lower jungle, making, so far as we could judge, a circuit,\nhalting now at every waving fungus, at every sound, intent only on the\nsphere from which we had so foolishly emerged. Ever and again from out of\nthe earth beneath us came concussions, beatings, strange, inexplicable,\nmechanical sounds; and once, and then again, we thought we heard\nsomething, a faint rattle and tumult, borne to us through the air. But\nfearful as we were we dared essay no vantage-point to survey the crater.\nFor long we saw nothing of the beings whose sounds were so abundant and\ninsistent. But for the faintness of our hunger and the drying of our\nthroats that crawling would have had the quality of a very vivid dream. It\nwas so absolutely unreal. The only element with any touch of reality was\nthese sounds.\n\nPicture it to yourself! About us the dream-like jungle, with the silent\nbayonet leaves darting overhead, and the silent, vivid, sun-splashed\nlichens under our hands and knees, waving with the vigour of their growth\nas a carpet waves when the wind gets beneath it. Ever and again one of the\nbladder fungi, bulging and distending under the sun, loomed upon us. Ever\nand again some novel shape in vivid colour obtruded. The very cells that\nbuilt up these plants were as large as my thumb, like beads of coloured\nglass. And all these things were saturated in the unmitigated glare of the\nsun, were seen against a sky that was bluish black and spangled still, in\nspite of the sunlight, with a few surviving stars. Strange! the very forms\nand texture of the stones were strange. It was all strange, the feeling of\none's body was unprecedented, every other movement ended in a surprise.\nThe breath sucked thin in one's throat, the blood flowed through one's\nears in a throbbing tide--thud, thud, thud, thud....\n\nAnd ever and again came gusts of turmoil, hammering, the clanging and\nthrob of machinery, and presently--the bellowing of great beasts!\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\n\n\n\nThe Mooncalf Pastures\n\nSo we two poor terrestrial castaways, lost in that wild-growing moon\njungle, crawled in terror before the sounds that had come upon us. We\ncrawled, as it seemed, a long time before we saw either Selenite or\nmooncalf, though we heard the bellowing and gruntulous noises of these\nlatter continually drawing nearer to us. We crawled through stony ravines,\nover snow slopes, amidst fungi that ripped like thin bladders at our\nthrust, emitting a watery humour, over a perfect pavement of things like\npuff-balls, and beneath interminable thickets of scrub. And ever more\nhelplessly our eyes sought for our abandoned sphere. The noise of the\nmooncalves would at times be a vast flat calf-like sound, at times it rose\nto an amazed and wrathy bellowing, and again it would become a clogged\nbestial sound, as though these unseen creatures had sought to eat and\nbellow at the same time.\n\nOur first view was but an inadequate transitory glimpse, yet none the less\ndisturbing because it was incomplete. Cavor was crawling in front at the\ntime, and he first was aware of their proximity. He stopped dead,\narresting me with a single gesture.\n\nA crackling and smashing of the scrub appeared to be advancing directly\nupon us, and then, as we squatted close and endeavoured to judge of the\nnearness and direction of this noise, there came a terrific bellow behind\nus, so close and vehement that the tops of the bayonet scrub bent before\nit, and one felt the breath of it hot and moist. And, turning about, we\nsaw indistinctly through a crowd of swaying stems the mooncalf's shining\nsides, and the long line of its back loomed out against the sky.\n\nOf course it is hard for me now to say how much I saw at that time,\nbecause my impressions were corrected by subsequent observation. First of\nall impressions was its enormous size; the girth of its body was some\nfourscore feet, its length perhaps two hundred. Its sides rose and fell\nwith its laboured breathing. I perceived that its gigantic, flabby body\nlay along the ground, and that its skin was of a corrugated white,\ndappling into blackness along the backbone. But of its feet we saw\nnothing. I think also that we saw then the profile at least of the almost\nbrainless head, with its fat-encumbered neck, its slobbering omnivorous\nmouth, its little nostrils, and tight shut eyes. (For the mooncalf\ninvariably shuts its eyes in the presence of the sun.) We had a glimpse of\na vast red pit as it opened its mouth to bleat and bellow again; we had a\nbreath from the pit, and then the monster heeled over like a ship, dragged\nforward along the ground, creasing all its leathery skin, rolled again,\nand so wallowed past us, smashing a path amidst the scrub, and was\nspeedily hidden from our eyes by the dense interlacings beyond. Another\nappeared more distantly, and then another, and then, as though he was\nguiding these animated lumps of provender to their pasture, a Selenite\ncame momentarily into ken. My grip upon Cavor's foot became convulsive at\nthe sight of him, and we remained motionless and peering long after he had\npassed out of our range.\n\nBy contrast with the mooncalves he seemed a trivial being, a mere ant,\nscarcely five feet high. He was wearing garments of some leathery\nsubstance, so that no portion of his actual body appeared, but of this, of\ncourse, we were entirely ignorant. He presented himself, therefore, as a\ncompact, bristling creature, having much of the quality of a complicated\ninsect, with whip-like tentacles and a clanging arm projecting from his\nshining cylindrical body case. The form of his head was hidden by his\nenormous many-spiked helmet--we discovered afterwards that he used the\nspikes for prodding refractory mooncalves--and a pair of goggles of\ndarkened glass, set very much at the side, gave a bird-like quality to the\nmetallic apparatus that covered his face. His arms did not project beyond\nhis body case, and he carried himself upon short legs that, wrapped though\nthey were in warm coverings, seemed to our terrestrial eyes inordinately\nflimsy. They had very short thighs, very long shanks, and little feet.\n\nIn spite of his heavy-looking clothing, he was progressing with what would\nbe, from the terrestrial point of view, very considerable strides, and his\nclanging arm was busy. The quality of his motion during the instant of his\npassing suggested haste and a certain anger, and soon after we had lost\nsight of him we heard the bellow of a mooncalf change abruptly into a\nshort, sharp squeal followed by the scuffle of its acceleration. And\ngradually that bellowing receded, and then came to an end, as if the\npastures sought had been attained.\n\nWe listened. For a space the moon world was still. But it was some time\nbefore we resumed our crawling search for the vanished sphere.\n\nWhen next we saw mooncalves they were some little distance away from us in\na place of tumbled rocks. The less vertical surfaces of the rocks were\nthick with a speckled green plant growing in dense mossy clumps, upon\nwhich these creatures were browsing. We stopped at the edge of the reeds\namidst which we were crawling at the sight of them, peering out at then\nand looking round for a second glimpse of a Selenite. They lay against\ntheir food like stupendous slugs, huge, greasy hulls, eating greedily and\nnoisily, with a sort of sobbing avidity. They seemed monsters of mere\nfatness, clumsy and overwhelmed to a degree that would make a Smithfield\nox seem a model of agility. Their busy, writhing, chewing mouths, and eyes\nclosed, together with the appetising sound of their munching, made up an\neffect of animal enjoyment that was singularly stimulating to our empty\nframes.\n\n\"Hogs!\" said Cavor, with unusual passion. \"Disgusting hogs!\" and after\none glare of angry envy crawled off through the bushes to our right. I\nstayed long enough to see that the speckled plant was quite hopeless for\nhuman nourishment, then crawled after him, nibbling a quill of it between\nmy teeth.\n\nPresently we were arrested again by the proximity of a Selenite, and this\ntime we were able to observe him more exactly. Now we could see that the\nSelenite covering was indeed clothing, and not a sort of crustacean\nintegument. He was quite similar in his costume to the former one we had\nglimpsed, except that ends of something like wadding were protruding from\nhis neck, and he stood on a promontory of rock and moved his head this way\nand that, as though he was surveying the crater. We lay quite still,\nfearing to attract his attention if we moved, and after a time he turned\nabout and disappeared.\n\nWe came upon another drove of mooncalves bellowing up a ravine, and then\nwe passed over a place of sounds, sounds of beating machinery as if some\nhuge hall of industry came near the surface there. And while these sounds\nwere still about us we came to the edge of a great open space, perhaps two\nhundred yards in diameter, and perfectly level. Save for a few lichens\nthat advanced from its margin this space was bare, and presented a powdery\nsurface of a dusty yellow colour. We were afraid to strike out across\nthis space, but as it presented less obstruction to our crawling than the\nscrub, we went down upon it and began very circumspectly to skirt its\nedge.\n\nFor a little while the noises from below ceased and everything, save for\nthe faint stir of the growing vegetation, was very still. Then abruptly\nthere began an uproar, louder, more vehement, and nearer than any we had\nso far heard. Of a certainty it came from below. Instinctively we crouched\nas flat as we could, ready for a prompt plunge into the thicket beside us.\nEach knock and throb seemed to vibrate through our bodies. Louder grew\nthis throbbing and beating, and that irregular vibration increased until\nthe whole moon world seemed to be jerking and pulsing.\n\n\"Cover,\" whispered Cavor, and I turned towards the bushes.\n\nAt that instant came a thud like the thud of a gun, and then a thing\nhappened--it still haunts me in my dreams. I had turned my head to look\nat Cavor's face, and thrust out my hand in front of me as I did so.\nAnd my hand met nothing! I plunged suddenly into a bottomless hole!\n\nMy chest hit something hard, and I found myself with my chin on the edge\nof an unfathomable abyss that had suddenly opened beneath me, my hand\nextended stiffly into the void. The whole of that flat circular area was\nno more than a gigantic lid, that was now sliding sideways from off the\npit it had covered into a slot prepared for it.\n\nHad it not been for Cavor I think I should have remained rigid, hanging\nover this margin and staring into the enormous gulf below, until at last\nthe edges of the slot scraped me off and hurled me into its depths. But\nCavor had not received the shock that had paralysed me. He had been a\nlittle distance from the edge when the lid had first opened, and\nperceiving the peril that held me helpless, gripped my legs and pulled me\nbackward. I came into a sitting position, crawled away from the edge for a\nspace on all fours, then staggered up and ran after him across the\nthundering, quivering sheet of metal. It seemed to be swinging open with a\nsteadily accelerated velocity, and the bushes in front of me shifted\nsideways as I ran.\n\nI was none too soon. Cavor's back vanished amidst the bristling thicket,\nand as I scrambled up after him, the monstrous valve came into its\nposition with a clang. For a long time we lay panting, not daring to\napproach the pit.\n\nBut at last very cautiously and bit by bit we crept into a position from\nwhich we could peer down. The bushes about us creaked and waved with the\nforce of a breeze that was blowing down the shaft. We could see nothing at\nfirst except smooth vertical walls descending at last into an impenetrable\nblack. And then very gradually we became aware of a number of very faint\nand little lights going to and fro.\n\nFor a time that stupendous gulf of mystery held us so that we forgot even\nour sphere. In time, as we grew more accustomed to the darkness, we could\nmake out very small, dim, elusive shapes moving about among those\nneedle-point illuminations. We peered amazed and incredulous,\nunderstanding so little that we could find no words to say. We could\ndistinguish nothing that would give us a clue to the meaning of the faint\nshapes we saw.\n\n\"What can it be?\" I asked; \"what can it be?\"\n\n\"The engineering!... They must live in these caverns during the night, and\ncome out during the day.\"\n\n\"Cavor!\" I said. \"Can they be--that--it was something like--men?\"\n\n\"_That_ was not a man.\"\n\n\"We dare risk nothing!\"\n\n\"We dare do nothing until we find the sphere!\"\n\n\"We _can_ do nothing until we find the sphere.\"\n\nHe assented with a groan and stirred himself to move. He stared about him\nfor a space, sighed, and indicated a direction. We struck out through the\njungle. For a time we crawled resolutely, then with diminishing vigour.\nPresently among great shapes of flabby purple there came a noise of\ntrampling and cries about us. We lay close, and for a long time the sounds\nwent to and fro and very near. But this time we saw nothing. I tried to\nwhisper to Cavor that I could hardly go without food much longer, but my\nmouth had become too dry for whispering.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, \"I must have food.\"\n\nHe turned a face full of dismay towards me. \"It's a case for holding out,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"But I _must_,\" I said, \"and look at my lips!\"\n\n\"I've been thirsty some time.\"\n\n\"If only some of that snow had remained!\"\n\n\"It's clean gone! We're driving from arctic to tropical at the rate of a\ndegree a minute....\"\n\nI gnawed my hand.\n\n\"The sphere!\" he said. \"There is nothing for it but the sphere.\"\n\nWe roused ourselves to another spurt of crawling. My mind ran entirely on\nedible things, on the hissing profundity of summer drinks, more\nparticularly I craved for beer. I was haunted by the memory of a sixteen\ngallon cask that had swaggered in my Lympne cellar. I thought of the\nadjacent larder, and especially of steak and kidney pie--tender steak and\nplenty of kidney, and rich, thick gravy between. Ever and again I was\nseized with fits of hungry yawning. We came to flat places overgrown with\nfleshy red things, monstrous coralline growths; as we pushed against them\nthey snapped and broke. I noted the quality of the broken surfaces. The\nconfounded stuff certainly looked of a biteable texture. Then it seemed to\nme that it smelt rather well.\n\nI picked up a fragment and sniffed at it.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said in a hoarse undertone.\n\nHe glanced at me with his face screwed up. \"Don't,\" he said. I put down\nthe fragment, and we crawled on through this tempting fleshiness for\na space.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I asked, \"why not?\"\n\n\"Poison,\" I heard him say, but he did not look round.\n\nWe crawled some way before I decided.\n\n\"I'll chance it,\" said I.\n\nHe made a belated gesture to prevent me. I stuffed my mouth full. He\ncrouched watching my face, his own twisted into the oddest expression.\n\"It's good,\" I said.\n\n\"O Lord!\" he cried.\n\nHe watched me munch, his face wrinkled between desire and disapproval,\nthen suddenly succumbed to appetite and began to tear off huge mouthfuls.\nFor a time we did nothing but eat.\n\nThe stuff was not unlike a terrestrial mushroom, only it was much laxer in\ntexture, and, as one swallowed it, it warmed the throat. At first we\nexperienced a mere mechanical satisfaction in eating; then our blood began\nto run warmer, and we tingled at the lips and fingers, and then new and\nslightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds.\n\n\"Its good,\" said I. \"Infernally good! What a home for our surplus\npopulation! Our poor surplus population,\" and I broke off another large\nportion. It filled me with a curiously benevolent satisfaction that there\nwas such good food in the moon. The depression of my hunger gave way to an\nirrational exhilaration. The dread and discomfort in which I had been\nliving vanished entirely. I perceived the moon no longer as a planet from\nwhich I most earnestly desired the means of escape, but as a possible\nrefuge from human destitution. I think I forgot the Selenites, the\nmooncalves, the lid, and the noises completely so soon as I had eaten that\nfungus.\n\nCavor replied to my third repetition of my \"surplus population\" remark\nwith similar words of approval. I felt that my head swam, but I put this\ndown to the stimulating effect of food after a long fast. \"Ess'lent\ndiscov'ry yours, Cavor,\" said I. \"Se'nd on'y to the 'tato.\"\n\n\"Whajer mean?\" asked Cavor. \"'Scovery of the moon--se'nd on'y to the\n'tato?\"\n\nI looked at him, shocked at his suddenly hoarse voice, and by the badness\nof his articulation. It occurred to me in a flash that he was intoxicated,\npossibly by the fungus. It also occurred to me that he erred in imagining\nthat he had discovered the moon; he had not discovered it, he had only\nreached it. I tried to lay my hand on his arm and explain this to him, but\nthe issue was too subtle for his brain. It was also unexpectedly difficult\nto express. After a momentary attempt to understand me--I remember\nwondering if the fungus had made my eyes as fishy as his--he set off upon\nsome observations on his own account.\n\n\"We are,\" he announced with a solemn hiccup, \"the creashurs o' what we\neat and drink.\"\n\nHe repeated this, and as I was now in one of my subtle moods, I determined\nto dispute it. Possibly I wandered a little from the point. But Cavor\ncertainly did not attend at all properly. He stood up as well as he could,\nputting a hand on my head to steady himself, which was disrespectful,\nand stood staring about him, quite devoid now of any fear of the moon\nbeings.\n\nI tried to point out that this was dangerous for some reason that was not\nperfectly clear to me, but the word \"dangerous\" had somehow got mixed with\n\"indiscreet,\" and came out rather more like \"injurious\" than either; and\nafter an attempt to disentangle them, I resumed my argument, addressing\nmyself principally to the unfamiliar but attentive coralline growths on\neither side. I felt that it was necessary to clear up this confusion\nbetween the moon and a potato at once--I wandered into a long parenthesis\non the importance of precision of definition in argument. I did my best to\nignore the fact that my bodily sensations were no longer agreeable.\n\nIn some way that I have now forgotten, my mind was led back to projects\nof colonisation. \"We must annex this moon,\" I said. \"There must be\nno shilly-shally. This is part of the White Man's Burthen. Cavor--we\nare--hic--Satap--mean Satraps! Nempire Caesar never dreamt. B'in all\nthe newspapers. Cavorecia. Bedfordecia. Bedfordecia--hic--Limited.\nMean--unlimited! Practically.\"\n\nCertainly I was intoxicated.\n\nI embarked upon an argument to show the infinite benefits our arrival\nwould confer on the moon. I involved myself in a rather difficult proof\nthat the arrival of Columbus was, on the whole, beneficial to America. I\nfound I had forgotten the line of argument I had intended to pursue, and\ncontinued to repeat \"sim'lar to C'lumbus,\" to fill up time.\n\nFrom that point my memory of the action of that abominable fungus becomes\nconfused. I remember vaguely that we declared our intention of standing no\nnonsense from any confounded insects, that we decided it ill became men to\nhide shamefully upon a mere satellite, that we equipped ourselves with\nhuge armfuls of the fungus--whether for missile purposes or not I do not\nknow--and, heedless of the stabs of the bayonet scrub, we started forth\ninto the sunshine.\n\nAlmost immediately we must have come upon the Selenites. There were six of\nthem, and they were marching in single file over a rocky place, making the\nmost remarkable piping and whining sounds. They all seemed to become aware\nof us at once, all instantly became silent and motionless, like animals,\nwith their faces turned towards us.\n\nFor a moment I was sobered.\n\n\"Insects,\" murmured Cavor, \"insects! And they think I'm going to crawl\nabout on my stomach--on my vertebrated stomach!\n\n\"Stomach,\" he repeated slowly, as though he chewed the indignity.\n\nThen suddenly, with a sort of fury, he made three vast strides and leapt\ntowards them. He leapt badly; he made a series of somersaults in the air,\nwhirled right over them, and vanished with an enormous splash amidst the\ncactus bladders. What the Selenites made of this amazing, and to my mind\nundignified irruption from another planet, I have no means of guessing. I\nseem to remember the sight of their backs as they ran in all directions,\nbut I am not sure. All these last incidents before oblivion came are vague\nand faint in my mind. I know I made a step to follow Cavor, and tripped\nand fell headlong among the rocks. I was, I am certain, suddenly and\nvehemently ill. I seem to remember, a violent struggle and being gripped\nby metallic clasps....\n\nMy next clear recollection is that we were prisoners at we knew not what\ndepths beneath the moon's surface; we were in darkness amidst strange\ndistracting noises; our bodies were covered with scratches and bruises,\nand our heads racked with pain.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\n\n\n\nThe Selenite's Face\n\nI found myself sitting crouched together in a tumultuous darkness. For a\nlong time I could not understand where I was, nor how I had come to this\nperplexity. I thought of the cupboard into which I had been thrust at\ntimes when I was a child, and then of a very dark and noisy bedroom in\nwhich I had slept during an illness. But these sounds about me were not\nthe noises I had known, and there was a thin flavour in the air like the\nwind of a stable. Then I supposed we must still be at work upon the\nsphere, and that somehow I had got into the cellar of Cavor's house. I\nremembered we had finished the sphere, and fancied I must still be in it\nand travelling through space.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, \"cannot we have some light?\"\n\nThere came no answer.\n\n\"Cavor!\" I insisted.\n\nI was answered by a groan. \"My head!\" I heard him say; \"my head!\"\n\nI attempted to press my hands to my brow, which ached, and discovered they\nwere tied together. This startled me very much. I brought them up to my\nmouth and felt the cold smoothness of metal. They were chained together. I\ntried to separate my legs and made out they were similarly fastened, and\nalso that I was fastened to the ground by a much thicker chain about the\nmiddle of my body.\n\nI was more frightened than I had yet been by anything in all our strange\nexperiences. For a time I tugged silently at my bonds. \"Cavor!\" I cried\nout sharply. \"Why am I tied? Why have you tied me hand and foot?\"\n\n\"I haven't tied you,\" he answered. \"It's the Selenites.\"\n\nThe Selenites! My mind hung on that for a space. Then my memories came\nback to me: the snowy desolation, the thawing of the air, the growth of\nthe plants, our strange hopping and crawling among the rocks and\nvegetation of the crater. All the distress of our frantic search for the\nsphere returned to me.... Finally the opening of the great lid that\ncovered the pit!\n\nThen as I strained to trace our later movements down to our present\nplight, the pain in my head became intolerable. I came to an\ninsurmountable barrier, an obstinate blank.\n\n\"Cavor!\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"Are we dead?\"\n\n\"What nonsense!\"\n\n\"They've got us, then!\"\n\nHe made no answer but a grunt. The lingering traces of the poison seemed\nto make him oddly irritable.\n\n\"What do you mean to do?\"\n\n\"How should I know what to do?\"\n\n\"Oh, very well!\" said I, and became silent. Presently, I was roused from\na stupor. \"O Lord!\" I cried; \"I wish you'd stop that buzzing!\"\n\nWe lapsed into silence again, listening to the dull confusion of noises\nlike the muffled sounds of a street or factory that filled our ears. I\ncould make nothing of it, my mind pursued first one rhythm and then\nanother, and questioned it in vain. But after a long time I became aware\nof a new and sharper element, not mingling with the rest but standing out,\nas it were, against that cloudy background of sound. It was a series of\nrelatively very little definite sounds, tappings and rubbings, like a\nloose spray of ivy against a window or a bird moving about upon a box. We\nlistened and peered about us, but the darkness was a velvet pall. There\nfollowed a noise like the subtle movement of the wards of a well-oiled\nlock. And then there appeared before me, hanging as it seemed in an\nimmensity of black, a thin bright line.\n\n\"Look!\" whispered Cavor very softly.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nWe stared.\n\nThe thin bright line became a band, and broader and paler. It took upon\nitself the quality of a bluish light falling upon a white-washed wall. It\nceased to be parallel-sided; it developed a deep indentation on one side.\nI turned to remark this to Cavor, and was amazed to see his ear in a\nbrilliant illumination--all the rest of him in shadow. I twisted my head\nround as well as my bonds would permit. \"Cavor,\" I said, \"it's behind!\"\n\nHis ear vanished--gave place to an eye!\n\nSuddenly the crack that had been admitting the light broadened out, and\nrevealed itself as the space of an opening door. Beyond was a sapphire\nvista, and in the doorway stood a grotesque outline silhouetted against\nthe glare.\n\nWe both made convulsive efforts to turn, and failing, sat staring over our\nshoulders at this. My first impression was of some clumsy quadruped with\nlowered head. Then I perceived it was the slender pinched body and short\nand extremely attenuated bandy legs of a Selenite, with his head depressed\nbetween his shoulders. He was without the helmet and body covering they\nwear upon the exterior.\n\nHe was a blank, black figure to us, but instinctively our imaginations\nsupplied features to his very human outline. I, at least, took it\ninstantly that he was somewhat hunchbacked, with a high forehead and long\nfeatures.\n\nHe came forward three steps and paused for a time. His movements seemed\nabsolutely noiseless. Then he came forward again. He walked like a bird,\nhis feet fell one in front of the other. He stepped out of the ray of\nlight that came through the doorway, and it seemed as though he vanished\naltogether in the shadow.\n\nFor a moment my eyes sought him in the wrong place, and then I perceived\nhim standing facing us both in the full light. Only the human features I\nhad attributed to him were not there at all!\n\nOf course I ought to have expected that, only I didn't. It came to me as\nan absolute, for a moment an overwhelming shock. It seemed as though it\nwasn't a face, as though it must needs be a mask, a horror, a deformity,\nthat would presently be disavowed or explained. There was no nose, and the\nthing had dull bulging eyes at the side--in the silhouette I had supposed\nthey were ears. There were no ears.... I have tried to draw one of these\nheads, but I cannot. There was a mouth, downwardly curved, like a human\nmouth in a face that stares ferociously....\n\nThe neck on which the head was poised was jointed in three places, almost\nlike the short joints in the leg of a crab. The joints of the limbs I\ncould not see, because of the puttee-like straps in which they were\nswathed, and which formed the only clothing the being wore.\n\nThere the thing was, looking at us!\n\nAt the time my mind was taken up by the mad impossibility of the creature.\nI suppose he also was amazed, and with more reason, perhaps, for amazement\nthan we. Only, confound him! he did not show it. We did at least know what\nhad brought about this meeting of incompatible creatures. But conceive how\nit would seem to decent Londoners, for example, to come upon a couple of\nliving things, as big as men and absolutely unlike any other earthly\nanimals, careering about among the sheep in Hyde Park! It must have taken\nhim like that.\n\nFigure us! We were bound hand and foot, fagged and filthy; our beards two\ninches long, our faces scratched and bloody. Cavor you must imagine in his\nknickerbockers (torn in several places by the bayonet scrub) his Jaegar\nshirt and old cricket cap, his wiry hair wildly disordered, a tail to\nevery quarter of the heavens. In that blue light his face did not look red\nbut very dark, his lips and the drying blood upon my hands seemed black.\nIf possible I was in a worse plight than he, on account of the yellow\nfungus into which I had jumped. Our jackets were unbuttoned, and our shoes\nhad been taken off and lay at our feet. And we were sitting with our backs\nto this queer bluish light, peering at such a monster as Durer might have\ninvented.\n\nCavor broke the silence; started to speak, went hoarse, and cleared his\nthroat. Outside began a terrific bellowing, as if a mooncalf were in\ntrouble. It ended in a shriek, and everything was still again.\n\nPresently the Selenite turned about, flickered into the shadow, stood for\na moment retrospective at the door, and then closed it on us; and once\nmore we were in that murmurous mystery of darkness into which we had\nawakened.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\n\n\n\nMr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions\n\nFor a time neither of us spoke. To focus together all the things we had\nbrought upon ourselves seemed beyond my mental powers.\n\n\"They've got us,\" I said at last.\n\n\"It was that fungus.\"\n\n\"Well--if I hadn't taken it we should have fainted and starved.\"\n\n\"We might have found the sphere.\"\n\nI lost my temper at his persistence, and swore to myself. For a time we\nhated one another in silence. I drummed with my fingers on the floor\nbetween my knees, and gritted the links of my fetters together. Presently\nI was forced to talk again.\n\n\"What do you make of it, anyhow?\" I asked humbly.\n\n\"They are reasonable creatures--they can make things and do things.\nThose lights we saw...\"\n\nHe stopped. It was clear he could make nothing of it.\n\nWhen he spoke again it was to confess, \"After all, they are more human\nthan we had a right to expect. I suppose--\"\n\nHe stopped irritatingly.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I suppose, anyhow--on any planet where there is an intelligent animal--it\nwill carry its brain case upward, and have hands, and walk erect.\"\n\nPresently he broke away in another direction.\n\n\"We are some way in,\" he said. \"I mean--perhaps a couple of thousand feet\nor more.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"It's cooler. And our voices are so much louder. That faded quality--it\nhas altogether gone. And the feeling in one's ears and throat.\"\n\nI had not noted that, but I did now.\n\n\"The air is denser. We must be some depths--a mile even, we may\nbe--inside the moon.\"\n\n\"We never thought of a world inside the moon.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"How could we?\"\n\n\"We might have done. Only one gets into habits of mind.\"\n\nHe thought for a time.\n\n\"Now,\" he said, \"it seems such an obvious thing.\"\n\n\"Of course! The moon must be enormously cavernous, with an atmosphere\nwithin, and at the centre of its caverns a sea.\n\n\"One knew that the moon had a lower specific gravity than the earth, one\nknew that it had little air or water outside, one knew, too, that it was\nsister planet to the earth, and that it was unaccountable that it should\nbe different in composition. The inference that it was hollowed out was as\nclear as day. And yet one never saw it as a fact. Kepler, of course--\"\n\nHis voice had the interest now of a man who has discerned a pretty\nsequence of reasoning.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"Kepler with his sub-volvani was right after all.\"\n\n\"I wish you had taken the trouble to find that out before we came,\"\nI said.\n\nHe answered nothing, buzzing to himself softly, as he pursued his\nthoughts. My temper was going.\n\n\"What do you think has become of the sphere, anyhow?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lost,\" he said, like a man who answers an uninteresting question.\n\n\"Among those plants?\"\n\n\"Unless they find it.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"How can I tell?\"\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, with a sort of hysterical bitterness, \"things look bright\nfor my Company...\"\n\nHe made no answer.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" I exclaimed. \"Just think of all the trouble we took to get\ninto this pickle! What did we come for? What are we after? What was the\nmoon to us or we to the moon? We wanted too much, we tried too much. We\nought to have started the little things first. It was you proposed the\nmoon! Those Cavorite spring blinds! I am certain we could have worked them\nfor terrestrial purposes. Certain! Did you really understand what I\nproposed? A steel cylinder--\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said Cavor.