[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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
Chapter 19 86
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 up on the paper.
I set myself to decipher this.
"I have been injured about the knee, I think my kneecap is hurt, and I cannot run or crawl," it began--pretty
distinctly written.
Then less legibly: "They have been chasing me for some time, and it is only a question of"--the word "time"
seemed to have been written here and erased in favour of something illegible--"before they get me. They are
beating all about me."
Then the writing became convulsive. "I can hear them," I guessed the tracing meant, and then it was quite
unreadable for a space. Then came a little string of words that were quite distinct: "a different sort of Selenite
altogether, who appears to be directing the--" The writing became a mere hasty confusion again.
"They have larger brain cases--much larger, and slenderer bodies, and very short legs. They make gentle
noises, and move with organized deliberation...
"And though I am wounded and helpless here, their appearance still gives me hope." That was like Cavor.
"They have not shot at me or attempted... injury. I intend--"
Then came the sudden streak of the pencil across the paper, and on the back and edges--blood!
And as I stood there stupid, and perplexed, with this dumbfounding relic in my hand, something very soft and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]