“Where are they?” he panted.
“Run away. They’ll come back. They’re throwing things! Which way shall
we go?”
“By the light. To that tunnel. Eh?”
“Yes,” said I, and his hands were free.
I dropped on my knees and fell to work on his ankle bonds. Whack came
something--I know not what--and splashed the livid streamlet into drops
about us. Far away on our right a piping and whistling began.
I whipped the chain off his feet, and put it in his hand. “Hit with
that!” I said, and without waiting for an answer, set off in big bounds
along the path by which we had come. I had a nasty sort of feeling that
these things could jump out of the darkness on to my back. I heard the
impact of his leaps come following after me.
We ran in vast strides. But that running, you must understand, was an
altogether different thing from any running on earth. On earth one
leaps and almost instantly hits the ground again, but on the moon,
because of its weaker pull, one shot through the air for several
seconds before one came to earth. In spite of our violent hurry this
gave an effect of long pauses, pauses in which one might have counted
seven or eight. “Step,” and one soared off! All sorts of questions ran
through my mind: “Where are the Selenites? What will they do? Shall we
ever get to that tunnel? Is Cavor far behind? Are they likely to cut
him off?” Then whack, stride, and off again for another step.
I saw a Selenite running in front of me, his legs going exactly as a
man’s would go on earth, saw him glance over his shoulder, and heard
him shriek as he ran aside out of my way into the darkness. He was,
I think, our guide, but I am not sure. Then in another vast stride
the walls of rock had come into view on either hand, and in two more
strides I was in the tunnel, and tempering my pace to its low roof. I
went on to a bend, then stopped and turned back, and plug, plug, plug,
Cavor came into view, splashing into the stream of blue light at every
stride, and grew larger and blundered into me. We stood clutching each
other. For a moment, at least, we had shaken off our captors and were
alone.
We were both very much out of breath. We spoke in panting, broken
sentences.
“You’ve spoilt it all!” panted Cavor.
“Nonsense,” I cried. “It was that or death!”
“What are we to do?”
“Hide.”
“How can we?”
“It’s dark enough.”
“But where?”
“Up one of these side caverns.”
“And then?”
“Think.”
“Right--come on.”
We strode on, and presently came to a radiating dark cavern. Cavor was
in front. He hesitated, and chose a black mouth that seemed to promise
good hiding. He went towards it and turned.
“It’s dark,” he said.
“Your legs and feet will light us. You’re wet with that luminous stuff.”
“But----”
A tumult of sounds, and in particular a sound like a clanging gong,
advancing up the main tunnel, became audible. It was horribly
suggestive of a tumultuous pursuit. We made a bolt for the unlit side
cavern forthwith. As we ran along it our way was lit by the irradiation
of Cavor’s legs. “It’s lucky,” I panted, “they took off our boots, or
we should fill this place with clatter.” On we rushed, taking as small
steps as we could to avoid striking the roof of the cavern. After a
time we seemed to be gaining on the uproar. It became muffled, it
dwindled, it died away.
I stopped and looked back, and I heard the pad, pad of Cavor’s feet
receding. Then he stopped also. “Bedford,” he whispered; “there’s a
sort of light in front of us.”
[Illustration: “Bedford,” he whispered, “there’s a sort of light in
front of us”]
I looked, and at first could see nothing. Then I perceived his head and
shoulders dimly outlined against a fainter darkness. I saw, also, that
this mitigation of the darkness was not blue, as all the other light
within the moon had been, but a pallid grey, a very vague, faint white,
the daylight colour. Cavor noted this difference as soon or sooner than
I did, and I think, too, that it filled him with much the same wild
hope.
“Bedford,” he whispered, and his voice trembled. “That light--it is
possible----”
He did not dare to say the thing he hoped. Then came a pause. Suddenly
I knew by the sound of his feet that he was striding towards that
pallor. I followed him with a beating heart.