\n\nWe ceased to converse.\n\nFor a time Cavor kept up a broken monologue without much help from me.\n\n\"If they find it,\" he began, \"if they find it ... what will they do with\nit? Well, that's a question. It may be that's _the_ question. They won't\nunderstand it, anyhow. If they understood that sort of thing they would\nhave come long since to the earth. Would they? Why shouldn't they? But\nthey would have sent something--they couldn't keep their hands off such a\npossibility. No! But they will examine it. Clearly they are intelligent\nand inquisitive. They will examine it--get inside it--trifle with the\nstuds. Off! ... That would mean the moon for us for all the rest of our\nlives. Strange creatures, strange knowledge....\"\n\n\"As for strange knowledge--\" said I, and language failed me.\n\n\"Look here, Bedford,\" said Cavor, \"you came on this expedition of your own\nfree will.\"\n\n\"You said to me, 'Call it prospecting'.\"\n\n\"There's always risks in prospecting.\"\n\n\"Especially when you do it unarmed and without thinking out every\npossibility.\"\n\n\"I was so taken up with the sphere. The thing rushed on us, and carried us\naway.\"\n\n\"Rushed on _me_, you mean.\"\n\n\"Rushed on me just as much. How was I to know when I set to work on\nmolecular physics that the business would bring me here--of all places?\"\n\n\"It's this accursed science,\" I cried. \"It's the very Devil. The medieval\npriests and persecutors were right and the Moderns are all wrong. You\ntamper with it--and it offers you gifts. And directly you take them it\nknocks you to pieces in some unexpected way. Old passions and new\nweapons--now it upsets your religion, now it upsets your social ideas,\nnow it whirls you off to desolation and misery!\"\n\n\"Anyhow, it's no use your quarrelling with me now. These creatures--these\nSelenites, or whatever we choose to call them--have got us tied\nhand and foot. Whatever temper you choose to go through with it in, you\nwill have to go through with it.... We have experiences before us that\nwill need all our coolness.\"\n\nHe paused as if he required my assent. But I sat sulking. \"Confound your\nscience!\" I said.\n\n\"The problem is communication. Gestures, I fear, will be different.\nPointing, for example. No creatures but men and monkeys point.\"\n\nThat was too obviously wrong for me. \"Pretty nearly every animal,\" I\ncried, \"points with its eyes or nose.\"\n\nCavor meditated over that. \"Yes,\" he said at last, \"and we don't. There's\nsuch differences--such differences!\"\n\n\"One might.... But how can I tell? There is speech. The sounds they make,\na sort of fluting and piping. I don't see how we are to imitate that. Is\nit their speech, that sort of thing? They may have different senses,\ndifferent means of communication. Of course they are minds and we are\nminds; there must be something in common. Who knows how far we may not get\nto an understanding?\"\n\n\"The things are outside us,\" I said. \"They're more different from us than\nthe strangest animals on earth. They are a different clay. What is the\ngood of talking like this?\"\n\nCavor thought. \"I don't see that. Where there are minds they will have\nsomething similar--even though they have been evolved on different\nplanets. Of course if it was a question of instincts, if we or they are\nno more than animals--\"\n\n\"Well, are they? They're much more like ants on their hind legs than human\nbeings, and who ever got to any sort of understanding with ants?\"\n\n\"But these machines and clothing! No, I don't hold with you, Bedford. The\ndifference is wide--\"\n\n\"It's insurmountable.\"\n\n\"The resemblance must bridge it. I remember reading once a paper by the\nlate Professor Galton on the possibility of communication between the\nplanets. Unhappily, at that time it did not seem probable that that would\nbe of any material benefit to me, and I fear I did not give it the\nattention I should have done--in view of this state of affairs. Yet....\nNow, let me see!\n\n\"His idea was to begin with those broad truths that must underlie all\nconceivable mental existences and establish a basis on those. The great\nprinciples of geometry, to begin with. He proposed to take some leading\nproposition of Euclid's, and show by construction that its truth was known\nto us, to demonstrate, for example, that the angles at the base of an\nisosceles triangle are equal, and that if the equal sides be produced the\nangles on the other side of the base are equal also, or that the square on\nthe hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the\nsquares on the two other sides. By demonstrating our knowledge of these\nthings we should demonstrate our possession of a reasonable\nintelligence.... Now, suppose I ... I might draw the geometrical figure\nwith a wet finger, or even trace it in the air....\"\n\nHe fell silent. I sat meditating his words. For a time his wild hope of\ncommunication, of interpretation, with these weird beings held me. Then\nthat angry despair that was a part of my exhaustion and physical misery\nresumed its sway. I perceived with a sudden novel vividness the\nextraordinary folly of everything I had ever done. \"Ass!\" I said; \"oh,\nass, unutterable ass.... I seem to exist only to go about doing\npreposterous things. Why did we ever leave the thing? ... Hopping about\nlooking for patents and concessions in the craters of the moon!... If only\nwe had had the sense to fasten a handkerchief to a stick to show where we\nhad left the sphere!\"\n\nI subsided, fuming.\n\n\"It is clear,\" meditated Cavor, \"they are intelligent. One can\nhypothecate certain things. As they have not killed us at once, they\nmust have ideas of mercy. Mercy! at any rate of restraint. Possibly of\nintercourse. They may meet us. And this apartment and the glimpses we had\nof its guardian. These fetters! A high degree of intelligence...\"\n\n\"I wish to heaven,\" cried I, \"I'd thought even twice! Plunge after plunge.\nFirst one fluky start and then another. It was my confidence in you! Why\ndidn't I stick to my play? That was what I was equal to. That was my\nworld and the life I was made for. I could have finished that play. I'm\ncertain ... it was a good play. I had the scenario as good as done.\nThen.... Conceive it! leaping to the moon! Practically--I've thrown my\nlife away! That old woman in the inn near Canterbury had better sense.\"\n\nI looked up, and stopped in mid-sentence. The darkness had given place to\nthat bluish light again. The door was opening, and several noiseless\nSelenites were coming into the chamber. I became quite still, staring at\ntheir grotesque faces.\n\nThen suddenly my sense of disagreeable strangeness changed to interest. I\nperceived that the foremost and second carried bowls. One elemental need\nat least our minds could understand in common. They were bowls of some\nmetal that, like our fetters, looked dark in that bluish light; and each\ncontained a number of whitish fragments. All the cloudy pain and misery\nthat oppressed me rushed together and took the shape of hunger. I eyed\nthese bowls wolfishly, and, though it returned to me in dreams, at that\ntime it seemed a small matter that at the end of the arms that lowered one\ntowards me were not hands, but a sort of flap and thumb, like the end of\nan elephant's trunk. The stuff in the bowl was loose in texture, and\nwhitish brown in colour--rather like lumps of some cold souffle, and it\nsmelt faintly like mushrooms. From a partially divided carcass of a\nmooncalf that we presently saw, I am inclined to believe it must have been\nmooncalf flesh.\n\nMy hands were so tightly chained that I could barely contrive to reach the\nbowl; but when they saw the effort I made, two of them dexterously\nreleased one of the turns about my wrist. Their tentacle hands were soft\nand cold to my skin. I immediately seized a mouthful of the food. It had\nthe same laxness in texture that all organic structures seem to have upon\nthe moon; it tasted rather like a gauffre or a damp meringue, but in no\nway was it disagreeable. I took two other mouthfuls. \"I wanted--foo'!\"\nsaid I, tearing off a still larger piece....\n\nFor a time we ate with an utter absence of self-consciousness. We ate and\npresently drank like tramps in a soup kitchen. Never before nor since have\nI been hungry to the ravenous pitch, and save that I have had this very\nexperience I could never have believed that, a quarter of a million of\nmiles out of our proper world, in utter perplexity of soul, surrounded,\nwatched, touched by beings more grotesque and inhuman than the worst\ncreations of a nightmare, it would be possible for me to eat in utter\nforgetfulness of all these things. They stood about us watching us, and\never and again making a slight elusive twittering that stood, I suppose,\nin the stead of speech. I did not even shiver at their touch. And when the\nfirst zeal of my feeding was over, I could note that Cavor, too, had been\neating with the same shameless abandon.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\n\n\n\nExperiments in intercourse\n\nWhen at last we had made an end of eating, the Selenites linked our hands\nclosely together again, and then untwisted the chains about our feet and\nrebound them, so as to give us a limited freedom of movement. Then they\nunfastened the chains about our waists. To do all this they had to handle\nus freely, and ever and again one of their queer heads came down close to\nmy face, or a soft tentacle-hand touched my head or neck. I don't remember\nthat I was afraid then or repelled by their proximity. I think that our\nincurable anthropomorphism made us imagine there were human heads inside\ntheir masks. The skin, like everything else, looked bluish, but that was\non account of the light; and it was hard and shiny, quite in the\nbeetle-wing fashion, not soft, or moist, or hairy, as a vertebrated\nanimal's would be. Along the crest of the head was a low ridge of whitish\nspines running from back to front, and a much larger ridge curved on\neither side over the eyes. The Selenite who untied me used his mouth to\nhelp his hands.\n\n\"They seem to be releasing us,\" said Cavor. \"Remember we are on the moon!\nMake no sudden movements!\"\n\n\"Are you going to try that geometry?\"\n\n\"If I get a chance. But, of course, they may make an advance first.\"\n\nWe remained passive, and the Selenites, having finished their\narrangements, stood back from us, and seemed to be looking at us. I say\nseemed to be, because as their eyes were at the side and not in front, one\nhad the same difficulty in determining the direction in which they were\nlooking as one has in the case of a hen or a fish. They conversed with one\nanother in their reedy tones, that seemed to me impossible to imitate or\ndefine. The door behind us opened wider, and, glancing over my shoulder, I\nsaw a vague large space beyond, in which quite a little crowd of Selenites\nwere standing. They seemed a curiously miscellaneous rabble.\n\n\"Do they want us to imitate those sounds?\" I asked Cavor.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" he said.\n\n\"It seems to me that they are trying to make us understand something.\"\n\n\"I can't make anything of their gestures. Do you notice this one, who is\nworrying with his head like a man with an uncomfortable collar?\"\n\n\"Let us shake our heads at him.\"\n\nWe did that, and finding it ineffectual, attempted an imitation of the\nSelenites' movements. That seemed to interest them. At any rate they all\nset up the same movement. But as that seemed to lead to nothing, we\ndesisted at last and so did they, and fell into a piping argument among\nthemselves. Then one of them, shorter and very much thicker than the\nothers, and with a particularly wide mouth, squatted down suddenly beside\nCavor, and put his hands and feet in the same posture as Cavor's were\nbound, and then by a dexterous movement stood up.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I shouted, \"they want us to get up!\"\n\nHe stared open-mouthed. \"That's it!\" he said.\n\nAnd with much heaving and grunting, because our hands were tied together,\nwe contrived to struggle to our feet. The Selenites made way for our\nelephantine heavings, and seemed to twitter more volubly. As soon as we\nwere on our feet the thick-set Selenite came and patted each of our faces\nwith his tentacles, and walked towards the open doorway. That also was\nplain enough, and we followed him. We saw that four of the Selenites\nstanding in the doorway were much taller than the others, and clothed in\nthe same manner as those we had seen in the crater, namely, with spiked\nround helmets and cylindrical body-cases, and that each of the four\ncarried a goad with spike and guard made of that same dull-looking metal\nas the bowls. These four closed about us, one on either side of each of\nus, as we emerged from our chamber into the cavern from which the light\nhad come.\n\nWe did not get our impression of that cavern all at once. Our attention\nwas taken up by the movements and attitudes of the Selenites immediately\nabout us, and by the necessity of controlling our motion, lest we should\nstartle and alarm them and ourselves by some excessive stride. In front of\nus was the short, thick-set being who had solved the problem of asking us\nto get up, moving with gestures that seemed, almost all of them,\nintelligible to us, inviting us to follow him. His spout-like face turned\nfrom one of us to the other with a quickness that was clearly\ninterrogative. For a time, I say, we were taken up with these things.\n\nBut at last the great place that formed a background to our movements\nasserted itself. It became apparent that the source of much, at least, of\nthe tumult of sounds which had filled our ears ever since we had recovered\nfrom the stupefaction of the fungus was a vast mass of machinery in active\nmovement, whose flying and whirling parts were visible indistinctly over\nthe heads and between the bodies of the Selenites who walked about us. And\nnot only did the web of sounds that filled the air proceed from this\nmechanism, but also the peculiar blue light that irradiated the whole\nplace. We had taken it as a natural thing that a subterranean cavern\nshould be artificially lit, and even now, though the fact was patent to my\neyes, I did not really grasp its import until presently the darkness came.\nThe meaning and structure of this huge apparatus we saw I cannot explain,\nbecause we neither of us learnt what it was for or how it worked. One\nafter another, big shafts of metal flung out and up from its centre, their\nheads travelling in what seemed to me to be a parabolic path; each dropped\na sort of dangling arm as it rose towards the apex of its flight and\nplunged down into a vertical cylinder, forcing this down before it. About\nit moved the shapes of tenders, little figures that seemed vaguely\ndifferent from the beings about us. As each of the three dangling arms of\nthe machine plunged down, there was a clank and then a roaring, and out of\nthe top of the vertical cylinder came pouring this incandescent substance\nthat lit the place, and ran over as milk runs over a boiling pot, and\ndripped luminously into a tank of light below. It was a cold blue light, a\nsort of phosphorescent glow but infinitely brighter, and from the tanks\ninto which it fell it ran in conduits athwart the cavern.\n\nThud, thud, thud, thud, came the sweeping arms of this unintelligible\napparatus, and the light substance hissed and poured. At first the thing\nseemed only reasonably large and near to us, and then I saw how\nexceedingly little the Selenites upon it seemed, and I realised the full\nimmensity of cavern and machine. I looked from this tremendous affair to\nthe faces of the Selenites with a new respect. I stopped, and Cavor\nstopped, and stared at this thunderous engine.\n\n\"But this is stupendous!\" I said. \"What can it be for?\"\n\nCavor's blue-lit face was full of an intelligent respect. \"I can't dream!\nSurely these beings-- Men could not make a thing like that! Look at those\narms, are they on connecting rods?\"\n\nThe thick-set Selenite had gone some paces unheeded. He came back and\nstood between us and the great machine. I avoided seeing him, because I\nguessed somehow that his idea was to beckon us onward. He walked away in\nthe direction he wished us to go, and turned and came back, and flicked\nour faces to attract our attention.\n\nCavor and I looked at one another.\n\n\"Cannot we show him we are interested in the machine?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Cavor. \"We'll try that.\" He turned to our guide and smiled,\nand pointed to the machine, and pointed again, and then to his head, and\nthen to the machine. By some defect of reasoning he seemed to imagine that\nbroken English might help these gestures. \"Me look 'im,\" he said, \"me\nthink 'im very much. Yes.\"\n\nHis behaviour seemed to check the Selenites in their desire for our\nprogress for a moment. They faced one another, their queer heads moved,\nthe twittering voices came quick and liquid. Then one of them, a lean,\ntall creature, with a sort of mantle added to the puttee in which the\nothers were dressed, twisted his elephant trunk of a hand about Cavor's\nwaist, and pulled him gently to follow our guide, who again went on ahead.\nCavor resisted. \"We may just as well begin explaining ourselves now. They\nmay think we are new animals, a new sort of mooncalf perhaps! It is most\nimportant that we should show an intelligent interest from the outset.\"\n\nHe began to shake his head violently. \"No, no,\" he said, \"me not come on\none minute. Me look at 'im.\"\n\n\"Isn't there some geometrical point you might bring in apropos of that\naffair?\" I suggested, as the Selenites conferred again.\n\n\"Possibly a parabolic--\" he began.\n\nHe yelled loudly, and leaped six feet or more!\n\nOne of the four armed moon-men had pricked him with a goad!\n\nI turned on the goad-bearer behind me with a swift threatening gesture,\nand he started back. This and Cavor's sudden shout and leap clearly\nastonished all the Selenites. They receded hastily, facing us. For one of\nthose moments that seem to last for ever, we stood in angry protest, with\na scattered semicircle of these inhuman beings about us.\n\n\"He pricked me!\" said Cavor, with a catching of the voice.\n\n\"I saw him,\" I answered.\n\n\"Confound it!\" I said to the Selenites; \"we're not going to stand that!\nWhat on earth do you take us for?\"\n\nI glanced quickly right and left. Far away across the blue wilderness of\ncavern I saw a number of other Selenites running towards us; broad and\nslender they were, and one with a larger head than the others. The cavern\nspread wide and low, and receded in every direction into darkness. Its\nroof, I remember, seemed to bulge down as if with the weight of the vast\nthickness of rocks that prisoned us. There was no way out of it--no way\nout of it. Above, below, in every direction, was the unknown, and these\ninhuman creatures, with goads and gestures, confronting us, and we two\nunsupported men!\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\n\n\n\nThe Giddy Bridge\n\nJust for a moment that hostile pause endured. I suppose that both we and\nthe Selenites did some very rapid thinking. My clearest impression was\nthat there was nothing to put my back against, and that we were bound to\nbe surrounded and killed. The overwhelming folly of our presence there\nloomed over me in black, enormous reproach. Why had I ever launched\nmyself on this mad, inhuman expedition?\n\nCavor came to my side and laid his hand on my arm. His pale and terrified\nface was ghastly in the blue light.\n\n\"We can't do anything,\" he said. \"It's a mistake. They don't understand.\nWe must go. As they want us to go.\"\n\nI looked down at him, and then at the fresh Selenites who were coming to\nhelp their fellows. \"If I had my hands free--\"\n\n\"It's no use,\" he panted.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"We'll go.\"\n\nAnd he turned about and led the way in the direction that had been\nindicated for us.\n\nI followed, trying to look as subdued as possible, and feeling at the\nchains about my wrists. My blood was boiling. I noted nothing more of that\ncavern, though it seemed to take a long time before we had marched across\nit, or if I noted anything I forgot it as I saw it. My thoughts were\nconcentrated, I think, upon my chains and the Selenites, and particularly\nupon the helmeted ones with the goads. At first they marched parallel with\nus, and at a respectful distance, but presently they were overtaken by\nthree others, and then they drew nearer, until they were within arms\nlength again. I winced like a beaten horse as they came near to us. The\nshorter, thicker Selenite marched at first on our right flank, but\npresently came in front of us again.\n\nHow well the picture of that grouping has bitten into my brain; the back\nof Cavor's downcast head just in front of me, and the dejected droop of\nhis shoulders, and our guide's gaping visage, perpetually jerking about\nhim, and the goad-bearers on either side, watchful, yet open-mouthed--a\nblue monochrome. And after all, I do remember one other thing besides the\npurely personal affair, which is, that a sort of gutter came presently\nacross the floor of the cavern, and then ran along by the side of the path\nof rock we followed. And it was full of that same bright blue luminous\nstuff that flowed out of the great machine. I walked close beside it, and\nI can testify it radiated not a particle of heat. It was brightly shining,\nand yet it was neither warmer nor colder than anything else in the cavern.\n\nClang, clang, clang, we passed right under the thumping levers of another\nvast machine, and so came at last to a wide tunnel, in which we could even\nhear the pad, pad, of our shoeless feet, and which, save for the trickling\nthread of blue to the right of us, was quite unlit. The shadows made\ngigantic travesties of our shapes and those of the Selenites on the\nirregular wall and roof of the tunnel. Ever and again crystals in the\nwalls of the tunnel scintillated like gems, ever and again the tunnel\nexpanded into a stalactitic cavern, or gave off branches that vanished\ninto darkness.\n\nWe seemed to be marching down that tunnel for a long time. \"Trickle,\ntrickle,\" went the flowing light very softly, and our footfalls and their\nechoes made an irregular paddle, paddle. My mind settled down to the\nquestion of my chains. If I were to slip off one turn _so_, and then to\ntwist it _so_ ...\n\nIf I tried to do it very gradually, would they see I was slipping my wrist\nout of the looser turn? If they did, what would they do?\n\n\"Bedford,\" said Cavor, \"it goes down. It keeps on going down.\"\n\nHis remark roused me from my sullen pre-occupation.\n\n\"If they wanted to kill us,\" he said, dropping back to come level with me,\n\"there is no reason why they should not have done it.\"\n\n\"No,\" I admitted, \"that's true.\"\n\n\"They don't understand us,\" he said, \"they think we are merely strange\nanimals, some wild sort of mooncalf birth, perhaps. It will be only\nwhen they have observed us better that they will begin to think we\nhave minds--\"\n\n\"When you trace those geometrical problems,\" said I.\n\n\"It may be that.\"\n\nWe tramped on for a space.\n\n\"You see,\" said Cavor, \"these may be Selenites of a lower class.\"\n\n\"The infernal fools!\" said I viciously, glancing at their exasperating\nfaces.\n\n\"If we endure what they do to us--\"\n\n\"We've got to endure it,\" said I.\n\n\"There may be others less stupid. This is the mere outer fringe of their\nworld. It must go down and down, cavern, passage, tunnel, down at last to\nthe sea--hundreds of miles below.\"\n\nHis words made me think of the mile or so of rock and tunnel that might be\nover our heads already. It was like a weight dropping, on my shoulders.\n\"Away from the sun and air,\" I said. \"Even a mine half a mile deep is\nstuffy.\"\n\n\"This is not, anyhow. It's probable--Ventilation! The air would blow\nfrom the dark side of the moon to the sunlit, and all the carbonic acid\nwould well out there and feed those plants. Up this tunnel, for example,\nthere is quite a breeze. And what a world it must be. The earnest we have\nin that shaft, and those machines--\"\n\n\"And the goad,\" I said. \"Don't forget the goad!\"\n\nHe walked a little in front of me for a time.\n\n\"Even that goad--\" he said.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I was angry at the time. But--it was perhaps necessary we should get on.\nThey have different skins, and probably different nerves. They may not\nunderstand our objection--just as a being from Mars might not like our\nearthly habit of nudging.\"\n\n\"They'd better be careful how they nudge me.\"\n\n\"And about that geometry. After all, their way is a way of understanding,\ntoo. They begin with the elements of life and not of thought. Food.\nCompulsion. Pain. They strike at fundamentals.\"\n\n\"There's no doubt about that,\" I said.\n\nHe went on to talk of the enormous and wonderful world into which we were\nbeing taken. I realised slowly from his tone, that even now he was not\nabsolutely in despair at the prospect of going ever deeper into this\ninhuman planet-burrow. His mind ran on machines and invention, to the\nexclusion of a thousand dark things that beset me. It wasn't that he\nintended to make any use of these things, he simply wanted to know them.\n\n\"After all,\" he said, \"this is a tremendous occasion. It is the meeting\nof two worlds! What are we going to see? Think of what is below us here.\"\n\n\"We shan't see much if the light isn't better,\" I remarked.\n\n\"This is only the outer crust. Down below-- On this scale-- There will\nbe everything. Do you notice how different they seem one from another?\nThe story we shall take back!\"\n\n\"Some rare sort of animal,\" I said, \"might comfort himself in that way\nwhile they were bringing him to the Zoo.... It doesn't follow that we are\ngoing to be shown all these things.\"\n\n\"When they find we have reasonable minds,\" said Cavor, \"they will want to\nlearn about the earth. Even if they have no generous emotions, they will\nteach in order to learn.... And the things they must know! The\nunanticipated things!\"\n\nHe went on to speculate on the possibility of their knowing things he had\nnever hoped to learn on earth, speculating in that way, with a raw wound\nfrom that goad already in his skin! Much that he said I forget, for my\nattention was drawn to the fact that the tunnel along which we had been\nmarching was opening out wider and wider. We seemed, from the feeling of\nthe air, to be going out into a huge space. But how big the space might\nreally be we could not tell, because it was unlit. Our little stream of\nlight ran in a dwindling thread and vanished far ahead. Presently the\nrocky walls had vanished altogether on either hand. There was nothing to\nbe seen but the path in front of us and the trickling hurrying rivulet of\nblue phosphorescence. The figures of Cavor and the guiding Selenite\nmarched before me, the sides of their legs and heads that were towards the\nrivulet were clear and bright blue, their darkened sides, now that the\nreflection of the tunnel wall no longer lit them, merged indistinguishably\nin the darkness beyond.\n\nAnd soon I perceived that we were approaching a declivity of some sort,\nbecause the little blue stream dipped suddenly out of sight.\n\nIn another moment, as it seemed, we had reached the edge. The shining\nstream gave one meander of hesitation and then rushed over. It fell to a\ndepth at which the sound of its descent was absolutely lost to us. Far\nbelow was a bluish glow, a sort of blue mist--at an infinite distance\nbelow. And the darkness the stream dropped out of became utterly void and\nblack, save that a thing like a plank projected from the edge of the cliff\nand stretched out and faded and vanished altogether. There was a warm air\nblowing up out of the gulf.\n\nFor a moment I and Cavor stood as near the edge as we dared, peering into\na blue-tinged profundity. And then our guide was pulling at my arm.\n\nThen he left me, and walked to the end of that plank and stepped upon it,\nlooking back. Then when he perceived we watched him, he turned about and\nwent on along it, walking as surely as though he was on firm earth. For a\nmoment his form was distinct, then he became a blue blur, and then\nvanished into the obscurity. I became aware of some vague shape looming\ndarkly out of the black.\n\nThere was a pause. \"Surely!--\" said Cavor.\n\nOne of the other Selenites walked a few paces out upon the plank, and\nturned and looked back at us unconcernedly. The others stood ready to\nfollow after us. Our guide's expectant figure reappeared. He was returning\nto see why we had not advanced.\n\n\"What is that beyond there?\" I asked.\n\n\"I can't see.\"\n\n\"We can't cross this at any price,\" said I.\n\n\"I could not go three steps on it,\" said Cavor, \"even with my hands free.\"\n\nWe looked at each other's drawn faces in blank consternation.\n\n\"They can't know what it is to be giddy!\" said Cavor.\n\n\"It's quite impossible for us to walk that plank.\"\n\n\"I don't believe they see as we do. I've been watching them. I wonder if\nthey know this is simply blackness for us. How can we make them\nunderstand?\"\n\n\"Anyhow, we must make them understand.\"\n\nI think we said these things with a vague half hope the Selenites might\nsomehow understand. I knew quite clearly that all that was needed was an\nexplanation. Then as I saw their faces, I realised that an explanation was\nimpossible. Just here it was that our resemblances were not going to\nbridge our differences. Well, I wasn't going to walk the plank, anyhow. I\nslipped my wrist very quickly out of the coil of chain that was loose, and\nthen began to twist my wrists in opposite directions. I was standing\nnearest to the bridge, and as I did this two of the Selenites laid hold of\nme, and pulled me gently towards it.\n\nI shook my head violently. \"No go,\" I said, \"no use. You don't\nunderstand.\"\n\nAnother Selenite added his compulsion. I was forced to step forward.\n\n\"I've got an idea,\" said Cavor; but I knew his ideas.\n\n\"Look here!\" I exclaimed to the Selenites. \"Steady on! It's all very well\nfor you--\"\n\nI sprang round upon my heel. I burst out into curses. For one of the armed\nSelenites had stabbed me behind with his goad.\n\nI wrenched my wrists free from the little tentacles that held them. I\nturned on the goad-bearer. \"Confound you!\" I cried. \"I've warned you of\nthat. What on earth do you think I'm made of, to stick that into me? If\nyou touch me again--\"\n\nBy way of answer he pricked me forthwith.\n\nI heard Cavor's voice in alarm and entreaty. Even then I think he wanted\nto compromise with these creatures. \"I say, Bedford,\" he cried, \"I know a\nway!\" But the sting of that second stab seemed to set free some pent-up\nreserve of energy in my being. Instantly the link of the wrist-chain\nsnapped, and with it snapped all considerations that had held us\nunresisting in the hands of these moon creatures. For that second, at\nleast, I was mad with fear and anger. I took no thought of consequences.\nI hit straight out at the face of the thing with the goad. The chain was\ntwisted round my fist.\n\nThere came another of these beastly surprises of which the moon world is\nfull.\n\nMy mailed hand seemed to go clean through him. He smashed like--like\nsome softish sort of sweet with liquid in it! He broke right in! He\nsquelched and splashed. It was like hitting a damp toadstool. The flimsy\nbody went spinning a dozen yards, and fell with a flabby impact. I was\nastonished. I was incredulous that any living thing could be so flimsy.\nFor an instant I could have believed the whole thing a dream.\n\nThen it had become real and imminent again. Neither Cavor nor the other\nSelenites seemed to have done anything from the time when I had turned\nabout to the time when the dead Selenite hit the ground. Every one stood\nback from us two, every one alert. That arrest seemed to last at least a\nsecond after the Selenite was down. Every one must have been taking the\nthing in. I seem to remember myself standing with my arm half retracted,\ntrying also to take it in. \"What next?\" clamoured my brain; \"what next?\"\nThen in a moment every one was moving!\n\nI perceived we must get our chains loose, and that before we could do this\nthese Selenites had to be beaten off. I faced towards the group of the\nthree goad-bearers. Instantly one threw his goad at me. It swished over\nmy head, and I suppose went flying into the abyss behind.