He was pointing upward over the carcasses. “White light!” he said.
“White light again!”
I looked, and it was even so, a faint white ghost of twilight in the
remoter cavern roof. That seemed to give me double strength.
“Keep close,” I said. A flat, long Selenite dashed out of the darkness,
and squealed and fled. I halted, and stopped Cavor with my hand. I
hung my jacket over my crowbar, ducked round the next carcass, dropped
jacket and crowbar, showed myself, and darted back.
“Chuzz--flick,” just one arrow came. We were close on the Selenites,
and they were standing in a crowd, broad, short, and tall together,
with a little battery of their shooting implements pointing down the
cave. Three or four other arrows followed the first, and then their
fire ceased.
I stuck out my head, and escaped by a hair’s-breadth. This time I drew
a dozen shots or more, and heard the Selenites shouting and twittering
as if with excitement as they shot. I picked up jacket and crowbar
again.
“_Now!_” said I, and thrust out the jacket.
“Chuzz-zz-zz-zz! Chuzz!” In an instant my jacket had grown a thick
beard of arrows, and they were quivering all over the carcass behind
us. Instantly I slipped the crowbar out of the jacket, dropped the
jacket--for all I know to the contrary it is lying up there in the moon
now--and rushed out upon them.
For a minute perhaps it was massacre. I was too fierce to discriminate,
and the Selenites were probably too scared to fight. At any rate they
made no sort of fight against me. I saw scarlet, as the saying is. I
remember I seemed to be wading among those leathery, thin things as a
man wades through tall grass, mowing and hitting, first right, then
left; smash, smash. Little drops of moisture flew about. I trod on
things that crushed and piped and went slippery. The crowd seemed to
open and close and flow like water. They seemed to have no combined
plan whatever. There were spears flew about me, I was grazed over the
ear by one. I was stabbed once in the arm and once in the cheek, but I
only found that out afterwards, when the blood had had time to run and
cool and feel wet.
What Cavor did I do not know. For a space it seemed that this fighting
had lasted for an age, and must needs go on for ever. Then suddenly it
was all over, and there was nothing to be seen but the backs of heads
bobbing up and down as their owners ran in all directions ... I seemed
altogether unhurt. I ran forward some paces, shouting, then turned
about. I was amazed.
I had come right through them in vast flying strides, they were all
behind me, and running hither and thither to hide.
I felt an enormous astonishment at the evaporation of the great fight
into which I had hurled myself, and not a little of exultation. It did
not seem to me that I had discovered the Selenites were unexpectedly
flimsy, but that I was unexpectedly strong. I laughed stupidly. This
fantastic moon!
I glanced for a moment at the smashed and writhing bodies that were
scattered over the cavern floor, with a vague idea of further violence,
then hurried on after Cavor.