I did not find it so much as it found me. It was lying much farther to
the westward than I had gone, and the sloping rays of the sinking sun
reflected from its glass had suddenly proclaimed its presence in a
dazzling beam. For an instant I thought this was some new device of the
Selenites against us, and then I understood.
I threw up my arms, shouted a ghostly shout, and set off in vast leaps
towards it. I missed one of my leaps and dropped into a deep ravine and
twisted my ankle, and after that I stumbled at almost every leap. I was
in a state of hysterical agitation, trembling violently, and quite
breathless long before I got to it. Three times at least I had to stop
with my hands resting on my side and in spite of the thin dryness of
the air, the perspiration was wet upon my face.
I thought of nothing but the sphere until I reached it, I forgot even
my trouble of Cavor’s whereabouts. My last leap flung me with my hands
hard against its glass; then I lay against it panting, and trying
vainly to shout, “Cavor! here is the sphere!” When I had recovered a
little I peered through the thick glass, and the things inside seemed
tumbled. I stooped to peer closer. Then I attempted to get in. I had to
hoist it over a little to get my head through the manhole. The screw
stopper was inside, and I could see now that nothing had been touched,
nothing had suffered. It lay there as we had left it when we had
dropped out amidst the snow. For a time I was wholly occupied in making
and remaking this inventory. I found I was trembling violently. It was
good to see that familiar dark interior again! I cannot tell you how
good. Presently I crept inside and sat down among the things. I looked
through the glass at the moon world and shivered. I placed my gold
clubs upon the table, and sought out and took a little food; not so
much because I wanted it, but because it was there. Then it occurred to
me that it was time to go out and signal for Cavor. But I did not go
out and signal for Cavor forthwith. Something held me to the sphere.
After all, everything was coming right. There would be still time for
us to get more of the magic stone that gives one mastery over men. Away
there, close handy, was gold for the picking up; and the sphere would
travel as well half full of gold as though it were empty. We could go
back now, masters of ourselves and our world, and then—
I roused myself at last, and with an effort got myself out of the
sphere. I shivered as I emerged, for the evening air was growing very
cold. I stood in the hollow staring about me. I scrutinised the bushes
round me very carefully before I leapt to the rocky shelf hard by, and
took once more what had been my first leap in the moon. But now I made
it with no effort whatever.
The growth and decay of the vegetation had gone on apace, and the whole
aspect of the rocks had changed, but still it was possible to make out
the slope on which the seeds had germinated, and the rocky mass from
which we had taken our first view of the crater. But the spiky shrub on
the slope stood brown and sere now, and thirty feet high, and cast long
shadows that stretched out of sight, and the little seeds that
clustered in its upper branches were brown and ripe. Its work was done,
and it was brittle and ready to fall and crumple under the freezing
air, so soon as the nightfall came. And the huge cacti, that had
swollen as we watched them, had long since burst and scattered their
spores to the four quarters of the moon. Amazing little corner in the
universe—the landing place of men!
Some day, thought I, I will have an inscription standing there right in
the midst of the hollow. It came to me, if only this teeming world
within knew of the full import of the moment, how furious its tumult
would become!
But as yet it could scarcely be dreaming of the significance of our
coming. For if it did, the crater would surely be an uproar of pursuit,
instead of as still as death! I looked about for some place from which
I might signal Cavor, and saw that same patch of rock to which he had
leapt from my present standpoint, still bare and barren in the sun. For
a moment I hesitated at going so far from the sphere. Then with a pang
of shame at that hesitation, I leapt....
From this vantage point I surveyed the crater again. Far away at the
top of the enormous shadow I cast was the little white handkerchief
fluttering on the bushes. It was very little and very far, and Cavor
was not in sight. It seemed to me that by this time he ought to be
looking for me. That was the agreement. But he was nowhere to be seen.
I stood waiting and watching, hands shading my eyes, expecting every
moment to distinguish him. Very probably I stood there for quite a long
time. I tried to shout, and was reminded of the thinness of the air. I
made an undecided step back towards the sphere. But a lurking dread of
the Selenites made me hesitate to signal my whereabouts by hoisting one
of our sleeping-blankets on to the adjacent scrub. I searched the
crater again.
It had an effect of emptiness that chilled me. And it was still. Any
sound from the Selenites in the world beneath had died away. It was as
still as death. Save for the faint stir of the shrub about me in the
little breeze that was rising, there was no sound nor shadow of a
sound. And the breeze blew chill.
Confound Cavor!
I took a deep breath. I put my hands to the sides of my mouth. “Cavor!”
I bawled, and the sound was like some manikin shouting far away.
I looked at the handkerchief, I looked behind me at the broadening
shadow of the westward cliff, I looked under my hand at the sun. It
seemed to me that almost visibly it was creeping down the sky.
I felt I must act instantly if I was to save Cavor. I whipped off my
vest and flung it as a mark on the sere bayonets of the shrubs behind
me, and then set off in a straight line towards the handkerchief.
Perhaps it was a couple of miles away—a matter of a few hundred leaps
and strides. I have already told how one seemed to hang through those
lunar leaps. In each suspense I sought Cavor, and marvelled why he
should be hidden. In each leap I could feel the sun setting behind me.
Each time I touched the ground I was tempted to go back.
A last leap and I was in the depression below our handkerchief, a
stride, and I stood on our former vantage point within arms’ reach of
it. I stood up straight and scanned the world about me, between its
lengthening bars of shadow. Far away, down a long declivity, was the
opening of the tunnel up which we had fled, and my shadow reached
towards it, stretched towards it, and touched it, like a finger of the
night.
Not a sign of Cavor, not a sound in all the stillness, only the stir
and waving of the scrub and of the shadows increased. And suddenly and
violently I shivered. “Cav—” I began, and realised once more the
uselessness of the human voice in that thin air. Silence. The silence
of death.
Then it was my eye caught something—a little thing lying, perhaps fifty
yards away down the slope, amidst a litter of bent and broken branches.
What was it? I knew, and yet for some reason I would not know. I went
nearer to it. It was the little cricket-cap Cavor had worn. I did not
touch it, I stood looking at it.
I saw then that the scattered branches about it had been forcibly
smashed and trampled. I hesitated, stepped forward, and picked it up.
I stood with Cavor’s cap in my hand, staring at the trampled reeds and
thorns about me. On some of them were little smears of something dark,
something that I dared not touch. A dozen yards away, perhaps, the
rising breeze dragged something into view, something small and vividly
white.
It was a little piece of paper crumpled tightly, as though it had been
clutched tightly. I picked it up, and on it were smears of red. My eye
caught faint pencil marks. I smoothed it out, and saw uneven and broken
writing ending at last in a crooked streak upon the paper.