\n\nI leaped right at him with all my might as the goad flew over me. He\nturned to run as I jumped, and I bore him to the ground, came down right\nupon him, and slipped upon his smashed body and fell. He seemed to wriggle\nunder my foot.\n\nI came into a sitting position, and on every hand the blue backs of the\nSelenites were receding into the darkness. I bent a link by main force and\nuntwisted the chain that had hampered me about the ankles, and sprang to\nmy feet, with the chain in my hand. Another goad, flung javelin-wise,\nwhistled by me, and I made a rush towards the darkness out of which it had\ncome. Then I turned back towards Cavor, who was still standing in the\nlight of the rivulet near the gulf convulsively busy with his wrists, and\nat the same time jabbering nonsense about his idea.\n\n\"Come on!\" I cried.\n\n\"My hands!\" he answered.\n\nThen, realising that I dared not run back to him, because my\nill-calculated steps might carry me over the edge, he came shuffling\ntowards me, with his hands held out before him.\n\nI gripped his chains at once to unfasten them.\n\n\"Where are they?\" he panted.\n\n\"Run away. They'll come back. They're throwing things! Which way shall we\ngo?\"\n\n\"By the light. To that tunnel. Eh?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, and his hands were free.\n\nI dropped on my knees and fell to work on his ankle bonds. Whack came\nsomething--I know not what--and splashed the livid streamlet into drops\nabout us. Far away on our right a piping and whistling began.\n\nI whipped the chain off his feet, and put it in his hand. \"Hit with that!\"\nI said, and without waiting for an answer, set off in big bounds along\nthe path by which we had come. I had a nasty sort of feeling that these\nthings could jump out of the darkness on to my back. I heard the impact of\nhis leaps come following after me.\n\nWe ran in vast strides. But that running, you must understand, was an\naltogether different thing from any running on earth. On earth one leaps\nand almost instantly hits the ground again, but on the moon, because of\nits weaker pull, one shot through the air for several seconds before one\ncame to earth. In spite of our violent hurry this gave an effect of long\npauses, pauses in which one might have counted seven or eight. \"Step,\"\nand one soared off! All sorts of questions ran through my mind: \"Where are\nthe Selenites? What will they do? Shall we ever get to that tunnel? Is\nCavor far behind? Are they likely to cut him off?\" Then whack, stride, and\noff again for another step.\n\nI saw a Selenite running in front of me, his legs going exactly as a man's\nwould go on earth, saw him glance over his shoulder, and heard him shriek\nas he ran aside out of my way into the darkness. He was, I think, our\nguide, but I am not sure. Then in another vast stride the walls of rock\nhad come into view on either hand, and in two more strides I was in the\ntunnel, and tempering my pace to its low roof. I went on to a bend, then\nstopped and turned back, and plug, plug, plug, Cavor came into view,\nsplashing into the stream of blue light at every stride, and grew larger\nand blundered into me. We stood clutching each other. For a moment, at\nleast, we had shaken off our captors and were alone.\n\nWe were both very much out of breath. We spoke in panting, broken\nsentences.\n\n\"You've spoilt it all!\" panted Cavor. \"Nonsense,\" I cried. \"It was that\nor death!\"\n\n\"What are we to do?\"\n\n\"Hide.\"\n\n\"How can we?\"\n\n\"It's dark enough.\"\n\n\"But where?\"\n\n\"Up one of these side caverns.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Think.\"\n\n\"Right--come on.\"\n\nWe strode on, and presently came to a radiating dark cavern. Cavor was in\nfront. He hesitated, and chose a black mouth that seemed to promise good\nhiding. He went towards it and turned.\n\n\"It's dark,\" he said.\n\n\"Your legs and feet will light us. You're wet with that luminous stuff.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nA tumult of sounds, and in particular a sound like a clanging gong,\nadvancing up the main tunnel, became audible. It was horribly suggestive\nof a tumultuous pursuit. We made a bolt for the unlit side cavern\nforthwith. As we ran along it our way was lit by the irradiation of\nCavor's legs. \"It's lucky,\" I panted, \"they took off our boots, or we\nshould fill this place with clatter.\" On we rushed, taking as small steps\nas we could to avoid striking the roof of the cavern. After a time we\nseemed to be gaining on the uproar. It became muffled, it dwindled, it\ndied away.\n\nI stopped and looked back, and I heard the pad, pad of Cavor's feet\nreceding. Then he stopped also. \"Bedford,\" he whispered; \"there's a sort\nof light in front of us.\"\n\nI looked, and at first could see nothing. Then I perceived his head and\nshoulders dimly outlined against a fainter darkness. I saw, also, that\nthis mitigation of the darkness was not blue, as all the other light\nwithin the moon had been, but a pallid gray, a very vague, faint white,\nthe daylight colour. Cavor noted this difference as soon, or sooner, than\nI did, and I think, too, that it filled him with much the same wild hope.\n\n\"Bedford,\" he whispered, and his voice trembled. \"That light--it is\npossible--\"\n\nHe did not dare to say the thing he hoped. Then came a pause. Suddenly I\nknew by the sound of his feet that he was striding towards that pallor. I\nfollowed him with a beating heart.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 16\n\n\n\n\nPoints of View\n\nThe light grew stronger as we advanced. In a little time it was nearly as\nstrong as the phosphorescence on Cavor's legs. Our tunnel was expanding\ninto a cavern, and this new light was at the farther end of it. I\nperceived something that set my hopes leaping and bounding.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, \"it comes from above! I am certain it comes from above!\"\n\nHe made no answer, but hurried on.\n\nIndisputably it was a gray light, a silvery light.\n\nIn another moment we were beneath it. It filtered down through a chink in\nthe walls of the cavern, and as I stared up, drip, came a drop of water\nupon my face. I started and stood aside--drip, fell another drop quite\naudibly on the rocky floor.\n\n\"Cavor,\" I said, \"if one of us lifts the other, he can reach that crack!\"\n\n\"I'll lift you,\" he said, and incontinently hoisted me as though I was a\nbaby.\n\nI thrust an arm into the crack, and just at my finger tips found a little\nledge by which I could hold. I could see the white light was very much\nbrighter now. I pulled myself up by two fingers with scarcely an effort,\nthough on earth I weigh twelve stone, reached to a still higher corner of\nrock, and so got my feet on the narrow ledge. I stood up and searched up\nthe rocks with my fingers; the cleft broadened out upwardly. \"It's\nclimbable,\" I said to Cavor. \"Can you jump up to my hand if I hold it down\nto you?\"\n\nI wedged myself between the sides of the cleft, rested knee and foot on\nthe ledge, and extended a hand. I could not see Cavor, but I could hear\nthe rustle of his movements as he crouched to spring. Then whack and he\nwas hanging to my arm--and no heavier than a kitten! I lugged him up\nuntil he had a hand on my ledge, and could release me.\n\n\"Confound it!\" I said, \"any one could be a mountaineer on the moon;\" and\nso set myself in earnest to the climbing. For a few minutes I clambered\nsteadily, and then I looked up again. The cleft opened out steadily, and\nthe light was brighter. Only--\n\nIt was not daylight after all.\n\nIn another moment I could see what it was, and at the sight I could have\nbeaten my head against the rocks with disappointment. For I beheld simply\nan irregularly sloping open space, and all over its slanting floor stood a\nforest of little club-shaped fungi, each shining gloriously with that\npinkish silvery light. For a moment I stared at their soft radiance, then\nsprang forward and upward among them. I plucked up half a dozen and flung\nthem against the rocks, and then sat down, laughing bitterly, as Cavor's\nruddy face came into view.\n\n\"It's phosphorescence again!\" I said. \"No need to hurry. Sit down and make\nyourself at home.\" And as he spluttered over our disappointment, I began\nto lob more of these growths into the cleft.\n\n\"I thought it was daylight,\" he said.\n\n\"Daylight!\" cried I. \"Daybreak, sunset, clouds, and windy skies! Shall we\never see such things again?\"\n\nAs I spoke, a little picture of our world seemed to rise before me, bright\nand little and clear, like the background of some old Italian picture.\n\"The sky that changes, and the sea that changes, and the hills and the\ngreen trees and the towns and cities shining in the sun. Think of a wet\nroof at sunset, Cavor! Think of the windows of a westward house!\" He made\nno answer.\n\n\"Here we are burrowing in this beastly world that isn't a world, with its\ninky ocean hidden in some abominable blackness below, and outside that\ntorrid day and that death stillness of night. And all these things that\nare chasing us now, beastly men of leather--insect men, that come out of\na nightmare! After all, they're right! What business have we here smashing\nthem and disturbing their world! For all we know the whole planet is up\nand after us already. In a minute we may hear them whimpering, and their\ngongs going. What are we to do? Where are we to go? Here we are as\ncomfortable as snakes from Jamrach's loose in a Surbiton villa!\"\n\n\"It was your fault,\" said Cavor.\n\n\"My fault!\" I shouted. \"Good Lord!\"\n\n\"I had an idea!\"\n\n\"Curse your ideas!\"\n\n\"If we had refused to budge--\"\n\n\"Under those goads?\"\n\n\"Yes. They would have carried us!\"\n\n\"Over that bridge?\"\n\n\"Yes. They must have carried us from outside.\"\n\n\"I'd rather be carried by a fly across a ceiling.\"\n\n\"Good Heavens!\"\n\nI resumed my destruction of the fungi. Then suddenly I saw something that\nstruck me even then. \"Cavor,\" I said, \"these chains are of gold!\"\n\nHe was thinking intently, with his hands gripping his cheeks. He turned\nhis head slowly and stared at me, and when I had repeated my words, at the\ntwisted chain about his right hand. \"So they are,\" he said, \"so they\nare.\" His face lost its transitory interest even as he looked. He\nhesitated for a moment, then went on with his interrupted meditation. I\nsat for a space puzzling over the fact that I had only just observed this,\nuntil I considered the blue light in which we had been, and which had\ntaken all the colour out of the metal. And from that discovery I also\nstarted upon a train of thought that carried me wide and far. I forgot\nthat I had just been asking what business we had in the moon. Gold....\n\nIt was Cavor who spoke first. \"It seems to me that there are two courses\nopen to us.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Either we can attempt to make our way--fight our way if necessary--out\nto the exterior again, and then hunt for our sphere until we find it, or\nthe cold of the night comes to kill us, or else--\"\n\nHe paused. \"Yes?\" I said, though I knew what was coming.\n\n\"We might attempt once more to establish some sort of understanding with\nthe minds of the people in the moon.\"\n\n\"So far as I'm concerned--it's the first.\"\n\n\"I doubt.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"You see,\" said Cavor, \"I do not think we can judge the Selenites by what\nwe have seen of them. Their central world, their civilised world will be\nfar below in the profounder caverns about their sea. This region of the\ncrust in which we are is an outlying district, a pastoral region. At any\nrate, that is my interpretation. These Selenites we have seen may be only\nthe equivalent of cowboys and engine-tenders. Their use of goads--in all\nprobability mooncalf goads--the lack of imagination they show in expecting\nus to be able to do just what they can do, their indisputable brutality,\nall seem to point to something of that sort. But if we endured--\"\n\n\"Neither of us could endure a six-inch plank across the bottomless pit for\nvery long.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Cavor; \"but then--\"\n\n\"I _won't_,\" I said.\n\nHe discovered a new line of possibilities. \"Well, suppose we got ourselves\ninto some corner, where we could defend ourselves against these hinds and\nlabourers. If, for example, we could hold out for a week or so, it is\nprobable that the news of our appearance would filter down to the more\nintelligent and populous parts--\"\n\n\"If they exist.\"\n\n\"They must exist, or whence came those tremendous machines?\"\n\n\"That's possible, but it's the worst of the two chances.\"\n\n\"We might write up inscriptions on walls--\"\n\n\"How do we know their eyes would see the sort of marks we made?\"\n\n\"If we cut them--\"\n\n\"That's possible, of course.\"\n\nI took up a new thread of thought. \"After all,\" I said, \"I suppose you\ndon't think these Selenites so infinitely wiser than men.\"\n\n\"They must know a lot more--or at least a lot of different things.\"\n\n\"Yes, but--\" I hesitated.\n\n\"I think you'll quite admit, Cavor, that you're rather an exceptional\nman.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Well, you--you're a rather lonely man--have been, that is. You haven't\nmarried.\"\n\n\"Never wanted to. But why--\"\n\n\"And you never grew richer than you happened to be?\"\n\n\"Never wanted that either.\"\n\n\"You've just rooted after knowledge?\"\n\n\"Well, a certain curiosity is natural--\"\n\n\"You think so. That's just it. You think every other mind wants to know. I\nremember once, when I asked you why you conducted all these researches,\nyou said you wanted your F.R.S., and to have the stuff called Cavorite,\nand things like that. You know perfectly well you didn't do it for that;\nbut at the time my question took you by surprise, and you felt you ought\nto have something to look like a motive. Really you conducted researches\nbecause you had to. It's your twist.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is--\"\n\n\"It isn't one man in a million has that twist. Most men want--well,\nvarious things, but very few want knowledge for its own sake. I don't, I\nknow perfectly well. Now, these Selenites seem to be a driving, busy sort\nof being, but how do you know that even the most intelligent will take an\ninterest in us or our world? I don't believe they'll even know we have a\nworld. They never come out at night--they'd freeze if they did. They've\nprobably never seen any heavenly body at all except the blazing sun. How\nare they to know there is another world? What does it matter to them if\nthey do? Well, even if they have had a glimpse of a few stars, or even of\nthe earth crescent, what of that? Why should people living inside a\nplanet trouble to observe that sort of thing? Men wouldn't have done it\nexcept for the seasons and sailing; why should the moon people?...\n\n\"Well, suppose there are a few philosophers like yourself. They are just\nthe very Selenites who'll never have heard of our existence. Suppose a\nSelenite had dropped on the earth when you were at Lympne, you'd have\nbeen the last man in the world to hear he had come. You never read a\nnewspaper! You see the chances against you. Well, it's for these chances\nwe're sitting here doing nothing while precious time is flying. I tell you\nwe've got into a fix. We've come unarmed, we've lost our sphere, we've got\nno food, we've shown ourselves to the Selenites, and made them think we're\nstrange, strong, dangerous animals; and unless these Selenites are perfect\nfools, they'll set about now and hunt us till they find us, and when they\nfind us they'll try to take us if they can, and kill us if they can't, and\nthat's the end of the matter. If they take us, they'll probably kill us,\nthrough some misunderstanding. After we're done for, they may discuss us\nperhaps, but we shan't get much fun out of that.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"On the other hand, here's gold knocking about like cast iron at home. If\nonly we can get some of it back, if only we can find our sphere again\nbefore they do, and get back, then--\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"We might put the thing on a sounder footing. Come back in a bigger\nsphere with guns.\"\n\n\"Good Lord!\" cried Cavor, as though that was horrible.\n\nI shied another luminous fungus down the cleft.\n\n\"Look here, Cavor,\" I said, \"I've half the voting power anyhow in this\naffair, and this is a case for a practical man. I'm a practical man, and\nyou are not. I'm not going to trust to Selenites and geometrical diagrams\nif I can help it. That's all. Get back. Drop all this secrecy--or most\nof it. And come again.\"\n\nHe reflected. \"When I came to the moon,\" he said, \"I ought to have come\nalone.\"\n\n\"The question before the meeting,\" I said, \"is how to get back to the\nsphere.\"\n\nFor a time we nursed our knees in silence. Then he seemed to decide for my\nreasons.\n\n\"I think,\" he said, \"one can get data. It is clear that while the sun is\non this side of the moon the air will be blowing through this planet\nsponge from the dark side hither. On this side, at any rate, the air will\nbe expanding and flowing out of the moon caverns into the craters....\nVery well, there's a draught here.\"\n\n\"So there is.\"\n\n\"And that means that this is not a dead end; somewhere behind us this\ncleft goes on and up. The draught is blowing up, and that is the way we\nhave to go. If we try to get up any sort of chimney or gully there is, we\nshall not only get out of these passages where they are hunting for us--\"\n\n\"But suppose the gully is too narrow?\"\n\n\"We'll come down again.\"\n\n\"Ssh!\" I said suddenly; \"what's that?\"\n\nWe listened. At first it was an indistinct murmur, and then one picked out\nthe clang of a gong. \"They must think we are mooncalves,\" said I, \"to be\nfrightened at that.\"\n\n\"They're coming along that passage,\" said Cavor.\n\n\"They must be.\"\n\n\"They'll not think of the cleft. They'll go past.\"\n\nI listened again for a space. \"This time,\" I whispered, \"they're likely to\nhave some sort of weapon.\"\n\nThen suddenly I sprang to my feet. \"Good heavens, Cavor!\" I cried. \"But\nthey will! They'll see the fungi I have been pitching down. They'll--\"\n\nI didn't finish my sentence. I turned about and made a leap over the\nfungus tops towards the upper end of the cavity. I saw that the space\nturned upward and became a draughty cleft again, ascending to impenetrable\ndarkness. I was about to clamber up into this, and then with a happy\ninspiration turned back.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" asked Cavor.\n\n\"Go on!\" said I, and went back and got two of the shining fungi, and\nputting one into the breast pocket of my flannel jacket, so that it stuck\nout to light our climbing, went back with the other for Cavor. The noise\nof the Selenites was now so loud that it seemed they must be already\nbeneath the cleft. But it might be they would have difficulty in\nclambering in to it, or might hesitate to ascend it against our possible\nresistance. At any rate, we had now the comforting knowledge of the\nenormous muscular superiority our birth in another planet gave us. In\nother minute I was clambering with gigantic vigour after Cavor's blue-lit\nheels.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 17\n\n\n\n\nThe Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers\n\nI do not know how far we clambered before we came to the grating. It may\nbe we ascended only a few hundred feet, but at the time it seemed to me we\nmight have hauled and jammed and hopped and wedged ourselves through a\nmile or more of vertical ascent. Whenever I recall that time, there comes\ninto my head the heavy clank of our golden chains that followed every\nmovement. Very soon my knuckles and knees were raw, and I had a bruise on\none cheek. After a time the first violence of our efforts diminished, and\nour movements became more deliberate and less painful. The noise of the\npursuing Selenites had died away altogether. It seemed almost as though\nthey had not traced us up the crack after all, in spite of the tell-tale\nheap of broken fungi that must have lain beneath it. At times the cleft\nnarrowed so much that we could scarce squeeze up it; at others it expanded\ninto great drusy cavities, studded with prickly crystals or thickly beset\nwith dull, shining fungoid pimples. Sometimes it twisted spirally, and at\nother times slanted down nearly to the horizontal direction. Ever and\nagain there was the intermittent drip and trickle of water by us. Once or\ntwice it seemed to us that small living things had rustled out of our\nreach, but what they were we never saw. They may have been venomous beasts\nfor all I know, but they did us no harm, and we were now tuned to a pitch\nwhen a weird creeping thing more or less mattered little. And at last, far\nabove, came the familiar bluish light again, and then we saw that it\nfiltered through a grating that barred our way.\n\nWe whispered as we pointed this out to one another, and became more and\nmore cautious in our ascent. Presently we were close under the grating,\nand by pressing my face against its bars I could see a limited portion of\nthe cavern beyond. It was clearly a large space, and lit no doubt by some\nrivulet of the same blue light that we had seen flow from the beating\nmachinery. An intermittent trickle of water dropped ever and again between\nthe bars near my face.\n\nMy first endeavour was naturally to see what might be upon the floor of\nthe cavern, but our grating lay in a depression whose rim hid all this\nfrom our eyes. Our foiled attention then fell back upon the suggestion of\nthe various sounds we heard, and presently my eye caught a number of faint\nshadows that played across the dim roof far overhead.\n\nIndisputably there were several Selenites, perhaps a considerable number,\nin this space, for we could hear the noises of their intercourse, and\nfaint sounds that I identified as their footfalls. There was also a\nsuccession of regularly repeated sounds--chid, chid, chid--which began\nand ceased, suggestive of a knife or spade hacking at some soft substance.\nThen came a clank as if of chains, a whistle and a rumble as of a truck\nrunning over a hollowed place, and then again that chid, chid, chid\nresumed. The shadows told of shapes that moved quickly and rhythmically,\nin agreement with that regular sound, and rested when it ceased.\n\nWe put our heads close together, and began to discuss these things in\nnoiseless whispers.\n\n\"They are occupied,\" I said, \"they are occupied in some way.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"They're not seeking us, or thinking of us.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they have not heard of us.\"\n\n\"Those others are hunting about below. If suddenly we appeared here--\"\n\nWe looked at one another.\n\n\"There might be a chance to parley,\" said Cavor.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"Not as we are.\"\n\nFor a space we remained, each occupied by his own thoughts.\n\nChid, chid, chid went the chipping, and the shadows moved to and fro.\n\nI looked at the grating. \"It's flimsy,\" I said. \"We might bend two of the\nbars and crawl through.\"\n\nWe wasted a little time in vague discussion. Then I took one of the bars\nin both hands, and got my feet up against the rock until they were almost\non a level with my head, and so thrust against the bar. It bent so\nsuddenly that I almost slipped. I clambered about and bent the adjacent\nbar in the opposite direction, and then took the luminous fungus from my\npocket and dropped it down the fissure.\n\n\"Don't do anything hastily,\" whispered Cavor, as I twisted myself up\nthrough the opening I had enlarged. I had a glimpse of busy figures as I\ncame through the grating, and immediately bent down, so that the rim of\nthe depression in which the grating lay hid me from their eyes, and so lay\nflat, signalling advice to Cavor as he also prepared to come through.\nPresently we were side by side in the depression, peering over the edge at\nthe cavern and its occupants.\n\nIt was a much larger cavern than we had supposed from our first glimpse of\nit, and we looked up from the lowest portion of its sloping floor. It\nwidened out as it receded from us, and its roof came down and hid the\nremoter portion altogether. And lying in a line along its length,\nvanishing at last far away in that tremendous perspective, were a number\nof huge shapes, huge pallid hulls, upon which the Selenites were busy. At\nfirst they seemed big white cylinders of vague import. Then I noted the\nheads upon them lying towards us, eyeless and skinless like the heads of\nsheep at a butcher's, and perceived they were the carcasses of mooncalves\nbeing cut up, much as the crew of a whaler might cut up a moored whale.\nThey were cutting off the flesh in strips, and on some of the farther\ntrunks the white ribs were showing. It was the sound of their hatchets\nthat made that chid, chid, chid. Some way away a thing like a trolley\ncable, drawn and loaded with chunks of lax meat, was running up the slope\nof the cavern floor. This enormous long avenue of hulls that were destined\nto be food gave us a sense of the vast populousness of the moon world\nsecond only to the effect of our first glimpse down the shaft.\n\nIt seemed to me at first that the Selenites must be standing on\ntrestle-supported planks,[*] and then I saw that the planks and supports\nand the hatchets were really of the same leaden hue as my fetters had\nseemed before white light came to bear on them. A number of very\nthick-looking crowbars lay about the floor, and had apparently assisted\nto turn the dead mooncalf over on its side. They were perhaps six feet\nlong, with shaped handles, very tempting-looking weapons. The whole\nplace was lit by three transverse streams of the blue fluid.\n\n[* Footnote: I do not remember seeing any wooden things on the moon; doors\ntables, everything corresponding to our terrestrial joinery was made of\nmetal, and I believe for the most part of gold, which as a metal would,\nof course, naturally recommend itself--other things being equal--on\naccount of the ease in working it, and its toughness and durability.]\n\nWe lay for a long time noting all these things in silence. \"Well?\" said\nCavor at last.\n\nI crouched over and turned to him. I had come upon a brilliant idea.\n\"Unless they lowered those bodies by a crane,\" I said, \"we must be nearer\nthe surface than I thought.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"The mooncalf doesn't hop, and it hasn't got wings.\"\n\nHe peered over the edge of the hollow again. \"I wonder now--\" he began.\n\"After all, we have never gone far from the surface--\"\n\nI stopped him by a grip on his arm. I had heard a noise from the cleft\nbelow us!\n\nWe twisted ourselves about, and lay as still as death, with every sense\nalert. In a little while I did not doubt that something was quietly\nascending the cleft. Very slowly and quite noiselessly I assured myself\nof a good grip on my chain, and waited for that something to appear.\n\n\"Just look at those chaps with the hatchets again,\" I said.\n\n\"They're all right,\" said Cavor.\n\nI took a sort of provisional aim at the gap in the grating. I could hear\nnow quite distinctly the soft twittering of the ascending Selenites, the\ndab of their hands against the rock, and the falling of dust from their\ngrips as they clambered.\n\nThen I could see that there was something moving dimly in the blackness\nbelow the grating, but what it might be I could not distinguish. The whole\nthing seemed to hang fire just for a moment--then smash! I had sprung\nto my feet, struck savagely at something that had flashed out at me. It\nwas the keen point of a spear. I have thought since that its length in the\nnarrowness of the cleft must have prevented its being sloped to reach me.\nAnyhow, it shot out from the grating like the tongue of a snake, and\nmissed and flew back and flashed again. But the second time I snatched and\ncaught it, and wrenched it away, but not before another had darted\nineffectually at me.\n\nI shouted with triumph as I felt the hold of the Selenite resist my pull\nfor a moment and give, and then I was jabbing down through the bars,\namidst squeals from the darkness, and Cavor had snapped off the other\nspear, and was leaping and flourishing it beside me, and making\ninefficient jabs. Clang, clang, came up through the grating, and then an\naxe hurtled through the air and whacked against the rocks beyond, to\nremind me of the fleshers at the carcasses up the cavern.\n\nI turned, and they were all coming towards us in open order waving their\naxes. They were short, thick, little beggars, with long arms, strikingly\ndifferent from the ones we had seen before. If they had not heard of us\nbefore, they must have realised the situation with incredible swiftness. I\nstared at them for a moment, spear in hand. \"Guard that grating, Cavor,\" I\ncried, howled to intimidate them, and rushed to meet them. Two of them\nmissed with their hatchets, and the rest fled incontinently. Then the two\nalso were sprinting away up the cavern, with hands clenched and heads\ndown. I never saw men run like them!\n\nI knew the spear I had was no good for me. It was thin and flimsy, only\neffectual for a thrust, and too long for a quick recover. So I only chased\nthe Selenites as far as the first carcass, and stopped there and picked up\none of the crowbars that were lying about. It felt comfortingly heavy, and\nequal to smashing any number of Selenites. I threw away my spear, and\npicked up a second crowbar for the other hand. I felt five times better\nthan I had with the spear. I shook the two threateningly at the Selenites,\nwho had come to a halt in a little crowd far away up the cavern, and then\nturned about to look at Cavor.\n\nHe was leaping from side to side of the grating, making threatening jabs\nwith his broken spear. That was all right. It would keep the Selenites\ndown--for a time at any rate. I looked up the cavern again. What on earth\nwere we going to do now?\n\nWe were cornered in a sort of way already. But these butchers up the\ncavern had been surprised, they were probably scared, and they had no\nspecial weapons, only those little hatchets of theirs. And that way lay\nescape. Their sturdy little forms--ever so much shorter and thicker than\nthe mooncalf herds--were scattered up the slope in a way that was\neloquent of indecision. I had the moral advantage of a mad bull in a\nstreet. But for all that, there seemed a tremendous crowd of them. Very\nprobably there was. Those Selenites down the cleft had certainly some\ninfernally long spears. It might be they had other surprises for us....\nBut, confound it! if we charged up the cave we should let them up behind\nus, and if we didn't those little brutes up the cave would probably get\nreinforced. Heaven alone knew what tremendous engines of warfare--guns,\nbombs, terrestrial torpedoes--this unknown world below our feet, this\nvaster world of which we had only pricked the outer cuticle, might not\npresently send up to our destruction. It became clear the only thing to do\nwas to charge! It became clearer as the legs of a number of fresh\nSelenites appeared running down the cavern towards us.\n\n\"Bedford!\" cried Cavor, and behold! he was halfway between me and the\ngrating.\n\n\"Go back!\" I cried. \"What are you doing--\"\n\n\"They've got--it's like a gun!\"\n\nAnd struggling in the grating between those defensive spears appeared the\nhead and shoulders of a singularly lean and angular Selenite, bearing some\ncomplicated apparatus.\n\nI realised Cavor's utter incapacity for the fight we had in hand. For a\nmoment I hesitated. Then I rushed past him whirling my crowbars, and\nshouting to confound the aim of the Selenite. He was aiming in the\nqueerest way with the thing against his stomach. \"Chuzz!\" The thing\nwasn't a gun; it went off like cross-bow more, and dropped me in the\nmiddle of a leap.\n\nI didn't fall down, I simply came down a little shorter than I should have\ndone if I hadn't been hit, and from the feel of my shoulder the thing\nmight have tapped me and glanced off. Then my left hand hit again the\nshaft, and I perceived there was a sort of spear sticking half through my\nshoulder. The moment after I got home with the crowbar in my right hand,\nand hit the Selenite fair and square. He collapsed--he crushed and\ncrumpled--his head smashed like an egg.\n\nI dropped a crowbar, pulled the spear out of my shoulder, and began to jab\nit down the grating into the darkness. At each jab came a shriek and\ntwitter. Finally I hurled the spear down upon them with all my strength,\nleapt up, picked up the crowbar again, and started for the multitude up\nthe cavern.\n\n\"Bedford!\" cried Cavor. \"Bedford!\" as I flew past him.\n\nI seem to remember his footsteps coming on behind me.\n\nStep, leap ... whack, step, leap.... Each leap seemed to last ages. With\neach, the cave opened out and the number of Selenites visible increased.\nAt first they seemed all running about like ants in a disturbed ant-hill,\none or two waving hatchets and coming to meet me, more running away, some\nbolting sideways into the avenue of carcasses, then presently others came\nin sight carrying spears, and then others. I saw a most extraordinary\nthing, all hands and feet, bolting for cover. The cavern grew darker\nfarther up.\n\nFlick! something flew over my head. Flick! As I soared in mid-stride I saw\na spear hit and quiver in one of the carcasses to my left. Then, as I came\ndown, one hit the ground before me, and I heard the remote chuzz! with\nwhich their things were fired. Flick, flick! for a moment it was a\nshower. They were volleying!\n\nI stopped dead.\n\nI don't think I thought clearly then. I seem to remember a kind of\nstereotyped phrase running through my mind: \"Zone of fire, seek cover!\" I\nknow I made a dash for the space between two of the carcasses, and stood\nthere panting and feeling very wicked.\n\nI looked round for Cavor, and for a moment it seemed as if he had vanished\nfrom the world. Then he came out of the darkness between the row of the\ncarcasses and the rocky wall of the cavern. I saw his little face, dark\nand blue, and shining with perspiration and emotion.\n\nHe was saying something, but what it was I did not heed. I had realised\nthat we might work from mooncalf to mooncalf up the cave until we were\nnear enough to charge home. It was charge or nothing. \"Come on!\" I said,\nand led the way.\n\n\"Bedford!\" he cried unavailingly.\n\nMy mind was busy as we went up that narrow alley between the dead bodies\nand the wall of the cavern. The rocks curved about--they could not\nenfilade us. Though in that narrow space we could not leap, yet with our\nearth-born strength we were still able to go very much faster than the\nSelenites. I reckoned we should presently come right among them. Once\nwe were on them, they would be nearly as formidable as black beetles.\nOnly there would first of all be a volley. I thought of a stratagem.\nI whipped off my flannel jacket as I ran.\n\n\"Bedford!\" panted Cavor behind me.\n\nI glanced back. \"What?\" said I.\n\nHe was pointing upward over the carcasses. \"White light!\" he said. \"White\nlight again!\"\n\nI looked, and it was even so; a faint white ghost of light in the remoter\ncavern roof. That seemed to give me double strength.\n\n\"Keep close,\" I said. A flat, long Selenite dashed out of the darkness,\nand squealed and fled. I halted, and stopped Cavor with my hand. I hung my\njacket over my crowbar, ducked round the next carcass, dropped jacket and\ncrowbar, showed myself, and darted back.\n\n\"Chuzz-flick,\" just one arrow came. We were close on the Selenites, and\nthey were standing in a crowd, broad, short, and tall together, with a\nlittle battery of their shooting implements pointing down the cave. Three\nor four other arrows followed the first, then their fire ceased.\n\nI stuck out my head, and escaped by a hair's-breadth. This time I drew a\ndozen shots or more, and heard the Selenites shouting and twittering as if\nwith excitement as they shot. I picked up jacket and crowbar again.\n\n\"Now!\" said I, and thrust out the jacket.\n\n\"Chuzz-zz-zz-zz! Chuzz!\" In an instant my jacket had grown a thick beard\nof arrows, and they were quivering all over the carcass behind us.\nInstantly I slipped the crowbar out of the jacket, dropped the jacket--for\nall I know to the contrary it is lying up there in the moon now--and\nrushed out upon them.\n\nFor a minute perhaps it was massacre. I was too fierce to discriminate,\nand the Selenites were probably too scared to fight. At any rate they made\nno sort of fight against me. I saw scarlet, as the saying is. I remember I\nseemed to be wading among those leathery, thin things as a man wades\nthrough tall grass, mowing and hitting, first right, then left; smash.\nLittle drops of moisture flew about. I trod on things that crushed and\npiped and went slippery. The crowd seemed to open and close and flow like\nwater. They seemed to have no combined plan whatever. There were spears\nflew about me, I was grazed over the ear by one. I was stabbed once in the\narm and once in the cheek, but I only found that out afterwards, when the\nblood had had time to run and cool and feel wet.\n\nWhat Cavor did I do not know. For a space it seemed that this fighting had\nlasted for an age, and must needs go on for ever. Then suddenly it was all\nover, and there was nothing to be seen but the backs of heads bobbing up\nand down as their owners ran in all directions.... I seemed altogether\nunhurt. I ran forward some paces, shouting, then turned about. I was\namazed.\n\nI had come right through them in vast flying strides, they were all behind\nme, and running hither and thither to hide.\n\nI felt an enormous astonishment at the evaporation of the great fight into\nwhich I had hurled myself, and not a little exultation. It did not seem to\nme that I had discovered the Selenites were unexpectedly flimsy, but that\nI was unexpectedly strong. I laughed stupidly. This fantastic moon!\n\nI glanced for a moment at the smashed and writhing bodies that were\nscattered over the cavern floor, with a vague idea of further violence,\nthen hurried on after Cavor.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 18\n\n\n\n\nIn the Sunlight\n\nPresently we saw that the cavern before us opened upon a hazy void. In\nanother moment we had emerged upon a sort of slanting gallery, that\nprojected into a vast circular space, a huge cylindrical pit running\nvertically up and down. Round this pit the slanting gallery ran without\nany parapet or protection for a turn and a half, and then plunged high\nabove into the rock again. Somehow it reminded me then one of those spiral\nturns of the railway through the Saint Gothard. It was all tremendously\nhuge. I can scarcely hope to convey to you the Titanic proportion of all\nthat place, the Titanic effect of it. Our eyes followed up the vast\ndeclivity of the pit wall, and overhead and far above we beheld a round\nopening set with faint stars, and half of the lip about it well nigh\nblinding with the white light of the sun. At that we cried aloud\nsimultaneously.\n\n\"Come on!\" I said, leading the way.\n\n\"But there?\" said Cavor, and very carefully stepped nearer the edge of the\ngallery. I followed his example, and craned forward and looked down, but I\nwas dazzled by that gleam of light above, and I could see only a\nbottomless darkness with spectral patches of crimson and purple floating\ntherein. Yet if I could not see, I could hear. Out of this darkness came a\nsound, a sound like the angry hum one can hear if one puts one's ear\noutside a hive of bees, a sound out of that enormous hollow, it may be,\nfour miles beneath our feet...\n\nFor a moment I listened, then tightened my grip on my crowbar, and led the\nway up the gallery.\n\n\"This must be the shaft we looked down upon,\" said Cavor. \"Under that\nlid.\"\n\n\"And below there, is where we saw the lights.\"\n\n\"The lights!\" said he. \"Yes--the lights of the world that now we shall\nnever see.\"\n\n\"We'll come back,\" I said, for now we had escaped so much I was rashly\nsanguine that we should recover the sphere.\n\nHis answer I did not catch.\n\n\"Eh?\" I asked.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" he answered, and we hurried on in silence.\n\nI suppose that slanting lateral way was four or five miles long, allowing\nfor its curvature, and it ascended at a slope that would have made it\nalmost impossibly steep on earth, but which one strode up easily under\nlunar conditions. We saw only two Selenites during all that portion of our\nflight, and directly they became aware of us they ran headlong. It was\nclear that the knowledge of our strength and violence had reached them.\nOur way to the exterior was unexpectedly plain. The spiral gallery\nstraightened into a steeply ascendent tunnel, its floor bearing abundant\ntraces of the mooncalves, and so straight and short in proportion to its\nvast arch, that no part of it was absolutely dark. Almost immediately it\nbegan to lighten, and then far off and high up, and quite blindingly\nbrilliant, appeared its opening on the exterior, a slope of Alpine\nsteepness surmounted by a crest of bayonet shrub, tall and broken down\nnow, and dry and dead, in spiky silhouette against the sun.\n\nAnd it is strange that we men, to whom this very vegetation had seemed so\nweird and horrible a little time ago, should now behold it with the\nemotion a home-coming exile might feel at sight of his native land. We\nwelcomed even the rareness of the air that made us pant as we ran, and\nwhich rendered speaking no longer the easy thing that it had been, but an\neffort to make oneself heard. Larger grew the sunlit circle above us, and\nlarger, and all the nearer tunnel sank into a rim of indistinguishable\nblack. We saw the dead bayonet shrub no longer with any touch of green in\nit, but brown and dry and thick, and the shadow of its upper branches\nhigh out of sight made a densely interlaced pattern upon the tumbled\nrocks. And at the immediate mouth of the tunnel was a wide trampled space\nwhere the mooncalves had come and gone.\n\nWe came out upon this space at last into a light and heat that hit and\npressed upon us. We traversed the exposed area painfully, and clambered up\na slope among the scrub stems, and sat down at last panting in a high\nplace beneath the shadow of a mass of twisted lava. Even in the shade the\nrock felt hot.\n\nThe air was intensely hot, and we were in great physical discomfort, but\nfor all that we were no longer in a nightmare. We seemed to have come to\nour own province again, beneath the stars. All the fear and stress of our\nflight through the dim passages and fissures below had fallen from us.\nThat last fight had filled us with an enormous confidence in ourselves so\nfar as the Selenites were concerned. We looked back almost incredulously\nat the black opening from which we had just emerged. Down there it was, in\na blue glow that now in our memories seemed the next thing to absolute\ndarkness, we had met with things like mad mockeries of men, helmet-headed\ncreatures, and had walked in fear before them, and had submitted to them\nuntil we could submit no longer. And behold, they had smashed like wax and\nscattered like chaff, and fled and vanished like the creatures of a dream!\n\nI rubbed my eyes, doubting whether we had not slept and dreamt these\nthings by reason of the fungus we had eaten, and suddenly discovered the\nblood upon my face, and then that my shirt was sticking painfully to my\nshoulder and arm.\n\n\"Confound it!\" I said, gauging my injuries with an investigatory hand, and\nsuddenly that distant tunnel mouth became, as it were, a watching eye.\n\n\"Cavor!\" I said; \"what are they going to do now? And what are we going to\ndo?\"\n\nHe shook his head, with his eyes fixed upon the tunnel. \"How can one tell\nwhat they will do?\"\n\n\"It depends on what they think of us, and I don't see how we can begin to\nguess that. And it depends upon what they have in reserve. It's as you\nsay, Cavor, we have touched the merest outside of this world. They may\nhave all sorts of things inside here. Even with those shooting things they\nmight make it bad for us....\n\n\"Yet after all,\" I said, \"even if we don't find the sphere at once, there\nis a chance for us. We might hold out. Even through the night. We might go\ndown there again and make a fight for it.\"\n\nI stared about me with speculative eyes. The character of the scenery had\naltered altogether by reason of the enormous growth and subsequent drying\nof the scrub. The crest on which we sat was high, and commanded a wide\nprospect of the crater landscape, and we saw it now all sere and dry in\nthe late autumn of the lunar afternoon. Rising one behind the other were\nlong slopes and fields of trampled brown where the mooncalves had\npastured, and far away in the full blaze of the sun a drove of them basked\nslumberously, scattered shapes, each with a blot of shadow against it like\nsheep on the side of a down. But never a sign of a Selenite was to be\nseen. Whether they had fled on our emergence from the interior passages,\nor whether they were accustomed to retire after driving out the\nmooncalves, I cannot guess. At the time I believed the former was the\ncase.\n\n\"If we were to set fire to all this stuff,\" I said, \"we might find the\nsphere among the ashes.\"\n\nCavor did not seem to hear me. He was peering under his hand at the stars,\nthat still, in spite of the intense sunlight, were abundantly visible in\nthe sky. \"How long do you think we've have been here?\" he asked at last.\n\n\"Been where?\"\n\n\"On the moon.\"\n\n\"Two earthly days, perhaps.\"\n\n\"More nearly ten. Do you know, the sun is past its zenith, and sinking in\nthe west. In four days' time or less it will be night.\"\n\n\"But--we've only eaten once!\"\n\n\"I know that. And-- But there are the stars!\"\n\n\"But why should time seem different because we are on a smaller planet?\"\n\n\"I don't know. There it is!\"\n\n\"How does one tell time?\"\n\n\"Hunger--fatigue--all those things are different. Everything is\ndifferent--everything. To me it seems that since first we came out of the\nsphere has been only a question of hours--long hours--at most.\"\n\n\"Ten days,\" I said; \"that leaves--\" I looked up at the sun for a moment,\nand then saw that it was halfway from the zenith to the western edge of\nthings. \"Four days! ... Cavor, we mustn't sit here and dream. How do you\nthink we may begin?\"\n\nI stood up. \"We must get a fixed point we can recognise--we might hoist a\nflag, or a handkerchief, or something--and quarter the ground, and work\nround that.\"\n\nHe stood up beside me.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"there is nothing for it but to hunt the sphere. Nothing.\nWe may find it--certainly we may find it. And if not--\"\n\n\"We must keep on looking.\"\n\nHe look this way and that, glanced up at the sky and down at the tunnel,\nand astonished me by a sudden gesture of impatience. \"Oh! but we have\ndone foolishly! To have come to this pass! Think how it might have been,\nand the things we might have done!\"\n\n\"We might do something yet.\"\n\n\"Never the thing we might have done. Here below out feet is a world.\nThink of what that world must be! Think of that machine we saw, and the\nlid and the shaft! They were just remote outlying things, and those\ncreatures we have seen and fought with no more than ignorant peasants,\ndwellers in the outskirts, yokels and labourers half akin to brutes. Down\nbelow! Caverns beneath caverns, tunnels, structures, ways... It must\nopen out, and be greater and wider and more populous as one descends.\nAssuredly. Right down at the last the central sea that washes round the\ncore of the moon. Think of its inky waters under the spare lights--if,\nindeed, their eyes need lights! Think of the cascading tributaries\npouring down their channels to feed it! Think of the tides upon its\nsurface, and the rush and swirl of its ebb and flow! perhaps they have\nships that go upon it, perhaps down there are mighty cities and swarming\nways, and wisdom and order passing the wit of man. And we may die here\nupon it, and never see the masters who must be--ruling over these things!\nWe may freeze and die here, and the air will freeze and thaw upon us, and\nthen--! Then they will come upon us, come on our stiff and silent\nbodies, and find the sphere we cannot find, and they will understand at\nlast too late all the thought and effort that ended here in vain!\"\n\nHis voice for all that speech sounded like the voice of someone heard\nin a telephone, weak and far away.\n\n\"But the darkness,\" I said.\n\n\"One might get over that.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"I don't know. How am I to know? One might carry a torch, one might have\na lamp-- The others--might understand.\"\n\nHe stood for a moment with his hands held down and a rueful face, staring\nout over the waste that defied him. Then with a gesture of renunciation\nhe turned towards me with proposals for the systematic hunting of the\nsphere.\n\n\"We can return,\" I said.\n\nHe looked about him. \"First of all we shall have to get to earth.\"\n\n\"We could bring back lamps to carry and climbing irons, and a hundred\nnecessary things.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"We can take back an earnest of success in this gold.\"\n\nHe looked at my golden crowbars, and said nothing for a space. He stood\nwith his hands clasped behind his back, staring across the crater. At\nlast he signed and spoke. \"It was I found the way here, but to find a way\nisn't always to be master of a way. If I take my secret back to earth,\nwhat will happen? I do not see how I can keep my secret for a year, for\neven a part of a year. Sooner or later it must come out, even if other\nmen rediscover it. And then ... Governments and powers will struggle to\nget hither, they will fight against one another, and against these moon\npeople; it will only spread warfare and multiply the occasions of war. In\na little while, in a very little while, if I tell my secret, this planet\nto its deepest galleries will be strewn with human dead. Other things are\ndoubtful, but that is certain. It is not as though man had any use for the\nmoon. What good would the moon be to men? Even of their own planet what\nhave they made but a battle-ground and theatre of infinite folly? Small\nas his world is, and short as his time, he has still in his little life\ndown there far more than he can do. No! Science has toiled too long\nforging weapons for fools to use. It is time she held her hand. Let him\nfind it out for himself again--in a thousand years' time.\"\n\n\"There are methods of secrecy,\" I said.\n\nHe looked up at me and smiled. \"After all,\" he said, \"why should one\nworry? There is little chance of our finding the sphere, and down below\nthings are brewing. It's simply the human habit of hoping till we die that\nmakes us think of return. Our troubles are only beginning. We have shown\nthese moon folk violence, we have given them a taste of our quality, and\nour chances are about as good as a tiger's that has got loose and killed a\nman in Hyde Park. The news of us must be running down from gallery to\ngallery, down towards the central parts.... No sane beings will ever let\nus take that sphere back to earth after so much as they have seen of us.\"\n\n\"We aren't improving our chances,\" said I, \"by sitting here.\"\n\nWe stood up side by side.\n\n\"After all,\" he said, \"we must separate. We must stick up a handkerchief on\nthese tall spikes here and fasten it firmly, and from this as a centre we\nmust work over the crater. You must go westward, moving out in semicircles\nto and fro towards the setting sun. You must move first with your shadow\non your right until it is at right angles with the direction of your\nhandkerchief, and then with your shadow on your left. And I will do the\nsame to the east. We will look into every gully, examine every skerry of\nrocks; we will do all we can to find my sphere. If we see the Selenites we\nwill hide from them as well as we can. For drink we must take snow, and if\nwe feel the need of food, we must kill a mooncalf if we can, and eat such\nflesh as it has--raw--and so each will go his own way.\"\n\n\"And if one of us comes upon the sphere?\"\n\n\"He must come back to the white handkerchief, and stand by it and signal\nto the other.\"\n\n\"And if neither?\"\n\nCavor glanced up at the sun. \"We go on seeking until the night and cold\novertake us.\"\n\n\"Suppose the Selenites have found the sphere and hidden it?\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"Or if presently they come hunting us?\"\n\nHe made no answer.\n\n\"You had better take a club,\" I said.\n\nHe shook his head, and stared away from me across the waste.\n\nBut for a moment he did not start. He looked round at me shyly, hesitated.\n\"Au revoir,\" he said.\n\nI felt an odd stab of emotion. A sense of how we had galled each other,\nand particularly how I must have galled him, came to me. \"Confound it,\"\nthought I, \"we might have done better!\" I was on the point of asking him\nto shake hands--for that, somehow, was how I felt just then--when he put\nhis feet together and leapt away from me towards the north. He seemed to\ndrift through the air as a dead leaf would do, fell lightly, and leapt\nagain. I stood for a moment watching him, then faced westward reluctantly,\npulled myself together, and with something of the feeling of a man who\nleaps into icy water, selected a leaping point, and plunged forward to\nexplore my solitary half of the moon world. I dropped rather clumsily\namong rocks, stood up and looked about me, clambered on to a rocky slab,\nand leapt again....\n\nWhen presently I looked for Cavor he was hidden from my eyes, but the\nhandkerchief showed out bravely on its headland, white in the blaze of the\nsun.\n\nI determined not to lose sight of that handkerchief whatever might betide.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 19\n\n\n\n\nMr. Bedford Alone\n\nIn a little while it seemed to me as though I had always been alone on the\nmoon. I hunted for a time with a certain intentness, but the heat was\nstill very great, and the thinness of the air felt like a hoop about one's\nchest. I came presently into a hollow basin bristling with tall, brown,\ndry fronds about its edge, and I sat down under these to rest and cool. I\nintended to rest for only a little while. I put down my clubs beside me,\nand sat resting my chin on my hands. I saw with a sort of colourless\ninterest that the rocks of the basin, where here and there the crackling\ndry lichens had shrunk away to show them, were all veined and splattered\nwith gold, that here and there bosses of rounded and wrinkled gold\nprojected from among the litter. What did that matter now? A sort of\nlanguor had possession of my limbs and mind, I did not believe for a moment\nthat we should ever find the sphere in that vast desiccated wilderness. I\nseemed to lack a motive for effort until the Selenites should come. Then\nI supposed I should exert myself, obeying that unreasonable imperative\nthat urges a man before all things to preserve and defend his life, albeit\nhe may preserve it only to die more painfully in a little while.\n\nWhy had we come to the moon?\n\nThe thing presented itself to me as a perplexing problem. What is this\nspirit in man that urges him for ever to depart from happiness and\nsecurity, to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk even a reasonable\ncertainty of death? It dawned upon me up there in the moon as a thing I\nought always to have known, that man is not made simply to go about being\nsafe and comfortable and well fed and amused. Almost any man, if you put\nthe thing to him, not in words, but in the shape of opportunities, will\nshow that he knows as much. Against his interest, against his happiness, he\nis constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not\nhimself impels him, and go he must. But why? Why? Sitting there in the\nmidst of that useless moon gold, amidst the things of another world, I\ntook count of all my life. Assuming I was to die a castaway upon the moon,\nI failed altogether to see what purpose I had served. I got no light on\nthat point, but at any rate it was clearer to me than it had ever been in\nmy life before that I was not serving my own purpose, that all my life I\nhad in truth never served the purposes of my private life. Whose purposes,\nwhat purposes, was I serving? ... I ceased to speculate on why we had come\nto the moon, and took a wider sweep. Why had I come to the earth? Why had\nI a private life at all? ... I lost myself at last in bottomless\nspeculations....\n\nMy thoughts became vague and cloudy, no longer leading in definite\ndirections. I had not felt heavy or weary--I cannot imagine one doing so\nupon the moon--but I suppose I was greatly fatigued. At any rate I slept.\n\nSlumbering there rested me greatly, I think, and the sun was setting and\nthe violence of the heat abating, through all the time I slumbered. When\nat last I was roused from my slumbers by a remote clamour, I felt active\nand capable again. I rubbed my eyes and stretched my arms. I rose to my\nfeet--I was a little stiff--and at once prepared to resume my search. I\nshouldered my golden clubs, one on each shoulder, and went on out of the\nravine of the gold-veined rocks.\n\nThe sun was certainly lower, much lower than it had been; the air was very\nmuch cooler. I perceived I must have slept some time. It seemed to me that\na faint touch of misty blueness hung about the western cliff I leapt to a\nlittle boss of rock and surveyed the crater. I could see no signs of\nmooncalves or Selenites, nor could I see Cavor, but I could see my\nhandkerchief far off, spread out on its thicket of thorns. I looked bout\nme, and then leapt forward to the next convenient view-point.\n\nI beat my round in a semicircle, and back again in a still remoter\ncrescent. It was very fatiguing and hopeless. The air was really very much\ncooler, and it seemed to me that the shadow under the westward cliff was\ngrowing broad. Ever and again I stopped and reconnoitred, but there was no\nsign of Cavor, no sign of Selenites; and it seemed to me the mooncalves\nmust have been driven into the interior again--I could see none of them.\nI became more and more desirous of seeing Cavor. The winged outline of the\nsun had sunk now, until it was scarcely the distance of its diameter from\nthe rim of the sky. I was oppressed by the idea that the Selenites would\npresently close their lids and valves, and shut us out under the\ninexorable onrush of the lunar night. It seemed to me high time that he\nabandoned his search, and that we took counsel together. I felt how urgent\nit was that we should decide soon upon our course. We had failed to find\nthe sphere, we no longer had time to seek it, and once these valves were\nclosed with us outside, we were lost men. The great night of space would\ndescend upon us--that blackness of the void which is the only absolute\ndeath. All my being shrank from that approach. We must get into the moon\nagain, though we were slain in doing it. I was haunted by a vision of our\nfreezing to death, of our hammering with our last strength on the valve of\nthe great pit.\n\nI took no thought any more of the sphere. I thought only of finding Cavor\nagain. I was half inclined to go back into the moon without him, rather\nthan seek him until it was too late. I was already half-way back towards\nour handkerchief, when suddenly--\n\nI saw the sphere!\n\nI did not find it so much as it found me. It was lying much farther to the\nwestward than I had gone, and the sloping rays of the sinking sun\nreflected from its glass had suddenly proclaimed its presence in a\ndazzling beam. For an instant I thought this was some new device of the\nSelenites against us, and then I understood.\n\nI threw up my arms, shouted a ghostly shout, and set off in vast leaps\ntowards it. I missed one of my leaps and dropped into a deep ravine and\ntwisted my ankle, and after that I stumbled at almost every leap. I was\nin a state of hysterical agitation, trembling violently, and quite\nbreathless long before I got to it. Three times at least I had to stop\nwith my hands resting on my side and in spite of the thin dryness of the\nair, the perspiration was wet upon my face.\n\nI thought of nothing but the sphere until I reached it, I forgot even my\ntrouble of Cavor's whereabouts. My last leap flung me with my hands hard\nagainst its glass; then I lay against it panting, and trying vainly to\nshout, \"Cavor! here is the sphere!\" When I had recovered a little I peered\nthrough the thick glass, and the things inside seemed tumbled. I stooped\nto peer closer. Then I attempted to get in. I had to hoist it over a\nlittle to get my head through the manhole. The screw stopper was inside,\nand I could see now that nothing had been touched, nothing had suffered.\nIt lay there as we had left it when we had dropped out amidst the snow.\nFor a time I was wholly occupied in making and remaking this inventory. I\nfound I was trembling violently. It was good to see that familiar dark\ninterior again! I cannot tell you how good. Presently I crept inside and\nsat down among the things. I looked through the glass at the moon world\nand shivered. I placed my gold clubs upon the table, and sought out and\ntook a little food; not so much because I wanted it, but because it was\nthere. Then it occurred to me that it was time to go out and signal for\nCavor. But I did not go out and signal for Cavor forthwith. Something\nheld me to the sphere.\n\nAfter all, everything was coming right. There would be still time for us\nto get more of the magic stone that gives one mastery over men. Away\nthere, close handy, was gold for the picking up; and the sphere would\ntravel as well half full of gold as though it were empty. We could go\nback now, masters of ourselves and our world, and then--\n\nI roused myself at last, and with an effort got myself out of the sphere.\nI shivered as I emerged, for the evening air was growing very cold. I\nstood in the hollow staring about me. I scrutinised the bushes round me\nvery carefully before I leapt to the rocky shelf hard by, and took once\nmore what had been my first leap in the moon. But now I made it with no\neffort whatever.\n\nThe growth and decay of the vegetation had gone on apace, and the whole\naspect of the rocks had changed, but still it was possible to make out the\nslope on which the seeds had germinated, and the rocky mass from which we\nhad taken our first view of the crater. But the spiky shrub on the slope\nstood brown and sere now, and thirty feet high, and cast long shadows that\nstretched out of sight, and the little seeds that clustered in its upper\nbranches were brown and ripe. Its work was done, and it was brittle and\nready to fall and crumple under the freezing air, so soon as the nightfall\ncame. And the huge cacti, that had swollen as we watched them, had long\nsince burst and scattered their spores to the four quarters of the moon.\nAmazing little corner in the universe--the landing place of men!\n\nSome day, thought I, I will have an inscription standing there right in\nthe midst of the hollow. It came to me, if only this teeming world within\nknew of the full import of the moment, how furious its tumult would\nbecome!\n\nBut as yet it could scarcely be dreaming of the significance of our\ncoming. For if it did, the crater would surely be an uproar of pursuit,\ninstead of as still as death! I looked about for some place from which I\nmight signal Cavor, and saw that same patch of rock to which he had leapt\nfrom my present standpoint, still bare and barren in the sun. For a moment\nI hesitated at going so far from the sphere. Then with a pang of shame at\nthat hesitation, I leapt....\n\nFrom this vantage point I surveyed the crater again. Far away at the top\nof the enormous shadow I cast was the little white handkerchief fluttering\non the bushes. It was very little and very far, and Cavor was not in\nsight. It seemed to me that by this time he ought to be looking for me.\nThat was the agreement. But he was nowhere to be seen.\n\nI stood waiting and watching, hands shading my eyes, expecting every\nmoment to distinguish him. Very probably I stood there for quite a long\ntime. I tried to shout, and was reminded of the thinness of the air. I\nmade an undecided step back towards the sphere. But a lurking dread of\nthe Selenites made me hesitate to signal my whereabouts by hoisting one of\nour sleeping-blankets on to the adjacent scrub. I searched the crater\nagain.\n\nIt had an effect of emptiness that chilled me. And it was still. Any\nsound from the Selenites in the world beneath had died away. It was as\nstill as death. Save for the faint stir of the shrub about me in the\nlittle breeze that was rising, there was no sound nor shadow of a sound.\nAnd the breeze blew chill.\n\nConfound Cavor!\n\nI took a deep breath. I put my hands to the sides of my mouth. \"Cavor!\" I\nbawled, and the sound was like some manikin shouting far away.\n\nI looked at the handkerchief, I looked behind me at the broadening shadow\nof the westward cliff, I looked under my hand at the sun. It seemed to me\nthat almost visibly it was creeping down the sky.\n\nI felt I must act instantly if I was to save Cavor. I whipped off my vest\nand flung it as a mark on the sere bayonets of the shrubs behind me, and\nthen set off in a straight line towards the handkerchief. Perhaps it was\na couple of miles away--a matter of a few hundred leaps and strides. I\nhave already told how one seemed to hang through those lunar leaps. In\neach suspense I sought Cavor, and marvelled why he should be hidden. In\neach leap I could feel the sun setting behind me. Each time I touched\nthe ground I was tempted to go back.\n\nA last leap and I was in the depression below our handkerchief, a stride,\nand I stood on our former vantage point within arms' reach of it. I stood\nup straight and scanned the world about me, between its lengthening bars\nof shadow. Far away, down a long declivity, was the opening of the tunnel\nup which we had fled, and my shadow reached towards it, stretched towards\nit, and touched it, like a finger of the night.\n\nNot a sign of Cavor, not a sound in all the stillness, only the stir and\nwaving of the scrub and of the shadows increased. And suddenly and\nviolently I shivered. \"Cav--\" I began, and realised once more the\nuselessness of the human voice in that thin air. Silence. The silence of\ndeath.\n\nThen it was my eye caught something--a little thing lying, perhaps fifty\nyards away down the slope, amidst a litter of bent and broken branches.\nWhat was it? I knew, and yet for some reason I would not know. I went\nnearer to it. It was the little cricket-cap Cavor had worn. I did not\ntouch it, I stood looking at it.\n\nI saw then that the scattered branches about it had been forcibly smashed\nand trampled. I hesitated, stepped forward, and picked it up.\n\nI stood with Cavor's cap in my hand, staring at the trampled reeds and\nthorns about me. On some, of them were little smears of something dark,\nsomething that I dared not touch. A dozen yards away, perhaps, the rising\nbreeze dragged something into view, something small and vividly white.\n\nIt was a little piece of paper crumpled tightly, as though it had been\nclutched tightly. I picked it up, and on it were smears of red. My eye\ncaught faint pencil marks. I smoothed it out, and saw uneven and broken\nwriting ending at last in a crooked streak up on the paper.\n\nI set myself to decipher this.\n\n\"I have been injured about the knee, I think my kneecap is hurt, and I\ncannot run or crawl,\" it began--pretty distinctly written.\n\nThen less legibly: \"They have been chasing me for some time, and it is\nonly a question of\"--the word \"time\" seemed to have been written here and\nerased in favour of something illegible--\"before they get me. They are\nbeating all about me.\"\n\nThen the writing became convulsive. \"I can hear them,\" I guessed the\ntracing meant, and then it was quite unreadable for a space. Then came a\nlittle string of words that were quite distinct: \"a different sort of\nSelenite altogether, who appears to be directing the--\" The writing\nbecame a mere hasty confusion again.\n\n\"They have larger brain cases--much larger, and slenderer bodies, and\nvery short legs. They make gentle noises, and move with organized\ndeliberation...\n\n\"And though I am wounded and helpless here, their appearance still gives\nme hope.\" That was like Cavor. \"They have not shot at me or attempted...\ninjury. I intend--\"\n\nThen came the sudden streak of the pencil across the paper, and on the\nback and edges--blood!\n\nAnd as I stood there stupid, and perplexed, with this dumbfounding relic\nin my hand, something very soft and light and chill touched my hand for a\nmoment and ceased to be, and then a thing, a little white speck, drifted\nathwart a shadow. It was a tiny snowflake, the first snowflake, the herald\nof the night.\n\nI looked up with a start, and the sky had darkened almost to blackness,\nand was thick with a gathering multitude of coldly watchful stars. I\nlooked eastward, and the light of that shrivelled world was touched with\nsombre bronze; westward, and the sun robbed now by a thickening white mist\nof half its heat and splendour, was touching the crater rim, was sinking\nout of sight, and all the shrubs and jagged and tumbled rocks stood out\nagainst it in a bristling disorder of black shapes. Into the great lake\nof darkness westward, a vast wreath of mist was sinking. A cold wind set\nall the crater shivering. Suddenly, for a moment, I was in a puff of\nfalling snow, and all the world about me gray and dim.\n\nAnd then it was I heard, not loud and penetrating as at first, but faint\nand dim like a dying voice, that tolling, that same tolling that had\nwelcomed the coming of the day: Boom!... Boom!... Boom!...\n\nIt echoed about the crater, it seemed to throb with the throbbing of the\ngreater stars, the blood-red crescent of the sun's disc sank as it tolled\nout: Boom!... Boom!... Boom!...\n\nWhat had happened to Cavor? All through that tolling I stood there\nstupidly, and at last the tolling ceased.\n\nAnd suddenly the open mouth of the tunnel down below there, shut like an\neye and vanished out of sight.\n\nThen indeed was I alone.\n\nOver me, around me, closing in on me, embracing me ever nearer, was the\nEternal; that which was before the beginning, and that which triumphs over\nthe end; that enormous void in which all light and life and being is but\nthe thin and vanishing splendour of a falling star, the cold, the\nstillness, the silence--the infinite and final Night of space.\n\nThe sense of solitude and desolation became the sense of an overwhelming\npresence that stooped towards me, that almost touched me.\n\n\"No,\" I cried. \"No! Not yet! not yet! Wait! Wait! Oh, wait!\" My voice\nwent up to a shriek. I flung the crumpled paper from me, scrambled back\nto the crest to take my bearings, and then, with all the will that was in\nme, leapt out towards the mark I had left, dim and distant now in the very\nmargin of the shadow.\n\nLeap, leap, leap, and each leap was seven ages.\n\nBefore me the pale serpent-girdled section of the sun sank and sank, and\nthe advancing shadow swept to seize the sphere before I could reach it. I\nwas two miles away, a hundred leaps or more, and the air about me was\nthinning out as it thins under an air-pump, and the cold was gripping at\nmy joints. But had I died, I should have died leaping. Once, and then\nagain my foot slipped on the gathering snow as I leapt and shortened my\nleap; once I fell short into bushes that crashed and smashed into dusty\nchips and nothingness, and once I stumbled as I dropped and rolled head\nover heels into a gully, and rose bruised and bleeding and confused as to\nmy direction.\n\nBut such incidents were as nothing to the intervals, those awful pauses\nwhen one drifted through the air towards that pouring tide of night. My\nbreathing made a piping noise, and it was as though knives were whirling\nin my lungs. My heart seemed to beat against the top of my brain. \"Shall I\nreach it? O Heaven! Shall I reach it?\"\n\nMy whole being became anguish.\n\n\"Lie down!\" screamed my pain and despair; \"lie down!\"\n\nThe nearer I struggled, the more awfully remote it seemed. I was numb,\nI stumbled, I bruised and cut myself and did not bleed.\n\nIt was in sight.\n\nI fell on all fours, and my lungs whooped.\n\nI crawled. The frost gathered on my lips, icicles hung from my moustache,\nI was white with the freezing atmosphere.\n\nI was a dozen yards from it. My eyes had become dim. \"Lie down!\" screamed\ndespair; \"lie down!\"\n\nI touched it, and halted. \"Too late!\" screamed despair; \"lie down!\"\n\nI fought stiffly with it. I was on the manhole lip, a stupefied, half-dead\nbeing. The snow was all about me. I pulled myself in. There lurked within\na little warmer air.\n\nThe snowflakes--the airflakes--danced in about me, as I tried with\nchilling hands to thrust the valve in and spun it tight and hard. I\nsobbed. \"I will,\" I chattered in my teeth. And then, with fingers that\nquivered and felt brittle, I turned to the shutter studs.\n\nAs I fumbled with the switches--for I had never controlled them before--I\ncould see dimly through the steaming glass the blazing red streamers of\nthe sinking sun, dancing and flickering through the snowstorm, and the\nblack forms of the scrub thickening and bending and breaking beneath the\naccumulating snow. Thicker whirled the snow and thicker, black against\nthe light. What if even now the switches overcame me? Then something\nclicked under my hands, and in an instant that last vision of the moon\nworld was hidden from my eyes. I was in the silence and darkness of the\ninter-planetary sphere.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 20\n\n\n\n\nMr. Bedford in Infinite Space\n\nIt was almost as though I had been killed. Indeed, I could imagine a man\nsuddenly and violently killed would feel very much as I did. One moment, a\npassion of agonising existence and fear; the next darkness and stillness,\nneither light nor life nor sun, moon nor stars, the blank infinite.\nAlthough the thing was done by my own act, although I had already tasted\nthis very of effect in Cavor's company, I felt astonished, dumbfounded,\nand overwhelmed. I seemed to be borne upward into an enormous darkness. My\nfingers floated off the studs, I hung as if I were annihilated, and at\nlast very softly and gently I came against the bale and the golden chain,\nand the crowbars that had drifted to the middle of the sphere.\n\nI do not know how long that drifting took. In the sphere of course, even\nmore than on the moon, one's earthly time sense was ineffectual. At the\ntouch of the bale it was as if I had awakened from a dreamless sleep. I\nimmediately perceived that if I wanted to keep awake and alive I must get\na light or open a window, so as to get a grip of something with my eyes.\nAnd besides, I was cold. I kicked off from the bale, therefore, clawed on\nto the thin cords within the glass, crawled along until I got to the\nmanhole rim, and so got my bearings for the light and blind studs, took a\nshove off, and flying once round the bale, and getting a scare from\nsomething big and flimsy that was drifting loose, I got my hand on the\ncord quite close to the studs, and reached them. I lit the little lamp\nfirst of all to see what it was I had collided with, and discovered that\nold copy of _Lloyd's News_ had slipped its moorings, and was adrift in\nthe void. That brought me out of the infinite to my own proper dimensions\nagain. It made me laugh and pant for a time, and suggested the idea of a\nlittle oxygen from one of the cylinders. After that I lit the heater until\nI felt warm, and then I took food. Then I set to work in a very gingerly\nfashion on the Cavorite blinds, to see if I could guess by any means how\nthe sphere was travelling.\n\nThe first blind I opened I shut at once, and hung for a time flattened and\nblinded by the sunlight that had hit me. After thinking a little I started\nupon the windows at right angles to this one, and got the huge crescent\nmoon and the little crescent earth behind it, the second time. I was\namazed to find how far I was from the moon. I had reckoned that not only\nshould I have little or none of the \"kick-off\" that the earth's atmosphere\nhad given us at our start, but that the tangential \"fly off\" of the moon's\nspin would be at least twenty-eight times less than the earth's. I had\nexpected to discover myself hanging over our crater, and on the edge of\nthe night, but all that was now only a part of the outline of the white\ncrescent that filled the sky. And Cavor--?\n\nHe was already infinitesimal.\n\nI tried to imagine what could have happened to him. But at that time I\ncould think of nothing but death. I seemed to see him, bent and smashed\nat the foot of some interminably high cascade of blue. And all about him\nthe stupid insects stared...\n\nUnder the inspiring touch of the drifting newspaper I became practical\nagain for a while. It was quite clear to me that what I had to do was to\nget back to earth, but as far as I could see I was drifting away from it.\nWhatever had happened to Cavor, even if he was still alive, which seemed\nto me incredible after that blood-stained scrap, I was powerless to help\nhim. There he was, living or dead behind the mantle of that rayless night,\nand there he must remain at least until I could summon our fellow men to\nhis assistance. Should I do that? Something of the sort I had in my mind;\nto come back to earth if it were possible, and then as maturer\nconsideration might determine, either to show and explain the sphere to a\nfew discreet persons, and act with them, or else to keep my secret, sell\nmy gold, obtain weapons, provisions, and an assistant, and return with\nthese advantages to deal on equal terms with the flimsy people of the\nmoon, to rescue Cavor, if that were still possible, and at any rate to\nprocure a sufficient supply of gold to place my subsequent proceedings on\na firmer basis. But that was hoping far; I had first to get back.\n\nI set myself to decide just exactly how the return to earth could be\ncontrived. As I struggled with that problem I ceased to worry about what I\nshould do when I got there. At last my only care was to get back.\n\nI puzzled out at last that my best chance would be to drop back towards\nthe moon as near as I dared in order to gather velocity, then to shut my\nwindows, and fly behind it, and when I was past to open my earthward\nwindows, and so get off at a good pace homeward. But whether I should ever\nreach the earth by that device, or whether I might not simply find myself\nspinning about it in some hyperbolic or parabolic curve or other, I could\nnot tell. Later I had a happy inspiration, and by opening certain windows\nto the moon, which had appeared in the sky in front of the earth, I turned\nmy course aside so as to head off the earth, which it had become evident\nto me I must pass behind without some such expedient. I did a very great\ndeal of complicated thinking over these problems--for I am no\nmathematician--and in the end I am certain it was much more my good luck\nthan my reasoning that enabled me to hit the earth. Had I known then, as I\nknow now, the mathematical chances there were against me, I doubt if I\nshould have troubled even to touch the studs to make any attempt. And\nhaving puzzled out what I considered to be the thing to do, I opened all\nmy moonward windows, and squatted down--the effort lifted me for a time\nsome feet or so into the air, and I hung there in the oddest way--and\nwaited for the crescent to get bigger and bigger until I felt I was near\nenough for safety. Then I would shut the windows, fly past the moon with\nthe velocity I had got from it--if I did not smash upon it--and so go on\ntowards the earth.\n\nAnd that is what I did.\n\nAt last I felt my moonward start was sufficient. I shut out the sight of\nthe moon from my eyes, and in a state of mind that was, I now recall,\nincredibly free from anxiety or any distressful quality, I sat down to\nbegin a vigil in that little speck of matter in infinite space that would\nlast until I should strike the earth. The heater had made the sphere\ntolerably warm, the air had been refreshed by the oxygen, and except for\nthat faint congestion of the head that was always with me while I was away\nfrom earth, I felt entire physical comfort. I had extinguished the light\nagain, lest it should fail me in the end; I was in darkness, save for the\nearthshine and the glitter of the stars below me. Everything was so\nabsolutely silent and still that I might indeed have been the only being\nin the universe, and yet, strangely enough, I had no more feeling of\nloneliness or fear than if I had been lying in bed on earth. Now, this\nseems all the stranger to me, since during my last hours in that crater of\nthe moon, the sense of my utter loneliness had been an agony....\n\nIncredible as it will seem, this interval of time that I spent in space\nhas no sort of proportion to any other interval of time in my life.\nSometimes it seemed as though I sat through immeasurable eternities like\nsome god upon a lotus leaf, and again as though there was a momentary\npause as I leapt from moon to earth. In truth, it was altogether some\nweeks of earthly time. But I had done with care and anxiety, hunger or\nfear, for that space. I floated, thinking with a strange breadth and\nfreedom of all that we had undergone, and of all my life and motives, and\nthe secret issues of my being. I seemed to myself to have grown greater\nand greater, to have lost all sense of movement; to be floating amidst the\nstars, and always the sense of earth's littleness and the infinite\nlittleness of my life upon it, was implicit in my thoughts.\n\nI can't profess to explain the things that happened in my mind. No doubt\nthey could all be traced directly or indirectly to the curious physical\nconditions under which I was living. I set them down here just for what\nthey are worth, and without any comment. The most prominent quality of it\nwas a pervading doubt of my own identity. I became, if I may so express\nit, dissociate from Bedford; I looked down on Bedford as a trivial,\nincidental thing with which I chanced to be connected. I saw Bedford in\nmany relations--as an ass or as a poor beast, where I had hitherto been\ninclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited or rather\nforcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many\ngenerations of asses. I reviewed his school-days and his early manhood,\nand his first encounter with love, very much as one might review the\nproceedings of an ant in the sand. Something of that period of lucidity I\nregret still hangs about me, and I doubt if I shall ever recover the\nfull-bodied self satisfaction of my early days. But at the time the thing\nwas not in the least painful, because I had that extraordinary persuasion\nthat, as a matter of fact, I was no more Bedford than I was any one else,\nbut only a mind floating in the still serenity of space. Why should I be\ndisturbed about this Bedford's shortcomings? I was not responsible for him\nor them.\n\nFor a time I struggled against this really very grotesque delusion. I\ntried to summon the memory of vivid moments, of tender or intense emotions\nto my assistance; I felt that if I could recall one genuine twinge of\nfeeling the growing severance would be stopped. But I could not do it. I\nsaw Bedford rushing down Chancery Lane, hat on the back of his head, coat\ntails flying out, en route for his public examination. I saw him dodging\nand bumping against, and even saluting, other similar little creatures in\nthat swarming gutter of people. Me? I saw Bedford that same evening in the\nsitting-room of a certain lady, and his hat was on the table beside him,\nand it wanted brushing badly, and he was in tears. Me? I saw him with\nthat lady in various attitudes and emotions--I never felt so detached\nbefore.... I saw him hurrying off to Lympne to write a play, and accosting\nCavor, and in his shirt sleeves working at the sphere, and walking out to\nCanterbury because he was afraid to come! Me? I did not believe it.\n\nI still reasoned that all this was hallucination due to my solitude, and\nthe fact that I had lost all weight and sense of resistance. I endeavoured\nto recover that sense by banging myself about the sphere, by pinching my\nhands and clasping them together. Among other things, I lit the light,\ncaptured that torn copy of _Lloyd's_, and read those convincingly realistic\nadvertisements about the Cutaway bicycle, and the gentleman of private\nmeans, and the lady in distress who was selling those \"forks and spoons.\"\nThere was no doubt _they_ existed surely enough, and, said I, \"This is\nyour world, and you are Bedford, and you are going back to live among\nthings like that for all the rest of your life.\" But the doubts within\nme could still argue: \"It is not you that is reading, it is Bedford, but\nyou are not Bedford, you know. That's just where the mistake comes in.\"\n\n\"Confound it!\" I cried; \"and if I am not Bedford, what am I?\"\n\nBut in that direction no light was forthcoming, though the strangest\nfancies came drifting into my brain, queer remote suspicions, like shadows\nseen from away. Do you know, I had a sort of idea that really I was\nsomething quite outside not only the world, but all worlds, and out of\nspace and time, and that this poor Bedford was just a peephole through\nwhich I looked at life? ...\n\nBedford! However I disavowed him, there I was most certainly bound up with\nhim, and I knew that wherever or whatever I might be, I must needs feel\nthe stress of his desires, and sympathise with all his joys and sorrows\nuntil his life should end. And with the dying of Bedford--what then? ...\n\nEnough of this remarkable phase of my experiences! I tell it here simply\nto show how one's isolation and departure from this planet touched not\nonly the functions and feeling of every organ of the body, but indeed also\nthe very fabric of the mind, with strange and unanticipated disturbances.\nAll through the major portion of that vast space journey I hung thinking\nof such immaterial things as these, hung dissociated and apathetic, a\ncloudy megalomaniac, as it were, amidst the stars and planets in the void\nof space; and not only the world to which I was returning, but the\nblue-lit caverns of the Selenites, their helmet faces, their gigantic and\nwonderful machines, and the fate of Cavor, dragged helpless into that\nworld, seemed infinitely minute and altogether trivial things to me.\n\nUntil at last I began to feel the pull of the earth upon my being, drawing\nme back again to the life that is real for men. And then, indeed, it grew\nclearer and clearer to me that I was quite certainly Bedford after all,\nand returning after amazing adventures to this world of ours, and with a\nlife that I was very likely to lose in this return. I set myself to puzzle\nout the conditions under which I must fall to earth.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 21\n\n\n\n\nMr. Bedford at Littlestone\n\nMy line of flight was about parallel with the surface as I came into the\nupper air. The temperature of sphere began to rise forthwith. I knew it\nbehoved me to drop at once. Far below me, in a darkling twilight, stretched\na great expanse of sea. I opened every window I could, and fell--out\nof sunshine into evening, and out of evening into night. Vaster grew\nthe earth and vaster, swallowing up the stars, and the silvery translucent\nstarlit veil of cloud it wore spread out to catch me. At last the world\nseemed no longer a sphere but flat, and then concave. It was no longer a\nplanet in the sky, but the world of Man. I shut all but an inch or so of\nearthward window, and dropped with a slackening velocity. The broadening\nwater, now so near that I could see the dark glitter of the waves, rushed\nup to meet me. The sphere became very hot. I snapped the last strip of\nwindow, and sat scowling and biting my knuckles, waiting for the impact....\n\nThe sphere hit the water with a huge splash: it must have sent it fathoms\nhigh. At the splash I flung the Cavorite shutters open. Down I went, but\nslower and slower, and then I felt the sphere pressing against my feet,\nand so drove up again as a bubble drives. And at the last I was floating\nand rocking upon the surface of the sea, and my journey in space was at an\nend.\n\nThe night was dark and overcast. Two yellow pinpoints far away showed the\npassing of a ship, and nearer was a red glare that came and went. Had not\nthe electricity of my glow-lamp exhausted itself, I could have got picked\nup that night. In spite of the inordinate fatigue I was beginning to feel,\nI was excited now, and for a time hopeful, in a feverish, impatient way,\nthat so my travelling might end.\n\nBut at last I ceased to move about, and sat, wrists on knees, staring at a\ndistant red light. It swayed up and down, rocking, rocking. My excitement\npassed. I realised I had yet to spend another night at least in the\nsphere. I perceived myself infinitely heavy and fatigued. And so I fell\nasleep.\n\nA change in my rhythmic motion awakened me. I peered through the\nrefracting glass, and saw that I had come aground upon a huge shallow of\nsand. Far away I seemed to see houses and trees, and seaward a curve,\nvague distortion of a ship hung between sea and sky.\n\nI stood up and staggered. My one desire was to emerge. The manhole was\nupward, and I wrestled with the screw. Slowly I opened the manhole. At\nlast the air was singing in again as once it had sung out. But this time\nI did not wait until the pressure was adjusted. In another moment I had\nthe weight of the window on my hands, and I was open, wide open, to the\nold familiar sky of earth.\n\nThe air hit me on the chest so that I gasped. I dropped the glass screw. I\ncried out, put my hands to my chest, and sat down. For a time I was in\npain. Then I took deep breaths. At last I could rise and move about\nagain.\n\nI tried to thrust my head through the manhole, and the sphere rolled over.\nIt was as though something had lugged my head down directly it emerged. I\nducked back sharply, or I should have been pinned face under water. After\nsome wriggling and shoving I managed to crawl out upon sand, over which\nthe retreating waves still came and went.\n\nI did not attempt to stand up. It seemed to me that my body must be\nsuddenly changed to lead. Mother Earth had her grip on me now--no\nCavorite intervening. I sat down heedless of the water that came over my\nfeet.\n\nIt was dawn, a gray dawn, rather overcast but showing here and there a\nlong patch of greenish gray. Some way out a ship was lying at anchor, a\npale silhouette of a ship with one yellow light. The water came rippling\nin in long shallow waves. Away to the right curved the land, a shingle\nbank with little hovels, and at last a lighthouse, a sailing mark and a\npoint. Inland stretched a space of level sand, broken here and there by\npools of water, and ending a mile away perhaps in a low shore of scrub. To\nthe north-east some isolated watering-place was visible, a row of gaunt\nlodging-houses, the tallest things that I could see on earth, dull dabs\nagainst the brightening sky. What strange men can have reared these\nvertical piles in such an amplitude of space I do not know. There they\nare, like pieces of Brighton lost in the waste.\n\nFor a long time I sat there, yawning and rubbing my face. At last I\nstruggled to rise. It made me feel that I was lifting a weight. I stood\nup.\n\nI stared at the distant houses. For the first time since our starvation in\nthe crater I thought of earthly food. \"Bacon,\" I whispered, \"eggs. Good\ntoast and good coffee.... And how the devil am I going to get all this\nstuff to Lympne?\" I wondered where I was. It was an east shore anyhow,\nand I had seen Europe before I dropped.\n\nI heard footsteps crunching in the sand, and a little round-faced,\nfriendly-looking man in flannels, with a bathing towel wrapped about his\nshoulders, and his bathing dress over his arm, appeared up the beach. I\nknew instantly that I must be in England. He was staring most intently at\nthe sphere and me. He advanced staring. I dare say I looked a ferocious\nsavage enough--dirty, unkempt, to an indescribable degree; but it did not\noccur to me at the time. He stopped at a distance of twenty yards.\n\"Hul-lo, my man!\" he said doubtfully.\n\n\"Hullo yourself!\" said I.\n\nHe advanced, reassured by that. \"What on earth is that thing?\" he asked.\n\n\"Can you tell me where I am?\" I asked.\n\n\"That's Littlestone,\" he said, pointing to the houses; \"and that's\nDungeness! Have you just landed? What's that thing you've got? Some sort\nof machine?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Have you floated ashore? Have you been wrecked or something? What is it?\"\n\nI meditated swiftly. I made an estimate of the little man's appearance as\nhe drew nearer. \"By Jove!\" he said, \"you've had a time of it! I thought\nyou-- Well-- Where were you cast away? Is that thing a sort of floating\nthing for saving life?\"\n\nI decided to take that line for the present. I made a few vague\naffirmatives. \"I want help,\" I said hoarsely. \"I want to get some stuff\nup the beach--stuff I can't very well leave about.\" I became aware of\nthree other pleasant-looking young men with towels, blazers, and straw\nhats, coming down the sands towards me. Evidently the early bathing\nsection of this Littlestone.\n\n\"Help!\" said the young man: \"rather!\" He became vaguely active. \"What\nparticularly do you want done?\" He turned round and gesticulated. The\nthree young men accelerated their pace. In a minute they there about me,\nplying me with questions I was indisposed to answer. \"I'll tell all that\nlater,\" I said. \"I'm dead beat. I'm a rag.\"\n\n\"Come up to the hotel,\" said the foremost little man. \"We'll look after\nthat thing there.\"\n\nI hesitated. \"I can't,\" I said. \"In that sphere there's two big bars of\ngold.\"\n\nThey looked incredulously at one another, then at me with a new inquiry.\nI went to the sphere, stooped, crept in, and presently they had the\nSelenites' crowbars and the broken chain before them. If I had not been so\nhorribly fagged I could have laughed at them. It was like kittens round a\nbeetle. They didn't know what to do with the stuff. The fat little man\nstooped and lifted the end of one of the bars, and then dropped it with a\ngrunt. Then they all did.\n\n\"It's lead, or gold!\" said one.\n\n\"Oh, it's gold!\" said another.\n\n\"Gold, right enough,\" said the third.\n\nThen they all stared at me, and then they all stared at the ship lying at\nanchor.\n\n\"I say!\" cried the little man. \"But where did you get that?\"\n\nI was too tired to keep up a lie. \"I got it in the moon.\"\n\nI saw them stare at one another.\n\n\"Look here!\" said I, \"I'm not going to argue now. Help me carry these\nlumps of gold up to the hotel--I guess, with rests, two of you can manage\none, and I'll trail this chain thing--and I'll tell you more when I've\nhad some food.\"\n\n\"And how about that thing?\"\n\n\"It won't hurt there,\" I said. \"Anyhow--confound it!--it must stop there\nnow. If the tide comes up, it will float all right.\"\n\nAnd in a state of enormous wonderment, these young men most obediently\nhoisted my treasures on their shoulders, and with limbs that felt like\nlead I headed a sort of procession towards that distant fragment of\n\"sea-front.\" Half-way there we were reinforced by two awe-stricken little\ngirls with spades, and later a lean little boy, with a penetrating sniff,\nappeared. He was, I remember, wheeling a bicycle, and he accompanied us at\na distance of about a hundred yards on our right flank, and then I\nsuppose, gave us up as uninteresting, mounted his bicycle and rode off\nover the level sands in the direction of the sphere.\n\nI glanced back after him.\n\n\"He won't touch it,\" said the stout young man reassuringly, and I was only\ntoo willing to be reassured.\n\nAt first something of the gray of the morning was in my mind, but\npresently the sun disengaged itself from the level clouds of the horizon\nand lit the world, and turned the leaden sea to glittering waters. My\nspirits rose. A sense of the vast importance of the things I had done and\nhad yet to do came with the sunlight into my mind. I laughed aloud as the\nforemost man staggered under my gold. When indeed I took my place in the\nworld, how amazed the world would be!\n\nIf it had not been for my inordinate fatigue, the landlord of the\nLittlestone hotel would have been amusing, as he hesitated between my gold\nand my respectable company on the one and my filthy appearance on the\nother. But at last I found myself in a terrestrial bathroom once more with\nwarm water to wash myself with, and a change of raiment, preposterously\nsmall indeed, but anyhow clean, that the genial little man had lent me. He\nlent me a razor too, but I could not screw up my resolution to attack even\nthe outposts of the bristling beard that covered my face.\n\nI sat down to an English breakfast and ate with a sort of languid\nappetite--an appetite many weeks old and very decrepit--and stirred myself\nto answer the questions of the four young men. And I told them the truth.\n\n\"Well,\" said I, \"as you press me--I got it in the moon.\"\n\n\"The moon?\"\n\n\"Yes, the moon in the sky.\"\n\n\"But how do you mean?\"\n\n\"What I say, confound it!\"\n\n\"Then you have just come from the moon?\"\n\n\"Exactly! through space--in that ball.\" And I took a delicious mouthful\nof egg. I made a private note that when I went back to the moon I would\ntake a box of eggs.\n\nI could see clearly that they did not believe one word what I told them,\nbut evidently they considered me the most respectable liar they had ever\nmet. They glanced at one another, and then concentrated the fire of their\neyes on me. I fancy they expected a clue to me in the way I helped myself\nto salt. They seemed to find something significant in my peppering my egg.\nThese strangely shaped masses of gold they had staggered under held their\nminds. There the lumps lay in front of me, each worth thousands of pounds,\nand as impossible for any one to steal as a house or a piece of land. As I\nlooked at their curious faces over my coffee-cup, I realised something of\nthe enormous wilderness of explanations into which I should have to wander\nto render myself comprehensible again.\n\n\"You don't really mean--\" began the youngest young man, in the tone of one\nwho speaks to an obstinate child.\n\n\"Just pass me that toast-rack,\" I said, and shut him up completely.\n\n\"But look here, I say,\" began one of the others. \"We're not going to\nbelieve that, you know.\"\n\n\"Ah, well,\" said I, and shrugged my shoulders.\n\n\"He doesn't want to tell us,\" said the youngest young man in a stage\naside; and then, with an appearance of great sang-froid, \"You don't mind\nif I take a cigarette?\"\n\nI waved him a cordial assent, and proceeded with my breakfast. Two of the\nothers went and looked out of the farther window and talked inaudibly. I\nwas struck by a thought. \"The tide,\" I said, \"is running out?\"\n\nThere was a pause, a doubt who should answer me.\n\n\"It's near the ebb,\" said the fat little man.\n\n\"Well, anyhow,\" I said, \"it won't float far.\"\n\nI decapitated my third egg, and began a little speech. \"Look here,\" I\nsaid. \"Please don't imagine I'm surly or telling you uncivil lies, or\nanything of that sort. I'm forced almost, to be a little short and\nmysterious. I can quite understand this is as queer as it can be, and\nthat your imaginations must be going it. I can assure you, you're in at a\nmemorable time. But I can't make it clear to you now--it's impossible. I\ngive you my word of honour I've come from the moon, and that's all I can\ntell you.... All the same, I'm tremendously obliged to you, you know,\ntremendously. I hope that my manner hasn't in any way given you offence.\"\n\n\"Oh, not in the least!\" said the youngest young man affably. \"We can quite\nunderstand,\" and staring hard at me all the time, he heeled his chair back\nuntil it very nearly upset, and recovered with some exertion. \"Not a bit\nof it,\" said the fat young man.\n\n\"Don't you imagine that!\" and they all got up and dispersed, and walked\nabout and lit cigarettes, and generally tried to show they were perfectly\namiable and disengaged, and entirely free from the slightest curiosity\nabout me and the sphere. \"I'm going to keep an eye on that ship out there\nall the same,\" I heard one of them remarking in an undertone. If only they\ncould have forced themselves to it, they would, I believe, even have gone\nout and left me. I went on with my third egg.\n\n\"The weather,\" the fat little man remarked presently, \"has been immense,\nhas it not? I don't know when we have had such a summer.\"\n\nPhoo-whizz! Like a tremendous rocket!\n\nAnd somewhere a window was broken....\n\n\"What's that?\" said I.\n\n\"It isn't--?\" cried the little man, and rushed to the corner window.\n\nAll the others rushed to the window likewise. I sat staring at them.\n\nSuddenly I leapt up, knocked over my third egg, rushed for the window\nalso. I had just thought of something. \"Nothing to be seen there,\" cried\nthe little man, rushing for the door.\n\n\"It's that boy!\" I cried, bawling in hoarse fury; \"it's that accursed\nboy!\" and turning about I pushed the waiter aside--he was just bring me\nsome more toast--and rushed violently out of the room and down and out\nupon the queer little esplanade in front of the hotel.\n\nThe sea, which had been smooth, was rough now with hurrying cat's-paws,\nand all about where the sphere had been was tumbled water like the wake of\na ship. Above, a little puff of cloud whirled like dispersing smoke, and\nthe three or four people on the beach were staring up with interrogative\nfaces towards the point of that unexpected report. And that was all! Boots\nand waiter and the four young men in blazers came rushing out behind me.\nShouts came from windows and doors, and all sorts of worrying people came\ninto sight--agape.\n\nFor a time I stood there, too overwhelmed by this new development to think\nof the people.\n\nAt first I was too stunned to see the thing as any definite disaster--I\nwas just stunned, as a man is by some accidental violent blow. It is only\nafterwards he begins to appreciate his specific injury.\n\n\"Good Lord!\"\n\nI felt as though somebody was pouring funk out of a can down the back of\nmy neck. My legs became feeble. I had got the first intimation of what the\ndisaster meant for me. There was that confounded boy--sky high! I was\nutterly left. There was the gold in the coffee-room--my only possession\non earth. How would it all work out? The general effect was of a gigantic\nunmanageable confusion.\n\n\"I say,\" said the voice of the little man behind. \"I say, you know.\"\n\nI wheeled about, and there were twenty or thirty people, a sort of\nirregular investment of people, all bombarding me with dumb interrogation,\nwith infinite doubt and suspicion. I felt the compulsion of their eyes\nintolerably. I groaned aloud.\n\n\"I _can't_,\" I shouted. \"I tell you I can't! I'm not equal to it! You must\npuzzle and--and be damned to you!\"\n\nI gesticulated convulsively. He receded a step as though I had threatened\nhim. I made a bolt through them into the hotel. I charged back into the\ncoffee-room, rang the bell furiously. I gripped the waiter as he entered.\n\"D'ye hear?\" I shouted. \"Get help and carry these bars up to my room right\naway.\"\n\nHe failed to understand me, and I shouted and raved at him. A\nscared-looking little old man in a green apron appeared, and further two\nof the young men in flannels. I made a dash at them and commandeered their\nservices. As soon as the gold was in my room I felt free to quarrel. \"Now\nget out,\" I shouted; \"all of you get out if you don't want to see a man go\nmad before your eyes!\" And I helped the waiter by the shoulder as he\nhesitated in the doorway. And then, as soon as I had the door locked on\nthem all, I tore off the little man's clothes again, shied them right and\nleft, and got into bed forthwith. And there I lay swearing and panting and\ncooling for a very long time.\n\nAt last I was calm enough to get out of bed and ring up the round-eyed\nwaiter for a flannel nightshirt, a soda and whisky, and some good cigars.\nAnd these things being procured me, after an exasperating delay that drove\nme several times to the bell, I locked the door again and proceeded very\ndeliberately to look the entire situation in the face.\n\nThe net result of the great experiment presented itself as an absolute\nfailure. It was a rout, and I was the sole survivor. It was an absolute\ncollapse, and this was the final disaster. There was nothing for it but to\nsave myself, and as much as I could in the way of prospects from our\ndebacle. At one fatal crowning blow all my vague resolutions of return and\nrecovery had vanished. My intention of going back to the moon, of getting\na sphereful of gold, and afterwards of having a fragment of Cavorite\nanalysed and so recovering the great secret--perhaps, finally, even of\nrecovering Cavor's body--all these ideas vanished altogether.\n\nI was the sole survivor, and that was all.\n\nI think that going to bed was one of the luckiest ideas I have ever had in\nan emergency. I really believe I should either have got loose-headed or\ndone some indiscreet thing. But there, locked in and secure from all\ninterruptions, I could think out the position in all its bearings and make\nmy arrangements at leisure.\n\nOf course, it was quite clear to me what had happened to the boy. He had\ncrawled into the sphere, meddled with the studs, shut the Cavorite\nwindows, and gone up. It was highly improbable he had screwed the manhole\nstopper, and, even if he had, the chances were a thousand to one against\nhis getting back. It was fairly evident that he would gravitate with my\nbales to somewhere near the middle of the sphere and remain there, and so\ncease to be a legitimate terrestrial interest, however remarkable he might\nseem to the inhabitants of some remote quarter of space. I very speedily\nconvinced myself on that point. And as for any responsibility I might have\nin the matter, the more I reflected upon that, the clearer it became that\nif only I kept quiet about things, I need not trouble myself about that.\nIf I was faced by sorrowing parents demanding their lost boy, I had merely\nto demand my lost sphere--or ask them what they meant. At first I had had\na vision of weeping parents and guardians, and all sorts of complications;\nbut now I saw that I simply had to keep my mouth shut, and nothing in that\nway could arise. And, indeed, the more I lay and smoked and thought, the\nmore evident became the wisdom of impenetrability.\n\nIt is within the right of every British citizen, provided he does not\ncommit damage nor indecorum, to appear suddenly wherever he pleases, and\nas ragged and filthy as he pleases, and with whatever amount of virgin\ngold he sees fit to encumber himself, and no one has any right at all to\nhinder and detain him in this procedure. I formulated that at last to\nmyself, and repeated it over as a sort of private Magna Charta of my\nliberty.\n\nOnce I had put that issue on one side, I could take up and consider in an\nequable manner certain considerations I had scarcely dared to think of\nbefore, namely, those arising out of the circumstances of my bankruptcy.\nBut now, looking at this matter calmly and at leisure, I could see that if\nonly I suppressed my identity by a temporary assumption of some less\nwell-known name, and if I retained the two months' beard that had grown\nupon me, the risks of any annoyance from the spiteful creditor to whom I\nhave already alluded became very small indeed. From that to a definite\ncourse of rational worldly action was plain sailing. It was all amazingly\npetty, no doubt, but what was there remaining for me to do?\n\nWhatever I did I was resolved that I would keep myself level and right\nside up.\n\nI ordered up writing materials, and addressed a letter to the New Romney\nBank--the nearest, the waiter informed me--telling the manager I wished\nto open an account with him, and requesting him to send two trustworthy\npersons properly authenticated in a cab with a good horse to fetch some\nhundredweight of gold with which I happened to be encumbered. I signed the\nletter \"Blake,\" which seemed to me to be a thoroughly respectable sort of\nname. This done, I got a Folkstone Blue Book, picked out an outfitter, and\nasked him to send a cutter to measure me for a dark tweed suit, ordering\nat the same time a valise, dressing bag, brown boots, shirts, hat (to\nfit), and so forth; and from a watchmaker I also ordered a watch. And\nthese letters being despatched, I had up as good a lunch as the hotel\ncould give, and then lay smoking a cigar, as calm and ordinary as\npossible, until in accordance with my instructions two duly authenticated\nclerks came from the bank and weighed and took away my gold. After which I\npulled the clothes over my ears in order to drown any knocking, and went\nvery comfortably to sleep.\n\nI went to sleep. No doubt it was a prosaic thing for the first man back\nfrom the moon to do, and I can imagine that the young and imaginative\nreader will find my behaviour disappointing. But I was horribly fatigued\nand bothered, and, confound it! what else was there to do? There certainly\nwas not the remotest chance of my being believed, if I had told my story\nthen, and it would certainly have subjected me to intolerable annoyances.\nI went to sleep. When at last I woke up again I was ready to face the\nworld as I have always been accustomed to face it since I came to years of\ndiscretion. And so I got away to Italy, and there it is I am writing this\nstory. If the world will not have it as fact, then the world may take it\nas fiction. It is no concern of mine.\n\nAnd now that the account is finished, I am amazed to think how completely\nthis adventure is gone and done with. Everybody believes that Cavor was a\nnot very brilliant scientific experimenter who blew up his house and\nhimself at Lympne, and they explain the bang that followed my arrival at\nLittlestone by a reference to the experiments with explosives that are\ngoing on continually at the government establishment of Lydd, two miles\naway. I must confess that hitherto I have not acknowledged my share in the\ndisappearance of Master Tommy Simmons, which was that little boy's name.\nThat, perhaps, may prove a difficult item of corroboration to explain\naway. They account for my appearance in rags with two bars of indisputable\ngold upon the Littlestone beach in various ingenious ways--it doesn't\nworry me what they think of me. They say I have strung all these things\ntogether to avoid being questioned too closely as to the source of my\nwealth. I would like to see the man who could invent a story that would\nhold together like this one. Well, they must take it as fiction--there it\nis.\n\nI have told my story--and now, I suppose, I have to take up the worries\nof this terrestrial life again. Even if one has been to the moon, one has\nstill to earn a living. So I am working here at Amalfi, on the scenario of\nthat play I sketched before Cavor came walking into my world, and I am\ntrying to piece my life together as it was before ever I saw him. I must\nconfess that I find it hard to keep my mind on the play when the moonshine\ncomes into my room. It is full moon here, and last night I was out on the\npergola for hours, staring away at the shining blankness that hides so\nmuch. Imagine it! tables and chairs, and trestles and bars of gold!\nConfound it!--if only one could hit on that Cavorite again! But a thing\nlike that doesn't come twice in a life. Here I am, a little better off\nthan I was at Lympne, and that is all. And Cavor has committed suicide in\na more elaborate way than any human being ever did before. So the story\ncloses as finally and completely as a dream. It fits in so little with\nall the other things of life, so much of it is so utterly remote from all\nhuman experience, the leaping, the eating, the breathing, and these\nweightless times, that indeed there are moments when, in spite of my\nmoon gold, I do more than half believe myself that the whole thing was\na dream....\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 22\n\n\n\n\nThe Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee\n\nWhen I had finished my account of my return to the earth at Littlestone, I\nwrote, \"The End,\" made a flourish, and threw my pen aside, fully believing\nthat the whole story of the First Men in the Moon was done. Not only had I\ndone this, but I had placed my manuscript in the hands of a literary\nagent, had permitted it to be sold, had seen the greater portion of it\nappear in the _Strand Magazine_, and was setting to work again upon the\nscenario of the play I had commenced at Lympne before I realised that the\nend was not yet. And then, following me from Amalfi to Algiers, there\nreached me (it is now about six months ago) one of the most astounding\ncommunications I have ever been fated to receive. Briefly, it informed me\nthat Mr. Julius Wendigee, a Dutch electrician, who has been experimenting\nwith certain apparatus akin to the apparatus used by Mr. Tesla in America,\nin the hope of discovering some method of communication with Mars, was\nreceiving day by day a curiously fragmentary message in English, which was\nindisputably emanating from Mr. Cavor in the moon.\n\nAt first I thought the thing was an elaborate practical joke by some one\nwho had seen the manuscript of my narrative. I answered Mr. Wendigee\njestingly, but he replied in a manner that put such suspicion altogether\naside, and in a state of inconceivable excitement I hurried from Algiers\nto the little observatory upon the Monte Rosa in which he was working. In\nthe presence of his record and his appliances--and above all of the\nmessages from Cavor that were coming to hand--my lingering doubts\nvanished. I decided at once to accept a proposal he made to me to remain\nwith him, assisting him to take down the record from day to day, and\nendeavouring with him to send a message back to the moon. Cavor, we\nlearnt, was not only alive, but free, in the midst of an almost\ninconceivable community of these ant-like beings, these ant-men, in the\nblue darkness of the lunar caves. He was lamed, it seemed, but otherwise\nin quite good health--in better health, he distinctly said, than he\nusually enjoyed on earth. He had had a fever, but it had left no bad\neffects. But curiously enough he seemed to be labouring under a conviction\nthat I was either dead in the moon crater or lost in the deep of space.\n\nHis message began to be received by Mr. Wendigee when that gentleman was\nengaged in quite a different investigation. The reader will no doubt\nrecall the little excitement that began the century, arising out of an\nannouncement by Mr. Nikola Tesla, the American electrical celebrity, that\nhe had received a message from Mars. His announcement renewed attention to\nfact that had long been familiar to scientific people, namely: that from\nsome unknown source in space, waves of electromagnetic disturbance,\nentirely similar those used by Signor Marconi for his wireless telegraphy,\nare constantly reaching the earth. Besides Tesla quite a number of other\nobservers have been engaged in perfecting apparatus for receiving and\nrecording these vibrations, though few would go so far to consider them\nactual messages from some extraterrestrial sender. Among that few,\nhowever, we must certainly count Mr. Wendigee. Ever since 1898 he had\ndevoted himself almost entirely to this subject, and being a man of ample\nmeans he had erected an observatory on the flanks of Monte Rosa, in a\nposition singularly adapted in every way for such observations.\n\nMy scientific attainments, I must admit, are not great, but so far as they\nenable me to judge, Mr. Wendigee's contrivances for detecting and\nrecording any disturbances in the electromagnetic conditions of space are\nsingularly original and ingenious. And by a happy combination of\ncircumstances they were set up and in operation about two months before\nCavor made his first attempt to call up the earth. Consequently we have\nfragments of his communication even from the beginning. Unhappily, they\nare only fragments, and the most momentous of all the things that he had\nto tell humanity--the instructions, that is, for the making of Cavorite,\nif, indeed, he ever transmitted them--have throbbed themselves away\nunrecorded into space. We never succeeded in getting a response back to\nCavor. He was unable to tell, therefore, what we had received or what we\nhad missed; nor, indeed, did he certainly know that any one on earth was\nreally aware of his efforts to reach us. And the persistence he displayed\nin sending eighteen long descriptions of lunar affairs--as they would be\nif we had them complete--shows how much his mind must have turned back\ntowards his native planet since he left it two years ago.\n\nYou can imagine how amazed Mr. Wendigee must have been when he discovered\nhis record of electromagnetic disturbances interlaced by Cavor's\nstraightforward English. Mr. Wendigee knew nothing of our wild journey\nmoonward, and suddenly--this English out of the void!\n\nIt is well the reader should understand the conditions under which it\nwould seem these messages were sent. Somewhere within the moon Cavor\ncertainly had access for a time to a considerable amount of electrical\napparatus, and it would seem he rigged up--perhaps furtively--a\ntransmitting arrangement of the Marconi type. This he was able to operate\nat irregular intervals: sometimes for only half an hour or so, sometimes\nfor three or four hours at a stretch. At these times he transmitted his\nearthward message, regardless of the fact that the relative position of\nthe moon and points upon the earth's surface is constantly altering. As a\nconsequence of this and of the necessary imperfections of our recording\ninstruments his communication comes and goes in our records in an\nextremely fitful manner; it becomes blurred; it \"fades out\" in a\nmysterious and altogether exasperating way. And added to this is the fact\nthat he was not an expert operator; he had partly forgotten, or never\ncompletely mastered, the code in general use, and as he became fatigued he\ndropped words and misspelt in a curious manner.\n\nAltogether we have probably lost quite half of the communications he made,\nand much we have is damaged, broken, and partly effaced. In the abstract\nthat follows the reader must be prepared therefore for a considerable\namount of break, hiatus, and change of topic. Mr. Wendigee and I are\ncollaborating in a complete and annotated edition of the Cavor record,\nwhich we hope to publish, together with a detailed account of the\ninstruments employed, beginning with the first volume in January next.\nThat will be the full and scientific report, of which this is only the\npopular transcript. But here we give at least sufficient to complete the\nstory I have told, and to give the broad outlines of the state of that\nother world so near, so akin, and yet so dissimilar to our own.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 23\n\n\n\n\nAn Abstract of the Six Messages First Received from Mr. Cavor\n\nThe two earlier messages of Mr. Cavor may very well be reserved for that\nlarger volume. They simply tell, with greater brevity and with a\ndifference in several details that is interesting, but not of any vital\nimportance, the bare facts of the making of the sphere and our departure\nfrom the world. Throughout, Cavor speaks of me as a man who is dead, but\nwith a curious change of temper as he approaches our landing on the moon.\n\"Poor Bedford,\" he says of me, and \"this poor young man,\" and he blames\nhimself for inducing a young man, \"by no means well equipped for such\nadventures,\" to leave a planet \"on which he was indisputably fitted to\nsucceed\" on so precarious a mission. I think he underrates the part my\nenergy and practical capacity played in bringing about the realisation of\nhis theoretical sphere. \"We arrived,\" he says, with no more account of our\npassage through space than if we had made a journey of common occurrence\nin a railway train.\n\nAnd then he becomes increasingly unfair to me. Unfair, indeed, to an\nextent I should not have expected in a man trained in the search for\ntruth. Looking back over my previously written account of these things, I\nmust insist that I have been altogether juster to Cavor than he has been\nto me. I have extenuated little and suppressed nothing. But his account\nis:--\n\n\"It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our\ncircumstances and surroundings--great loss of weight, attenuated but\nhighly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular\neffort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid\nsky--was exciting my companion unduly. On the moon his character seemed to\ndeteriorate. He became impulsive, rash, and quarrelsome. In a little while\nhis folly in devouring some gigantic vesicles and his consequent\nintoxication led to our capture by the Selenites--before we had had the\nslightest opportunity of properly observing their ways....\"\n\n(He says, you observe, nothing of his own concession to these same\n\"vesicles.\")\n\nAnd he goes on from that point to say that \"We came to a difficult passage\nwith them, and Bedford mistaking certain gestures of theirs\"--pretty\ngestures they were!--\"gave way to a panic violence. He ran amuck, killed\nthree, and perforce I had to flee with him after the outrage. Subsequently\nwe fought with a number who endeavoured to bar our way, and slew seven or\neight more. It says much for the tolerance of these beings that on my\nrecapture I was not instantly slain. We made our way to the exterior and\nseparated in the crater of our arrival, to increase our chances of\nrecovering our sphere. But presently I came upon a body of Selenites, led\nby two who were curiously different, even in form, from any of these we\nhad seen hitherto, with larger heads and smaller bodies, and much more\nelaborately wrapped about. And after evading them for some time I fell\ninto a crevasse, cut my head rather badly, and displaced my patella, and,\nfinding crawling very painful, decided to surrender--if they would still\npermit me to do so. This they did, and, perceiving my helpless condition,\ncarried me with them again into the moon. And of Bedford I have heard or\nseen nothing more, nor, so far as I can gather, any Selenite. Either the\nnight overtook him in the crater, or else, which is more probable, he\nfound the sphere, and, desiring to steal a march upon me, made off with\nit--only, I fear, to find it uncontrollable, and to meet a more lingering\nfate in outer space.\"\n\nAnd with that Cavor dismisses me and goes on to more interesting topics. I\ndislike the idea of seeming to use my position as his editor to deflect\nhis story in my own interest, but I am obliged to protest here against the\nturn he gives these occurrences. He said nothing about that gasping\nmessage on the blood-stained paper in which he told, or attempted to tell,\na very different story. The dignified self-surrender is an altogether new\nview of the affair that has come to him, I must insist, since he began to\nfeel secure among the lunar people; and as for the \"stealing a march\"\nconception, I am quite willing to let the reader decide between us on what\nhe has before him. I know I am not a model man--I have made no pretence\nto be. But am I that?\n\nHowever, that is the sum of my wrongs. From this point I can edit Cavor\nwith an untroubled mind, for he mentions me no more.\n\nIt would seem the Selenites who had come upon him carried him to some\npoint in the interior down \"a great shaft\" by means of what he describes\nas \"a sort of balloon.\" We gather from the rather confused passage in\nwhich he describes this, and from a number of chance allusions and hints\nin other and subsequent messages, that this \"great shaft\" is one of an\nenormous system of artificial shafts that run, each from what is called a\nlunar \"crater,\" downwards for very nearly a hundred miles towards the\ncentral portion of our satellite. These shafts communicate by transverse\ntunnels, they throw out abysmal caverns and expand into great globular\nplaces; the whole of the moon's substance for a hundred miles inward,\nindeed, is a mere sponge of rock. \"Partly,\" says Cavor, \"this sponginess\nis natural, but very largely it is due to the enormous industry of the\nSelenites in the past. The enormous circular mounds of the excavated rock\nand earth it is that form these great circles about the tunnels known to\nearthly astronomers (misled by a false analogy) as volcanoes.\"\n\nIt was down this shaft they took him, in this \"sort of balloon\" he speaks\nof, at first into an inky blackness and then into a region of continually\nincreasing phosphorescence. Cavor's despatches show him to be curiously\nregardless of detail for a scientific man, but we gather that this light\nwas due to the streams and cascades of water--\"no doubt containing some\nphosphorescent organism\"--that flowed ever more abundantly downward\ntowards the Central Sea. And as he descended, he says, \"The Selenites also\nbecame luminous.\" And at last far below him he saw, as it were, a lake of\nheatless fire, the waters of the Central Sea, glowing and eddying in\nstrange perturbation, \"like luminous blue milk that is just on the boil.\"\n\n\"This Lunar Sea,\" says Cavor, in a later passage \"is not a stagnant ocean;\na solar tide sends it in a perpetual flow around the lunar axis, and\nstrange storms and boilings and rushings of its waters occur, and at times\ncold winds and thunderings that ascend out of it into the busy ways of the\ngreat ant-hill above. It is only when the water is in motion that it\ngives out light; in its rare seasons of calm it is black. Commonly, when\none sees it, its waters rise and fall in an oily swell, and flakes and big\nrafts of shining, bubbly foam drift with the sluggish, faintly glowing\ncurrent. The Selenites navigate its cavernous straits and lagoons in\nlittle shallow boats of a canoe-like shape; and even before my journey to\nthe galleries about the Grand Lunar, who is Master of the Moon, I was\npermitted to make a brief excursion on its waters.\n\n\"The caverns and passages are naturally very tortuous. A large proportion\nof these ways are known only to expert pilots among the fishermen, and not\ninfrequently Selenites are lost for ever in their labyrinths. In their\nremoter recesses, I am told, strange creatures lurk, some of them terrible\nand dangerous creatures that all the science of the moon has been unable\nto exterminate. There is particularly the Rapha, an inextricable mass of\nclutching tentacles that one hacks to pieces only to multiply; and the\nTzee, a darting creature that is never seen, so subtly and suddenly does\nit slay...\"\n\nHe gives us a gleam of description.\n\n\"I was reminded on this excursion of what I have read of the Mammoth\nCaves; if only I had had a yellow flambeau instead of the pervading blue\nlight, and a solid-looking boatman with an oar instead of a scuttle-faced\nSelenite working an engine at the back of the canoe, I could have imagined\nI had suddenly got back to earth. The rocks about us were very various,\nsometimes black, sometimes pale blue and veined, and once they flashed and\nglittered as though we had come into a mine of sapphires. And below one\nsaw the ghostly phosphorescent fishes flash and vanish in the hardly less\nphosphorescent deep. Then, presently, a long ultra-marine vista down the\nturgid stream of one of the channels of traffic, and a landing stage, and\nthen, perhaps, a glimpse up the enormous crowded shaft of one of the\nvertical ways.\n\n\"In one great place heavy with glistening stalactites a number of boats\nwere fishing. We went alongside one of these and watched the long-armed\nSelenites winding in a net. They were little, hunchbacked insects, with\nvery strong arms, short, bandy legs, and crinkled face-masks. As they\npulled at it that net seemed the heaviest thing I had come upon in the\nmoon; it was loaded with weights--no doubt of gold--and it took a long\ntime to draw, for in those waters the larger and more edible fish lurk\ndeep. The fish in the net came up like a blue moonrise--a blaze of\ndarting, tossing blue.\n\n\"Among their catch was a many-tentaculate, evil-eyed black thing,\nferociously active, whose appearance they greeted with shrieks and\ntwitters, and which with quick, nervous movements they hacked to pieces by\nmeans of little hatchets. All its dissevered limbs continued to lash and\nwrithe in a vicious manner. Afterwards, when fever had hold of me, I\ndreamt again and again of that bitter, furious creature rising so vigorous\nand active out of the unknown sea. It was the most active and malignant\nthing of all the living creatures I have yet seen in this world inside the\nmoon....\n\n\"The surface of this sea must be very nearly two hundred miles (if not\nmore) below the level of the moon's exterior; all the cities of the moon\nlie, I learnt, immediately above this Central Sea, in such cavernous\nspaces and artificial galleries as I have described, and they communicate\nwith the exterior by enormous vertical shafts which open invariably in\nwhat are called by earthly astronomers the 'craters' of the moon. The lid\ncovering one such aperture I had already seen during the wanderings that\nhad preceded my capture.\n\n\"Upon the condition of the less central portion of the moon I have not yet\narrived at very precise knowledge. There is an enormous system of caverns\nin which the mooncalves shelter during the night; and there are abattoirs\nand the like--in one of these it was that I and Bedford fought with the\nSelenite butchers--and I have since seen balloons laden with meat\ndescending out of the upper dark. I have as yet scarcely learnt as much of\nthese things as a Zulu in London would learn about the British corn\nsupplies in the same time. It is clear, however, that these vertical\nshafts and the vegetation of the surface must play an essential role in\nventilating and keeping fresh the atmosphere of the moon. At one time, and\nparticularly on my first emergence from my prison, there was certainly a\ncold wind blowing _down_ the shaft, and later there was a kind of sirocco\nupward that corresponded with my fever. For at the end of about three\nweeks I fell ill of an indefinable sort of fever, and in spite of sleep\nand the quinine tabloids that very fortunately I had brought in my pocket,\nI remained ill and fretting miserably, almost to the time when I was taken\ninto the presence of the Grand Lunar, who is Master of the Moon.\n\n\"I will not dilate on the wretchedness of my condition,\" he remarks,\n\"during those days of ill-health.\" And he goes on with great amplitude with\ndetails I omit here. \"My temperature,\" he concludes, \"kept abnormally high\nfor a long time, and I lost all desire for food. I had stagnant waking\nintervals, and sleep tormented by dreams, and at one phase I was, I\nremember, so weak as to be earth-sick and almost hysterical. I longed\nalmost intolerably for colour to break the everlasting blue...\"\n\nHe reverts again presently to the topic of this sponge-caught lunar\natmosphere. I am told by astronomers and physicists that all he tells is\nin absolute accordance with what was already known of the moon's\ncondition. Had earthly astronomers had the courage and imagination to\npush home a bold induction, says Mr. Wendigee, they might have foretold\nalmost everything that Cavor has to say of the general structure of the\nmoon. They know now pretty certainly that moon and earth are not so much\nsatellite and primary as smaller and greater sisters, made out of one\nmass, and consequently made of the same material. And since the density of\nthe moon is only three-fifths that of the earth, there can be nothing for\nit but that she is hollowed out by a great system of caverns. There was no\nnecessity, said Sir Jabez Flap, F.R.S., that most entertaining exponent of\nthe facetious side of the stars, that we should ever have gone to the moon\nto find out such easy inferences, and points the pun with an allusion to\nGruyere, but he certainly might have announced his knowledge of the\nhollowness of the moon before. And if the moon is hollow, then the\napparent absence of air and water is, of course, quite easily explained.\nThe sea lies within at the bottom of the caverns, and the air travels\nthrough the great sponge of galleries, in accordance with simple physical\nlaws. The caverns of the moon, on the whole, are very windy places. As the\nsunlight comes round the moon the air in the outer galleries on that side\nis heated, its pressure increases, some flows out on the exterior and\nmingles with the evaporating air of the craters (where the plants remove\nits carbonic acid), while the greater portion flows round through the\ngalleries to replace the shrinking air of the cooling side that the\nsunlight has left. There is, therefore, a constant eastward breeze in the\nair of the outer galleries, and an upflow during the lunar day up the\nshafts, complicated, of course, very greatly by the varying shape of the\ngalleries, and the ingenious contrivances of the Selenite mind....\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 24\n\n\n\n\nThe Natural History of the Selenites\n\nThe messages of Cavor from the sixth up to the sixteenth are for the most\npart so much broken, and they abound so in repetitions, that they scarcely\nform a consecutive narrative. They will be given in full, of course, in\nthe scientific report, but here it will be far more convenient to continue\nsimply to abstract and quote as in the former chapter. We have subjected\nevery word to a keen critical scrutiny, and my own brief memories and\nimpressions of lunar things have been of inestimable help in interpreting\nwhat would otherwise have been impenetrably dark. And, naturally, as\nliving beings, our interest centres far more upon the strange community of\nlunar insects in which he was living, it would seem, as an honoured guest\nthan upon the mere physical condition of their world.\n\nI have already made it clear, I think, that the Selenites I saw resembled\nman in maintaining the erect attitude, and in having four limbs, and I\nhave compared the general appearance of their heads and the jointing of\ntheir limbs to that of insects. I have mentioned, too, the peculiar\nconsequence of the smaller gravitation of the moon on their fragile\nslightness. Cavor confirms me upon all these points. He calls them\n\"animals,\" though of course they fall under no division of the\nclassification of earthly creatures, and he points out \"the insect type of\nanatomy had, fortunately for men, never exceeded a relatively very small\nsize on earth.\" The largest terrestrial insects, living or extinct, do\nnot, as a matter of fact, measure six inches in length; \"but here, against\nthe lesser gravitation of the moon, a creature certainly as much an insect\nas vertebrate seems to have been able to attain to human and ultra-human\ndimensions.\"\n\nHe does not mention the ant, but throughout his allusions the ant is\ncontinually being brought before my mind, in its sleepless activity, in\nits intelligence and social organisation, in its structure, and more\nparticularly in the fact that it displays, in addition to the two forms,\nthe male and the female form, that almost all other animals possess, a\nnumber of other sexless creatures, workers, soldiers, and the like,\ndiffering from one another in structure, character, power, and use, and\nyet all members of the same species. For these Selenites, also, have a\ngreat variety of forms. Of course, they are not only colossally greater in\nsize than ants, but also, in Cavor's opinion at least, in intelligence,\nmorality, and social wisdom are they colossally greater than men. And\ninstead of the four or five different forms of ant that are found, there\nare almost innumerably different forms of Selenite. I had endeavoured to\nindicate the very considerable difference observable in such Selenites of\nthe outer crust as I happened to encounter; the differences in size and\nproportions were certainly as wide as the differences between the most\nwidely separated races of men. But such differences as I saw fade\nabsolutely to nothing in comparison with the huge distinctions of which\nCavor tells. It would seem the exterior Selenites I saw were, indeed,\nmostly engaged in kindred occupations--mooncalf herds, butchers,\nfleshers, and the like. But within the moon, practically unsuspected by\nme, there are, it seems, a number of other sorts of Selenite, differing in\nsize, differing in the relative size of part to part, differing in power\nand appearance, and yet not different species of creatures, but only\ndifferent forms of one species, and retaining through all their variations\na certain common likeness that marks their specific unity. The moon is,\nindeed, a sort of vast ant-hill, only, instead of there being only four or\nfive sorts of ant, there are many hundred different sorts of Selenite, and\nalmost every gradation between one sort and another.\n\nIt would seem the discovery came upon Cavor very speedily. I infer rather\nthan learn from his narrative that he was captured by the mooncalf herds\nunder the direction of these other Selenites who \"have larger brain cases\n(heads?) and very much shorter legs.\" Finding he would not walk even under\nthe goad, they carried him into darkness, crossed a narrow, plank-like\nbridge that may have been the identical bridge I had refused, and put him\ndown in something that must have seemed at first to be some sort of lift.\nThis was the balloon--it had certainly been absolutely invisible to us in\nthe darkness--and what had seemed to me a mere plank-walking into the\nvoid was really, no doubt, the passage of the gangway. In this he\ndescended towards constantly more luminous caverns of the moon. At first\nthey descended in silence--save for the twitterings of the Selenites--and\nthen into a stir of windy movement. In a little while the profound\nblackness had made his eyes so sensitive that he began to see more and\nmore of the things about him, and at last the vague took shape.\n\n\"Conceive an enormous cylindrical space,\" says Cavor, in his seventh\nmessage, \"a quarter of a mile across, perhaps; very dimly lit at first\nand then brighter, with big platforms twisting down its sides in a spiral\nthat vanishes at last below in a blue profundity; and lit even more\nbrightly--one could not tell how or why. Think of the well of the very\nlargest spiral staircase or lift-shaft that you have ever looked down, and\nmagnify that by a hundred. Imagine it at twilight seen through blue glass.\nImagine yourself looking down that; only imagine also that you feel\nextraordinarily light, and have got rid of any giddy feeling you might\nhave on earth, and you will have the first conditions of my impression.\nRound this enormous shaft imagine a broad gallery running in a much\nsteeper spiral than would be credible on earth, and forming a steep road\nprotected from the gulf only by a little parapet that vanishes at last in\nperspective a couple of miles below.\n\n\"Looking up, I saw the very fellow of the downward vision; it had, of\ncourse, the effect of looking into a very steep cone. A wind was blowing\ndown the shaft, and far above I fancy I heard, growing fainter and\nfainter, the bellowing of the mooncalves that were being driven down again\nfrom their evening pasturage on the exterior. And up and down the spiral\ngalleries were scattered numerous moon people, pallid, faintly luminous\nbeings, regarding our appearance or busied on unknown errands.\n\n\"Either I fancied it or a flake of snow came drifting down on the icy\nbreeze. And then, falling like a snowflake, a little figure, a little\nman-insect, clinging to a parachute, drove down very swiftly towards the\ncentral places of the moon.\n\n\"The big-headed Selenite sitting beside me, seeing me move my head with\nthe gesture of one who saw, pointed with his trunk-like 'hand' and\nindicated a sort of jetty coming into sight very far below: a little\nlanding-stage, as it were, hanging into the void. As it swept up towards\nus our pace diminished very rapidly, and in a few moments, as it seemed,\nwe were abreast of it, and at rest. A mooring-rope was flung and grasped,\nand I found myself pulled down to a level with a great crowd of Selenites,\nwho jostled to see me.\n\n\"It was an incredible crowd. Suddenly and violently there was forced upon\nmy attention the vast amount of difference there is amongst these beings\nof the moon.\n\n\"Indeed, there seemed not two alike in all that jostling multitude. They\ndiffered in shape, they differed in size, they rang all the horrible\nchanges on the theme of Selenite form! Some bulged and overhung, some ran\nabout among the feet of their fellows. All of them had a grotesque and\ndisquieting suggestion of an insect that has somehow contrived to mock\nhumanity; but all seemed to present an incredible exaggeration of some\nparticular feature: one had a vast right fore-limb, an enormous antennal\narm, as it were; one seemed all leg, poised, as it were, on stilts;\nanother protruded the edge of his face mask into a nose-like organ that\nmade him startlingly human until one saw his expressionless gaping mouth.\nThe strange and (except for the want of mandibles and palps) most\ninsect-like head of the mooncalf-minders underwent, indeed, the most\nincredible transformations: here it was broad and low, here high and\nnarrow; here its leathery brow was drawn out into horns and strange\nfeatures; here it was whiskered and divided, and there with a grotesquely\nhuman profile. One distortion was particularly conspicuous. There were\nseveral brain cases distended like bladders to a huge size, with the face\nmask reduced to quite small proportions. There were several amazing forms,\nwith heads reduced to microscopic proportions and blobby bodies; and\nfantastic, flimsy things that existed, it would seem, only as a basis for\nvast, trumpet-like protrusions of the lower part of the mask. And oddest\nof all, as it seemed to me for the moment, two or three of these weird\ninhabitants of a subterranean world, a world sheltered by innumerable\nmiles of rock from sun or rain, _carried umbrellas_ in their tentaculate\nhands--real terrestrial looking umbrellas! And then I thought of the\nparachutist I had watched descend.\n\n\"These moon people behaved exactly as a human crowd might have done in\nsimilar circumstances: they jostled and thrust one another, they shoved\none another aside, they even clambered upon one another to get a glimpse\nof me. Every moment they increased in numbers, and pressed more urgently\nupon the discs of my ushers\"--Cavor does not explain what he means by\nthis--\"every moment fresh shapes emerged from the shadows and forced\nthemselves upon my astounded attention. And presently I was signed and\nhelped into a sort of litter, and lifted up on the shoulders of\nstrong-armed bearers, and so borne through the twilight over this seething\nmultitude towards the apartments that were provided for me in the moon.\nAll about me were eyes, faces, masks, a leathery noise like the rustling\nof beetle wings, and a great bleating and cricket-like twittering of\nSelenite voices.\"\n\nWe gather he was taken to a \"hexagonal apartment,\" and there for a space\nhe was confined. Afterwards he was given a much more considerable liberty;\nindeed, almost as much freedom as one has in a civilised town on earth.\nAnd it would appear that the mysterious being who is the ruler and master\nof the moon appointed two Selenites \"with large heads\" to guard and study\nhim, and to establish whatever mental communications were possible with\nhim. And, amazing and incredible as it may seem, these two creatures,\nthese fantastic men insects, these beings of other world, were presently\ncommunicating with Cavor by means of terrestrial speech.\n\nCavor speaks of them as Phi-oo and Tsi-puff. Phi-oo, he says, was about 5\nfeet high; he had small slender legs about 18 inches long, and slight feet\nof the common lunar pattern. On these balanced a little body, throbbing\nwith the pulsations of his heart. He had long, soft, many-jointed arms\nending in a tentacled grip, and his neck was many-jointed in the usual\nway, but exceptionally short and thick. His head, says Cavor--apparently\nalluding to some previous description that has gone astray in space--\"is\nof the common lunar type, but strangely modified. The mouth has the usual\nexpressionless gape, but it is unusually small and pointing downward, and\nthe mask is reduced to the size of a large flat nose-flap. On either side\nare the little eyes.\n\n\"The rest of the head is distended into a huge globe and the chitinous\nleathery cuticle of the mooncalf herds thins out to a mere membrane,\nthrough which the pulsating brain movements are distinctly visible. He\nis a creature, indeed, with a tremendously hypertrophied brain, and with\nthe rest of his organism both relatively and absolutely dwarfed.\"\n\nIn another passage Cavor compares the back view of him to Atlas supporting\nthe world. Tsi-puff it seems was a very similar insect, but his \"face\" was\ndrawn out to a considerable length, and the brain hypertrophy being in\ndifferent regions, his head was not round but pear-shaped, with the stalk\ndownward. There were also litter-carriers, lopsided beings, with enormous\nshoulders, very spidery ushers, and a squat foot attendant in Cavor's\nretinue.\n\nThe manner in which Phi-oo and Tsi-puff attacked the problem of speech was\nfairly obvious. They came into this \"hexagonal cell\" in which Cavor was\nconfined, and began imitating every sound he made, beginning with a cough.\nHe seems to have grasped their intention with great quickness, and to have\nbegun repeating words to them and pointing to indicate the application.\nThe procedure was probably always the same. Phi-oo would attend to Cavor\nfor a space, then point also and say the word he had heard.\n\nThe first word he mastered was \"man,\" and the second \"Mooney\"--which\nCavor on the spur of the moment seems to have used instead of \"Selenite\"\nfor the moon race. As soon as Phi-oo was assured of the meaning of a word\nhe repeated it to Tsi-puff, who remembered it infallibly. They mastered\nover one hundred English nouns at their first session.\n\nSubsequently it seems they brought an artist with them to assist the work\nof explanation with sketches and diagrams--Cavor's drawings being rather\ncrude. \"He was,\" says Cavor, \"a being with an active arm and an arresting\neye,\" and he seemed to draw with incredible swiftness.\n\nThe eleventh message is undoubtedly only a fragment of a longer\ncommunication. After some broken sentences, the record of which is\nunintelligible, it goes on:--\n\n\"But it will interest only linguists, and delay me too long, to give the\ndetails of the series of intent parleys of which these were the beginning,\nand, indeed, I very much doubt if I could give in anything like the proper\norder all the twistings and turnings that we made in our pursuit of mutual\ncomprehension. Verbs were soon plain sailing--at least, such active verbs\nas I could express by drawings; some adjectives were easy, but when it\ncame to abstract nouns, to prepositions, and the sort of hackneyed figures\nof speech, by means of which so much is expressed on earth, it was like\ndiving in cork-jackets. Indeed, these difficulties were insurmountable\nuntil to the sixth lesson came a fourth assistant, a being with a huge\nfootball-shaped head, whose forte was clearly the pursuit of intricate\nanalogy. He entered in a preoccupied manner, stumbling against a stool,\nand the difficulties that arose had to be presented to him with a certain\namount of clamour and hitting and pricking before they reached his\napprehension. But once he was involved his penetration was amazing.\nWhenever there came a need of thinking beyond Phi-oo's by no means limited\nscope, this prolate-headed person was in request, but he invariably told\nthe conclusion to Tsi-puff, in order that it might be remembered; Tsi-puff\nwas ever the arsenal for facts. And so we advanced again.\n\n\"It seemed long and yet brief--a matter of days--before I was positively\ntalking with these insects of the moon. Of course, at first it was an\nintercourse infinitely tedious and exasperating, but imperceptibly it has\ngrown to comprehension. And my patience has grown to meet its limitations,\nPhi-oo it is who does all the talking. He does it with a vast amount of\nmeditative provisional 'M'm--M'm' and has caught up one or two phrases,\n'If I may say,' 'If you understand,' and beads all his speech with them.\n\n\"Thus he would discourse. Imagine him explaining his artist.\n\n\"'M'm--M'm--he--if I may say--draw. Eat little--drink little--draw.\nLove draw. No other thing. Hate all who not draw like him. Angry. Hate all\nwho draw like him better. Hate most people. Hate all who not think all\nworld for to draw. Angry. M'm. All things mean nothing to him--only draw.\nHe like you ... if you understand.... New thing to draw. Ugly--striking.\nEh?\n\n\"'He'--turning to Tsi-puff--'love remember words. Remember wonderful\nmore than any. Think no, draw no--remember. Say'--here he referred to\nhis gifted assistant for a word--'histories--all things. He hear\nonce--say ever.'\n\n\"It is more wonderful to me than I dreamt that anything ever could be\nagain, to hear, in this perpetual obscurity, these extraordinary\ncreatures--for even familiarity fails to weaken the inhuman effect of\ntheir appearance--continually piping a nearer approach to coherent earthly\nspeech--asking questions, giving answers. I feel that I am casting back\nto the fable-hearing period of childhood again, when the ant and the\ngrasshopper talked together and the bee judged between them...\"\n\nAnd while these linguistic exercises were going on Cavor seems to have\nexperienced a considerable relaxation of his confinement. \"The first dread\nand distrust our unfortunate conflict aroused is being,\" he said,\n\"continually effaced by the deliberate rationality of all I do.... I am\nnow able to come and go as I please, or I am restricted only for my own\ngood. So it is I have been able to get at this apparatus, and, assisted\nby a happy find among the material that is littered in this enormous\nstore-cave, I have contrived to despatch these messages. So far not the\nslightest attempt has been made to interfere with me in this, though I\nhave made it quite clear to Phi-oo that I am signalling to the earth.\n\n\"'You talk to other?' he asked, watching me.\n\n\"'Others,' said I.\n\n\"'Others,' he said. 'Oh yes, Men?'\n\n\"And I went on transmitting.\"\n\nCavor was continually making corrections in his previous accounts of the\nSelenites as fresh facts flowed upon him to modify his conclusions, and\naccordingly one gives the quotations that follow with a certain amount of\nreservation. They are quoted from the ninth, thirteenth, and sixteenth\nmessages, and, altogether vague and fragmentary as they are, they probably\ngive as complete a picture of the social life of this strange community as\nmankind can now hope to have for many generations.\n\n\"In the moon,\" says Cavor, \"every citizen knows his place. He is born to\nthat place, and the elaborate discipline of training and education and\nsurgery he undergoes fits him at last so completely to it that he has\nneither ideas nor organs for any purpose beyond it. 'Why should he?'\nPhi-oo would ask. If, for example, a Selenite is destined to be a\nmathematician, his teachers and trainers set out at once to that end. They\ncheck any incipient disposition to other pursuits, they encourage his\nmathematical bias with a perfect psychological skill. His brain grows, or\nat least the mathematical faculties of his brain grow, and the rest of him\nonly so much as is necessary to sustain this essential part of him. At\nlast, save for rest and food, his one delight lies in the exercise and\ndisplay of his faculty, his one interest in its application, his sole\nsociety with other specialists in his own line. His brain grows\ncontinually larger, at least so far as the portions engaging in\nmathematics are concerned; they bulge ever larger and seem to suck all\nlife and vigour from the rest of his frame. His limbs shrivel, his heart\nand digestive organs diminish, his insect face is hidden under its bulging\ncontours. His voice becomes a mere stridulation for the stating of\nformula; he seems deaf to all but properly enunciated problems. The\nfaculty of laughter, save for the sudden discovery of some paradox, is\nlost to him; his deepest emotion is the evolution of a novel computation.\nAnd so he attains his end.\n\n\"Or, again, a Selenite appointed to be a minder of mooncalves is from his\nearliest years induced to think and live mooncalf, to find his pleasure in\nmooncalf lore, his exercise in their tending and pursuit. He is trained to\nbecome wiry and active, his eye is indurated to the tight wrappings, the\nangular contours that constitute a 'smart mooncalfishness.' He takes at\nlast no interest in the deeper part of the moon; he regards all Selenites\nnot equally versed in mooncalves with indifference, derision, or\nhostility. His thoughts are of mooncalf pastures, and his dialect an\naccomplished mooncalf technique. So also he loves his work, and discharges\nin perfect happiness the duty that justifies his being. And so it is with\nall sorts and conditions of Selenites--each is a perfect unit in a world\nmachine....\n\n\"These beings with big heads, on whom the intellectual labours fall, form\na sort of aristocracy in this strange society, and at the head of them,\nquintessential of the moon, is that marvellous gigantic ganglion the Grand\nLunar, into whose presence I am finally to come. The unlimited development\nof the minds of the intellectual class is rendered possible by the absence\nof any bony skull in the lunar anatomy, that strange box of bone that\nclamps about the developing brain of man, imperiously insisting 'thus far\nand no farther' to all his possibilities. They fall into three main\nclasses differing greatly in influence and respect. There are\nadministrators, of whom Phi-oo is one, Selenites of considerable\ninitiative and versatility, responsible each for a certain cubic content\nof the moon's bulk; the experts like the football-headed thinker, who are\ntrained to perform certain special operations; and the erudite, who are\nthe repositories of all knowledge. To the latter class belongs Tsi-puff,\nthe first lunar professor of terrestrial languages. With regard to these\nlatter, it is a curious little thing to note that the unlimited growth of\nthe lunar brain has rendered unnecessary the invention of all those\nmechanical aids to brain work which have distinguished the career of man.\nThere are no books, no records of any sort, no libraries or inscriptions.\nAll knowledge is stored in distended brains much as the honey-ants of\nTexas store honey in their distended abdomens. The lunar Somerset House\nand the lunar British Museum Library are collections of living brains...\n\n\"The less specialised administrators, I note, do for the most part take a\nvery lively interest in me whenever they encounter me. They will come out\nof the way and stare at me and ask questions to which Phi-oo will reply. I\nsee them going hither and thither with a retinue of bearers, attendants,\nshouters, parachute-carriers, and so forth--queer groups to see. The\nexperts for the most part ignore me completely, even as they ignore each\nother, or notice me only to begin a clamorous exhibition of their\ndistinctive skill. The erudite for the most part are rapt in an impervious\nand apoplectic complacency, from which only a denial of their erudition\ncan rouse them. Usually they are led about by little watchers and\nattendants, and often there are small and active-looking creatures, small\nfemales usually, that I am inclined to think are a sort of wife to them;\nbut some of the profounder scholars are altogether too great for\nlocomotion, and are carried from place to place in a sort of sedan tub,\nwabbling jellies of knowledge that enlist my respectful astonishment. I\nhave just passed one in coming to this place where I am permitted to amuse\nmyself with these electrical toys, a vast, shaven, shaky head, bald and\nthin-skinned, carried on his grotesque stretcher. In front and behind came\nhis bearers, and curious, almost trumpet-faced, news disseminators\nshrieked his fame.\n\n\"I have already mentioned the retinues that accompany most of the\nintellectuals: ushers, bearers, valets, extraneous tentacles and muscles,\nas it were, to replace the abortive physical powers of these hypertrophied\nminds. Porters almost invariably accompany them. There are also extremely\nswift messengers with spider-like legs and 'hands' for grasping\nparachutes, and attendants with vocal organs that could well nigh wake the\ndead. Apart from their controlling intelligence these subordinates are as\ninert and helpless as umbrellas in a stand. They exist only in relation to\nthe orders they have to obey, the duties they have to perform.\n\n\"The bulk of these insects, however, who go to and fro upon the spiral\nways, who fill the ascending balloons and drop past me clinging to flimsy\nparachutes are, I gather, of the operative class. 'Machine hands,' indeed,\nsome of these are in actual nature--it is not figure of speech, the\nsingle tentacle of the mooncalf herd is profoundly modified for clawing,\nlifting, guiding, the rest of them no more than necessary subordinate\nappendages to these important mechanisms, have enormously developed\nauditory organs; some whose work lies in delicate chemical operations\nproject a vast olfactory organ; others again have flat feet for\ntreadles with anchylosed joints; and others--who I have been told are\nglassblowers--seem mere lung-bellows. But every one of these common\nSelenites I have seen at work is exquisitely adapted to the social need\nit meets. Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfed\nand neat. Some I could hold on the palm of my hand. There is even a\nsort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight it\nis to apply the motive power for various small appliances. And to rule\nover these things and order any erring tendency there might be in some\naberrant natures are the most muscular beings I have seen in the moon,\na sort of lunar police, who must have been trained from their earliest\nyears to give a perfect respect and obedience to the swollen heads.\n\n\"The making of these various sorts of operative must be a very curious and\ninteresting process. I am very much in the dark about it, but quite\nrecently I came upon a number of young Selenites confined in jars from\nwhich only the fore-limbs protruded, who were being compressed to become\nmachine-minders of a special sort. The extended 'hand' in this highly\ndeveloped system of technical education is stimulated by irritants and\nnourished by injection, while the rest of the body is starved. Phi-oo,\nunless I misunderstood him, explained that in the earlier stages these\nqueer little creatures are apt to display signs of suffering in their\nvarious cramped situations, but they easily become indurated to their lot;\nand he took me on to where a number of flexible-minded messengers were\nbeing drawn out and broken in. It is quite unreasonable, I know, but such\nglimpses of the educational methods of these beings affect me\ndisagreeably. I hope, however, that may pass off, and I may be able to\nsee more of this aspect of their wonderful social order. That\nwretched-looking hand-tentacle sticking out of its jar seemed to have a\nsort of limp appeal for lost possibilities; it haunts me still, although,\nof course it is really in the end a far more humane proceeding than our\nearthly method of leaving children to grow into human beings, and then\nmaking machines of them.\n\n\"Quite recently, too--I think it was on the eleventh or twelfth visit I\nmade to this apparatus--I had a curious light upon the lives of these\noperatives. I was being guided through a short cut hither, instead of\ngoing down the spiral, and by the quays to the Central Sea. From the\ndevious windings of a long, dark gallery, we emerged into a vast, low\ncavern, pervaded by an earthy smell, and as things go in this darkness,\nrather brightly lit. The light came from a tumultuous growth of livid\nfungoid shapes--some indeed singularly like our terrestrial mushrooms,\nbut standing as high or higher than a man.\n\n\"'Mooneys eat these?' said I to Phi-oo.\n\n\"'Yes, food.'\n\n\"'Goodness me!' I cried; 'what's that?'\n\n\"My eye had just caught the figure of an exceptionally big and ungainly\nSelenite lying motionless among the stems, face downward. We stopped.\n\n\"'Dead?' I asked. (For as yet I have seen no dead in the moon, and I have\ngrown curious.)\n\n\"'No!' exclaimed Phi-oo. 'Him--worker--no work to do. Get little drink\nthen--make sleep--till we him want. What good him wake, eh? No want him\nwalking about.'\n\n\"'There's another!' cried I.\n\n\"And indeed all that huge extent of mushroom ground was, I found, peppered\nwith these prostrate figures sleeping under an opiate until the moon had\nneed of them. There were scores of them of all sorts, and we were able to\nturn over some of them, and examine them more precisely than I had been\nable to previously. They breathed noisily at my doing so, but did not\nwake. One, I remember very distinctly: he left a strong impression, I\nthink, because some trick the light and of his attitude was strongly\nsuggestive a drawn-up human figure. His fore-limbs were long, delicate\ntentacles--he was some kind of refined manipulator--and the pose of his\nslumber suggested a submissive suffering. No doubt it was a mistake for\nme to interpret his expression in that way, but I did. And as Phi-oo\nrolled him over into the darkness among the livid fleshiness again I felt\na distinctly unpleasant sensation, although as he rolled the insect in\nhim was confessed.\n\n\"It simply illustrates the unthinking way in which one acquires habits of\nfeeling. To drug the worker one does not want and toss him aside is surely\nfar better than to expel him from his factory to wander starving in the\nstreets. In every complicated social community there is necessarily a\ncertain intermittency of employment for all specialised labour, and in\nthis way the trouble of an 'unemployed' problem is altogether anticipated.\nAnd yet, so unreasonable are even scientifically trained minds, I still do\nnot like the memory of those prostrate forms amidst those quiet, luminous\narcades of fleshy growth, and I avoid that short cut in spite of the\ninconveniences of the longer, more noisy, and more crowded alternative.\n\n\"My alternative route takes me round by a huge, shadowy cavern, very\ncrowded and clamorous, and here it is I see peering out of the hexagonal\nopenings of a sort of honeycomb wall, or parading a large open space\nbehind, or selecting the toys and amulets made to please them by the\ndainty-tentacled jewellers who work in kennels below, the mothers of the\nmoon world--the queen bees, as it were, of the hive. They are\nnoble-looking beings, fantastically and sometimes quite beautifully\nadorned, with a proud carriage, and, save for their mouths, almost\nmicroscopic heads.\n\n\"Of the condition of the moon sexes, marrying and giving in marriage, and\nof birth and so forth among the Selenites, I have as yet been able to\nlearn very little. With the steady progress of Phi-oo in English, however,\nmy ignorance will no doubt as steadily disappear. I am of opinion that, as\nwith the ants and bees, there is a large majority of the members in this\ncommunity of the neuter sex. Of course on earth in our cities there are\nnow many who never live that life of parentage which is the natural life\nof man. Here, as with the ants, this thing has become a normal condition\nof the race, and the whole of such replacement as is necessary falls upon\nthis special and by no means numerous class of matrons, the mothers of the\nmoon-world, large and stately beings beautifully fitted to bear the larval\nSelenite. Unless I misunderstand an explanation of Phi-oo's, they are\nabsolutely incapable of cherishing the young they bring into the moon;\nperiods of foolish indulgence alternate with moods of aggressive violence,\nand as soon as possible the little creatures, who are quite soft and\nflabby and pale coloured, are transferred to the charge of celibate\nfemales, women 'workers' as it were, who in some cases possess brains of\nalmost masculine dimensions.\"\n\nJust at this point, unhappily, this message broke off. Fragmentary and\ntantalising as the matter constituting this chapter is, it does\nnevertheless give a vague, broad impression of an altogether strange and\nwonderful world--a world with which our own may have to reckon we know\nnot how speedily. This intermittent trickle of messages, this whispering\nof a record needle in the stillness of the mountain slopes, is the first\nwarning of such a change in human conditions as mankind has scarcely\nimagined heretofore. In that satellite of ours there are new elements, new\nappliances, traditions, an overwhelming avalanche of new ideas, a strange\nrace with whom we must inevitably struggle for mastery--gold as common as\niron or wood...\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 25\n\n\n\n\nThe Grand Lunar\n\nThe penultimate message describes, with occasionally elaborate detail, the\nencounter between Cavor and the Grand Lunar, who is the ruler or master of\nthe moon. Cavor seems to have sent most of it without interference, but to\nhave been interrupted in the concluding portion. The second came after an\ninterval of a week.\n\nThe first message begins: \"At last I am able to resume this--\" it then\nbecomes illegible for a space, and after a time resumed in mid-sentence.\n\nThe missing words of the following sentence are probably \"the crowd.\"\nThere follows quite clearly: \"grew ever denser as we drew near the palace\nof the Grand Lunar--if I may call a series of excavations a palace.\nEverywhere faces stared at me--blank, chitinous gapes and masks, eyes\npeering over tremendous olfactory developments, eyes beneath monstrous\nforehead plates; and undergrowth of smaller creatures dodged and yelped,\nand helmet faces poised on sinuous, long-jointed necks appeared craning\nover shoulders and beneath armpits. Keeping a welcome space about me\nmarched a cordon of stolid, scuttle-headed guards, who had joined us on\nour leaving the boat in which we had come along the channels of the\nCentral Sea. The quick-eyed artist with the little brain joined us also,\nand a thick bunch of lean porter-insects swayed and struggled under the\nmultitude of conveniences that were considered essential to my state. I\nwas carried in a litter during the final stage of our journey. This litter\nwas made of some very ductile metal that looked dark to me, meshed and\nwoven, and with bars of paler metal, and about me as I advanced there\ngrouped itself a long and complicated procession.\n\n\"In front, after the manner of heralds, marched four trumpet-faced\ncreatures making a devastating bray; and then came squat, resolute-moving\nushers before and behind, and on either hand a galaxy of learned heads, a\nsort of animated encyclopedia, who were, Phi-oo explained, to stand about\nthe Grand Lunar for purposes of reference. (Not a thing in lunar science,\nnot a point of view or method of thinking, that these wonderful beings did\nnot carry in their heads!) Followed guards and porters, and then Phi-oo's\nshivering brain borne also on a litter. Then came Tsi-puff in a slightly\nless important litter; then myself on a litter of greater elegance than\nany other, and surrounded by my food and drink attendants. More trumpeters\ncame next, splitting the ear with vehement outcries, and then several\nbig brains, special correspondents one might well call them, or\nhistoriographers, charged with the task of observing and remembering every\ndetail of this epoch-making interview. A company of attendants, bearing\nand dragging banners and masses of scented fungus and curious symbols,\nvanished in the darkness behind. The way was lined by ushers and officers\nin caparisons that gleamed like steel, and beyond their line, so far as my\neyes could pierce the gloom, the heads of that enormous crowd extended.\n\n\"I will own that I am still by no means indurated to the peculiar effect\nof the Selenite appearance, and to find myself, as it were, adrift on this\nbroad sea of excited entomology was by no means agreeable. Just for a\nspace I had something very like what I should imagine people mean when\nthey speak of the 'horrors.' It had come to me before in these lunar\ncaverns, when on occasion I have found myself weaponless and with an\nundefended back, amidst a crowd of these Selenites, but never quite so\nvividly. It is, of course, as absolutely irrational a feeling as one could\nwell have, and I hope gradually to subdue it. But just for a moment, as I\nswept forward into the welter of the vast crowd, it was only by gripping\nmy litter tightly and summoning all my will-power that I succeeded in\navoiding an outcry or some such manifestation. It lasted perhaps three\nminutes; then I had myself in hand again.\n\n\"We ascended the spiral of a vertical way for some time, and then passed\nthrough a series of huge halls dome-roofed and elaborately decorated. The\napproach to the Grand Lunar was certainly contrived to give one a vivid\nimpression of his greatness. Each cavern one entered seemed greater and\nmore boldly arched than its predecessor. This effect of progressive size\nwas enhanced by a thin haze of faintly phosphorescent blue incense that\nthickened as one advanced, and robbed even the nearer figures of\nclearness. I seemed to advance continually to something larger, dimmer,\nand less material.\n\n\"I must confess that all this multitude made me feel extremely shabby and\nunworthy. I was unshaven and unkempt; I had brought no razor; I had a\ncoarse beard over my mouth. On earth I have always been inclined to\ndespise any attention to my person beyond a proper care for cleanliness;\nbut under the exceptional circumstances in which I found myself,\nrepresenting, as I did, my planet and my kind, and depending very largely\nupon the attractiveness of my appearance for a proper reception, I could\nhave given much for something a little more artistic and dignified than\nthe husks I wore. I had been so serene in the belief that the moon was\nuninhabited as to overlook such precautions altogether. As it was I was\ndressed in a flannel jacket, knickerbockers, and golfing stockings,\nstained with every sort of dirt the moon offered, slippers (of which the\nleft heel was wanting), and a blanket, through a hole in which I thrust my\nhead. (These clothes, indeed, I still wear.) Sharp bristles are anything\nbut an improvement to my cast of features, and there was an unmended tear\nat the knee of my knickerbockers that showed conspicuously as I squatted\nin my litter; my right stocking, too, persisted in getting about my ankle.\nI am fully alive to the injustice my appearance did humanity, and if by\nany expedient I could have improvised something a little out of the way\nand imposing I would have done so. But I could hit upon nothing. I did\nwhat I could with my blanket--folding it somewhat after the fashion of a\ntoga, and for the rest I sat as upright as the swaying of my litter\npermitted.\n\n\"Imagine the largest hall you have ever been in, imperfectly lit with blue\nlight and obscured by a gray-blue fog, surging with metallic or livid-gray\ncreatures of such a mad diversity as I have hinted. Imagine this hall to\nend in an open archway beyond which is a still larger hall, and beyond\nthis yet another and still larger one, and so on. At the end of the vista,\ndimly seen, a flight of steps, like the steps of Ara Coeli at Rome, ascend\nout of sight. Higher and higher these steps appear to go as one draws\nnearer their base. But at last I came under a huge archway and beheld the\nsummit of these steps, and upon it the Grand Lunar exalted on his throne.\n\n\"He was seated in what was relatively a blaze of incandescent blue. This,\nand the darkness about him gave him an effect of floating in a blue-black\nvoid. He seemed a small, self-luminous cloud at first, brooding on his\nsombre throne; his brain case must have measured many yards in diameter.\nFor some reason that I cannot fathom a number of blue search-lights\nradiated from behind the throne on which he sat, and immediately\nencircling him was a halo. About him, and little and indistinct in this\nglow, a number of body-servants sustained and supported him, and\novershadowed and standing in a huge semicircle beneath him were his\nintellectual subordinates, his remembrancers and computators and searchers\nand servants, and all the distinguished insects of the court of the moon.\nStill lower stood ushers and messengers, and then all down the countless\nsteps of the throne were guards, and at the base, enormous, various,\nindistinct, vanishing at last into an absolute black, a vast swaying\nmultitude of the minor dignitaries of the moon. Their feet made a\nperpetual scraping whisper on the rocky floor, as their limbs moved with a\nrustling murmur.\n\n\"As I entered the penultimate hall the music rose and expanded into an\nimperial magnificence of sound, and the shrieks of the news-bearers died\naway....\n\n\"I entered the last and greatest hall....\n\n\"My procession opened out like a fan. My ushers and guards went right and\nleft, and the three litters bearing myself and Phi-oo and Tsi-puff marched\nacross a shiny darkness of floor to the foot of the giant stairs. Then\nbegan a vast throbbing hum, that mingled with the music. The two Selenites\ndismounted, but I was bidden remain seated--I imagine as a special\nhonour. The music ceased, but not that humming, and by a simultaneous\nmovement of ten thousand respectful heads my attention was directed to the\nenhaloed supreme intelligence that hovered above me.\n\n\"At first as I peered into the radiating glow this quintessential brain\nlooked very much like an opaque, featureless bladder with dim, undulating\nghosts of convolutions writhing visibly within. Then beneath its enormity\nand just above the edge of the throne one saw with a start minute elfin\neyes peering out of the glow. No face, but eyes, as if they peered through\nholes. At first I could see no more than these two staring little eyes,\nand then below I distinguished the little dwarfed body and its\ninsect-jointed limbs shrivelled and white. The eyes stared down at me with\na strange intensity, and the lower part of the swollen globe was wrinkled.\nIneffectual-looking little hand-tentacles steadied this shape on the\nthrone....\n\n\"It was great. It was pitiful. One forgot the hall and the crowd.\n\n\"I ascended the staircase by jerks. It seemed to me that this darkly\nglowing brain case above us spread over me, and took more and more of the\nwhole effect into itself as I drew nearer. The tiers of attendants and\nhelpers grouped about their master seemed to dwindle and fade into the\nnight. I saw that shadowy attendants were busy spraying that great brain\nwith a cooling spray, and patting and sustaining it. For my own part, I\nsat gripping my swaying litter and staring at the Grand Lunar, unable to\nturn my gaze aside. And at last, as I reached a little landing that was\nseparated only by ten steps or so from the supreme seat, the woven\nsplendour of the music reached a climax and ceased, and I was left naked,\nas it were, in that vastness, beneath the still scrutiny of the Grand\nLunar's eyes.\n\n\"He was scrutinising the first man he had ever seen....\n\n\"My eyes dropped at last from his greatness to the ant figures in the blue\nmist about him, and then down the steps to the massed Selenites, still and\nexpectant in their thousands, packed on the floor below. Once again an\nunreasonable horror reached out towards me.... And passed.\n\n\"After the pause came the salutation. I was assisted from my litter, and\nstood awkwardly while a number of curious and no doubt deeply symbolical\ngestures were vicariously performed for me by two slender officials. The\nencyclopaedic galaxy of the learned that had accompanied me to the\nentrance of the last hall appeared two steps above me and left and right\nof me, in readiness for the Grand Lunar's need, and Phi-oo's pale brain\nplaced itself about half-way up to the throne in such a position as to\ncommunicate easily between us without turning his back on either the Grand\nLunar or myself. Tsi-puff took up position behind him. Dexterous ushers\nsidled sideways towards me, keeping a full face to the Presence. I seated\nmyself Turkish fashion, and Phi-oo and Tsi-puff also knelt down above me.\nThere came a pause. The eyes of the nearer court went from me to the Grand\nLunar and came back to me, and a hissing and piping of expectation passed\nacross the hidden multitudes below and ceased.\n\n\"That humming ceased.\n\n\"For the first and last time in my experience the moon was silent.\n\n\"I became aware of a faint wheezy noise. The Grand Lunar was addressing\nme. It was like the rubbing of a finger upon a pane of glass.\n\n\"I watched him attentively for a time, and then glanced at the alert\nPhi-oo. I felt amidst these slender beings ridiculously thick and fleshy\nand solid; my head all jaw and black hair. My eyes went back to the Grand\nLunar. He had ceased; his attendants were busy, and his shining superfices\nwas glistening and running with cooling spray.\n\n\"Phi-oo meditated through an interval. He consulted Tsi-puff. Then he\nbegan piping his recognisable English--at first a little nervously, so\nthat he was not very clear.\n\n\"'M'm--the Grand Lunar--wished to say--wishes to say--he gathers you\nare--m'm--men--that you are a man from the planet earth. He wishes to\nsay that he welcomes you--welcomes you--and wishes to learn--learn, if\nI may use the word--the state of your world, and the reason why you came\nto this.'\n\n\"He paused. I was about to reply when he resumed. He proceeded to remarks\nof which the drift was not very clear, though I am inclined to think they\nwere intended to be complimentary. He told me that the earth was to the\nmoon what the sun is to the earth, and that the Selenites desired very\ngreatly to learn about the earth and men. He then told me no doubt in\ncompliment also, the relative magnitude and diameter of earth and moon,\nand the perpetual wonder and speculation with which the Selenites had\nregarded our planet. I meditated with downcast eyes, and decided to reply\nthat men too had wondered what might lie in the moon, and had judged it\ndead, little recking of such magnificence as I had seen that day. The\nGrand Lunar, in token of recognition, caused his long blue rays to rotate\nin a very confusing manner, and all about the great hall ran the pipings\nand whisperings and rustlings of the report of what I had said. He then\nproceeded to put to Phi-oo a number of inquiries which were easier to\nanswer.\n\n\"He understood, he explained, that we lived on the surface of the earth,\nthat our air and sea were outside the globe; the latter part, indeed, he\nalready knew from his astronomical specialists. He was very anxious to\nhave more detailed information of what he called this extraordinary state\nof affairs, for from the solidity of the earth there had always been a\ndisposition regard it as uninhabitable. He endeavoured first to ascertain\nthe extremes of temperature to which we earth beings were exposed, and he\nwas deeply interested by my descriptive treatment of clouds and rain. His\nimagination was assisted by the fact that the lunar atmosphere in the\nouter galleries of the night side is not infrequently very foggy. He\nseemed inclined to marvel that we did not find the sunlight too intense\nfor our eyes, and was interested in my attempt to explain that the sky was\ntempered to a bluish colour through the refraction of the air, though I\ndoubt if he clearly understood that. I explained how the iris of the human\neyes can contract the pupil and save the delicate internal structure from\nthe excess of sunlight, and was allowed to approach within a few feet of\nthe Presence in order that this structure might be seen. This led to a\ncomparison of the lunar and terrestrial eyes. The former is not only\nexcessively sensitive to such light as men can see, but it can also _see_\nheat, and every difference in temperature within the moon renders objects\nvisible to it.\n\n\"The iris was quite a new organ to the Grand Lunar. For a time he amused\nhimself by flashing his rays into my face and watching my pupils contract.\nAs a consequence, I was dazzled and blinded for some little time....\n\n\"But in spite of that discomfort I found something reassuring by\ninsensible degrees in the rationality of this business of question and\nanswer. I could shut my eyes, think of my answer, and almost forget that\nthe the Grand Lunar has no face....\n\n\"When I had descended again to my proper place the Grand Lunar asked how\nwe sheltered ourselves from heat and storms, and I expounded to him the\narts of building and furnishing. Here we wandered into misunderstandings\nand cross-purposes, due largely, I must admit, to the looseness of my\nexpressions. For a long time I had great difficulty in making him\nunderstand the nature of a house. To him and his attendant Selenites it\nseemed, no doubt, the most whimsical thing in the world that men should\nbuild houses when they might descend into excavations, and an additional\ncomplication was introduced by the attempt I made to explain that men had\noriginally begun their homes in caves, and that they were now taking their\nrailways and many establishments beneath the surface. Here I think a\ndesire for intellectual completeness betrayed me. There was also a\nconsiderable tangle due to an equally unwise attempt on my part to explain\nabout mines. Dismissing this topic at last in an incomplete state, the\nGrand Lunar inquired what we did with the interior of our globe.\n\n\"A tide of twittering and piping swept into the remotest corners of that\ngreat assembly when it was at last made clear that we men know absolutely\nnothing of the contents of the world upon which the immemorial generations\nof our ancestors had been evolved. Three times had I to repeat that of all\nthe 4000 miles of distance between the earth and its centre men knew only\nto the depth of a mile, and that very vaguely. I understood the Grand\nLunar to ask why had I come to the moon seeing we had scarcely touched our\nown planet yet, but he did not trouble me at that time to proceed to an\nexplanation, being too anxious to pursue the details of this mad inversion\nof all his ideas.\n\n\"He reverted to the question of weather, and I tried to describe the\nperpetually changing sky, and snow, and frost and hurricanes. 'But when\nthe night comes,' he asked, 'is it not cold?'\n\n\"I told him it was colder than by day.\n\n\"'And does not your atmosphere freeze?'\n\n\"I told him not; that it was never cold enough for that, because our\nnights were so short.\n\n\"'Not even liquefy?'\n\n\"I was about to say 'No,' but then it occurred to me that one part at\nleast of our atmosphere, the water vapour of it, does sometimes liquefy\nand form dew, and sometimes freeze and form frost--a process perfectly\nanalogous to the freezing of all the external atmosphere of the moon\nduring its longer night. I made myself clear on this point, and from that\nthe Grand Lunar went on to speak with me of sleep. For the need of sleep\nthat comes so regularly every twenty-four hours to all things is part also\nof our earthly inheritance. On the moon they rest only at rare intervals,\nand after exceptional exertions. Then I tried to describe to him the soft\nsplendours of a summer night, and from that I passed to a description of\nthose animals that prowl by night and sleep by day. I told him of lions\nand tigers, and here it seemed as though we had come to a deadlock. For,\nsave in their waters, there are no creatures in the moon not absolutely\ndomestic and subject to his will, and so it has been for immemorial years.\nThey have monstrous water creatures, but no evil beasts, and the idea of\nanything strong and large existing 'outside' in the night is very\ndifficult for them....\"\n\n[The record is here too broken to transcribe for the space of perhaps\ntwenty words or more.]\n\n\"He talked with his attendants, as I suppose, upon the strange\nsuperficiality and unreasonableness of (man) who lives on the mere surface\nof a world, a creature of waves and winds, and all the chances of space,\nwho cannot even unite to overcome the beasts that prey upon his kind, and\nyet who dares to invade another planet. During this aside I sat thinking,\nand then at his desire I told him of the different sorts of men. He\nsearched me with questions. 'And for all sorts of work you have the same\nsort of men. But who thinks? Who governs?'\n\n\"I gave him an outline of the democratic method.\n\n\"When I had done he ordered cooling sprays upon his brow, and then\nrequested me to repeat my explanation conceiving something had miscarried.\n\n\"'Do they not do different things, then?' said Phi-oo.\n\n\"Some, I admitted, were thinkers and some officials; some hunted, some\nwere mechanics, some artists, some toilers. 'But _all_ rule,' I said.\n\n\"'And have they not different shapes to fit them to their different\nduties?'\n\n\"'None that you can see,' I said, 'except perhaps, for clothes. Their\nminds perhaps differ a little,' I reflected.\n\n\"'Their minds must differ a great deal,' said the Grand Lunar, 'or they\nwould all want to do the same things.'\n\n\"In order to bring myself into a closer harmony with his preconceptions, I\nsaid that his surmise was right. 'It was all hidden in the brain,' I said;\n'but the difference was there. Perhaps if one could see the minds and\nsouls of men they would be as varied and unequal as the Selenites. There\nwere great men and small men, men who could reach out far and wide, men\nwho could go swiftly; noisy, trumpet-minded men, and men who could\nremember without thinking....'\"\n\n[The record is indistinct for three words.]\n\n\"He interrupted me to recall me to my previous statements. 'But you said\nall men rule?' he pressed.\n\n\"'To a certain extent,' I said, and made, I fear, a denser fog with my\nexplanation.\n\n\"He reached out to a salient fact. 'Do you mean,' asked, 'that there is\nno Grand Earthly?'\n\n\"I thought of several people, but assured him finally there was none. I\nexplained that such autocrats and emperors as we had tried upon earth had\nusually ended in drink, or vice, or violence, and that the large and\ninfluential section of the people of the earth to which I belonged, the\nAnglo-Saxons, did not mean to try that sort of thing again. At which the\nGrand Lunar was even more amazed.\n\n\"'But how do you keep even such wisdom as you have?' he asked; and I\nexplained to him the way we helped our limited\"\n\n[A word omitted here, probably \"brains.\"]\n\n\"with libraries of books. I explained to him how our science was\ngrowing by the united labours of innumerable little men, and on\nthat he made no comment save that it was evident we had mastered much\nin spite of our social savagery, or we could not have come to the moon.\nYet the contrast was very marked. With knowledge the Selenites grew\nand changed; mankind stored their knowledge about them and remained\nbrutes--equipped. He said this...\"\n\n[Here there is a short piece of the record indistinct.]\n\n\"He then caused me to describe how we went about this earth of ours, and I\ndescribed to him our railways and ships. For a time he could not\nunderstand that we had had the use of steam only one hundred years, but\nwhen he did he was clearly amazed. (I may mention as a singular thing,\nthat the Selenites use years to count by, just as we do on earth, though I\ncan make nothing of their numeral system. That, however, does not matter,\nbecause Phi-oo understands ours.) From that I went on to tell him that\nmankind had dwelt in cities only for nine or ten thousand years, and that\nwe were still not united in one brotherhood, but under many different\nforms of government. This astonished the Grand Lunar very much, when it\nwas made clear to him. At first he thought we referred merely to\nadministrative areas.\n\n\"'Our States and Empires are still the rawest sketches of what order will\nsome day be,' I said, and so I came to tell him....\"\n\n[At this point a length of record that probably represents thirty or\nforty words is totally illegible.]\n\n\"The Grand Lunar was greatly impressed by the folly of men in clinging to\nthe inconvenience of diverse tongues. 'They want to communicate, and yet\nnot to communicate,' he said, and then for a long time he questioned me\nclosely concerning war.\n\n\"He was at first perplexed and incredulous. 'You mean to say,' he asked,\nseeking confirmation, 'that you run about over the surface of your\nworld--this world, whose riches you have scarcely begun to scrape--killing\none another for beasts to eat?'\n\n\"I told him that was perfectly correct.\n\n\"He asked for particulars to assist his imagination.\n\n\"'But do not ships and your poor little cities get injured?' he asked,\nand I found the waste of property and conveniences seemed to impress him\nalmost as much as the killing. 'Tell me more,' said the Grand Lunar; 'make\nme see pictures. I cannot conceive these things.'\n\n\"And so, for a space, though something loath, I told him the story of\nearthly War.\n\n\"I told him of the first orders and ceremonies of war, of warnings and\nultimatums, and the marshalling and marching of troops. I gave him an idea\nof manoeuvres and positions and battle joined. I told him of sieges and\nassaults, of starvation and hardship in trenches, and of sentinels\nfreezing in the snow. I told him of routs and surprises, and desperate\nlast stands and faint hopes, and the pitiless pursuit of fugitives and the\ndead upon the field. I told, too, of the past, of invasions and massacres,\nof the Huns and Tartars, and the wars of Mahomet and the Caliphs, and of\nthe Crusades. And as I went on, and Phi-oo translated, and the Selenites\ncooed and murmured in a steadily intensified emotion.\n\n\"I told them an ironclad could fire a shot of a ton twelve miles, and go\nthrough 20 feet of iron--and how we could steer torpedoes under water. I\nwent on to describe a Maxim gun in action, and what I could imagine of the\nBattle of Colenso. The Grand Lunar was so incredulous that he interrupted\nthe translation of what I had said in order to have my verification of my\naccount. They particularly doubted my description of the men cheering and\nrejoicing as they went into battle.\n\n\"'But surely they do not like it!' translated Phi-oo.\n\n\"I assured them men of my race considered battle the most glorious\nexperience of life, at which the whole assembly was stricken with\namazement.\n\n\"'But what good is this war?' asked the Grand Lunar, sticking to his\ntheme.\n\n\"'Oh! as for _good_!' said I; 'it thins the population!'\n\n\"'But why should there be a need--?'\n\n\"There came a pause, the cooling sprays impinged upon his brow, and then\nhe spoke again.\"\n\n[At this point a series of undulations that have been apparent as a\nperplexing complication as far back as Cavor's description of the silence\nthat fell before the first speaking of the Grand Lunar become confusingly\npredominant in the record. These undulations are evidently the result of\nradiations proceeding from a lunar source, and their persistent\napproximation to the alternating signals of Cavor is curiously suggestive\nof some operator deliberately seeking to mix them in with his message and\nrender it illegible. At first they are small and regular, so that with a\nlittle care and the loss of very few words we have been able to\ndisentangle Cavor's message; then they become broad and larger, then\nsuddenly they are irregular, with an irregularity that gives the effect at\nlast of some one scribbling through a line of writing. For a long time\nnothing can be made of this madly zigzagging trace; then quite abruptly\nthe interruption ceases, leaves a few words clear, and then resumes and\ncontinues for the rest of the message, completely obliterating whatever\nCavor was attempting to transmit. Why, if this is indeed a deliberate\nintervention, the Selenites should have preferred to let Cavor go on\ntransmitting his message in happy ignorance of their obliteration of its\nrecord, when it was clearly quite in their power and much more easy and\nconvenient for them to stop his proceedings at any time, is a problem to\nwhich I can contribute nothing. The thing seems to have happened so, and\nthat is all I can say. This last rag of his description of the Grand Lunar\nbegins in mid-sentence.]\n\n\"...interrogated me very closely upon my secret. I was able in a little\nwhile to get to an understanding with them, and at last to elucidate what\nhas been a puzzle to me ever since I realised the vastness of their\nscience, namely, how it is they themselves have never discovered\n'Cavorite.' I find they know of it as a theoretical substance, but they\nhave always regarded it as a practical impossibility, because for some\nreason there is no helium in the moon, and helium...\"\n\n[Across the last letters of helium slashes the resumption of that\nobliterating trace. Note that word \"secret,\" for that, and that alone, I\nbase my interpretation of the message that follows, the last message, as\nboth Mr. Wendigee and myself now believe it to be, that he is ever likely\nto send us.]\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 26\n\n\n\n\nThe Last Message Cavor sent to the Earth\n\nOn this unsatisfactory manner the penultimate message of Cavor dies out.\nOne seems to see him away there in the blue obscurity amidst his apparatus\nintently signalling us to the last, all unaware of the curtain of\nconfusion that drops between us; all unaware, too, of the final dangers\nthat even then must have been creeping upon him. His disastrous want of\nvulgar common sense had utterly betrayed him. He had talked of war, he had\ntalked of all the strength and irrational violence of men, of their\ninsatiable aggressions, their tireless futility of conflict. He had filled\nthe whole moon world with this impression of our race, and then I think it\nis plain that he made the most fatal admission that upon himself alone\nhung the possibility--at least for a long time--of any further men\nreaching the moon. The line the cold, inhuman reason of the moon would\ntake seems plain enough to me, and a suspicion of it, and then perhaps\nsome sudden sharp realisation of it, must have come to him. One imagines\nhim about the moon with the remorse of this fatal indiscretion growing in\nhis mind. During a certain time I am inclined to guess the Grand Lunar was\ndeliberating the new situation, and for all that time Cavor may have gone\nas free as ever he had gone. But obstacles of some sort prevented his\ngetting to his electromagnetic apparatus again after that message I have\njust given. For some days we received nothing. Perhaps he was having fresh\naudiences, and trying to evade his previous admissions. Who can hope to\nguess?\n\nAnd then suddenly, like a cry in the night, like a cry that is followed by\na stillness, came the last message. It is the briefest fragment, the\nbroken beginnings of two sentences.\n\nThe first was: \"I was mad to let the Grand Lunar know--\"\n\nThere was an interval of perhaps a minute. One imagines some interruption\nfrom without. A departure from the instrument--a dreadful hesitation\namong the looming masses of apparatus in that dim, blue-lit cavern--a\nsudden rush back to it, full of a resolve that came too late. Then, as if\nit were hastily transmitted came: \"Cavorite made as follows: take--\"\n\nThere followed one word, a quite unmeaning word as it stands: \"uless.\"\n\nAnd that is all.\n\nIt may be he made a hasty attempt to spell \"useless\" when his fate was\nclose upon him. Whatever it was that was happening about that apparatus we\ncannot tell. Whatever it was we shall never, I know, receive another\nmessage from the moon. For my own part a vivid dream has come to my help,\nand I see, almost as plainly as though I had seen it in actual fact, a\nblue-lit shadowy dishevelled Cavor struggling in the grip of these insect\nSelenites, struggling ever more desperately and hopelessly as they press\nupon him, shouting, expostulating, perhaps even at last fighting, and\nbeing forced backwards step by step out of all speech or sign of his\nfellows, for evermore into the Unknown--into the dark, into that silence\nthat has no end...."