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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 11 - The Mooncalf Pastures · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of the First Men in the Moon. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville,
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina. The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven The mooncalf Pastures. So we, two poor terrestrial castaways,
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  Speaker 1: lost in that wild growing moon jungle, crawled in terror
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  Speaker 1: before the sounds that had come upon us. We crawled,
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  Speaker 1: as it seemed a long time before we saw either
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  Speaker 1: selenite or mooncalf, though we heard the bellowing and grunteless
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  Speaker 1: noises of these latter continually drawing nearer to us. We
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  Speaker 1: crawled through stony ravines, over snowsled amidst fungi that ripped
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  Speaker 1: like thin bladders at our thrust, emitting a watery humor,
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  Speaker 1: over a perfect pavement of things like puffballs, and beneath
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  Speaker 1: interminable thickets of scrub, and ever more helplessly our eyes
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  Speaker 1: sought for our abandoned sphere. The noise of the moon
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  Speaker 1: calves would at times be a vast, flat, calf like sound.
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  Speaker 1: At times it rose to an amazed and wrathy bellowing,
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  Speaker 1: and again it would become a clogged, bestial sound, as
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  Speaker 1: though these unseen creatures had sought to eat and bellow
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  Speaker 1: at the same time. Our first view was but an
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  Speaker 1: inadequate transitory glimpse, yet none the less disturbing because it
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  Speaker 1: was incomplete. Cavort was crawling in front at the time,
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  Speaker 1: and he first was aware of their proximity. He stopped dead,
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  Speaker 1: arresting me with a single gesture. A crackling and smashing
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  Speaker 1: of the scrub appeared to be advancing directly upon us,
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  Speaker 1: And then as we squatted close and endeavored to judge
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  Speaker 1: of the nearness and direction of this noise, there came
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  Speaker 1: a terrific bellow behind us, so close in vehement that
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  Speaker 1: the tops of the bayonet's scrub bent before it, and
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  Speaker 1: one felt the breath of it, hot and moist, and
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  Speaker 1: turning about we saw indistinctly, through a crowd of swaying stems,
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  Speaker 1: the mooncalfs shining sides, and the long line of its
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  Speaker 1: back loomed out against the sky. Of course, it is
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  Speaker 1: hard for me now to say how much I saw
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  Speaker 1: at that time, because my impressions were corrected by subsequent observation.
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  Speaker 1: First of all impressions was its enormous size. The girth
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  Speaker 1: of its body was some four score feet, its length
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  Speaker 1: perhaps two hundred. Its sides rose and fell with its
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  Speaker 1: labored breathing. I perceived that its gigantic, flabby body lay
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  Speaker 1: along the ground, and that its skin was of a
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  Speaker 1: corrugated white into blackness along the backbone. But of its
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  Speaker 1: feet we saw nothing. I think also that we saw
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  Speaker 1: then the profile, at least of the almost brainless head,
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  Speaker 1: with its fat encumbered neck, its slobbering, omnivorous mouth, its
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  Speaker 1: little nostrils, and tight shut eyes, for the moon calf
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  Speaker 1: invariably shuts its eyes in the presence of the sun.
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  Speaker 1: We had a glimpse of a vast red pit as
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  Speaker 1: it opened its mouth to bleat and bellow. Again we
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  Speaker 1: had a breath from the pit. And then the monster
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  Speaker 1: healed over like a ship, dragged forward along the ground,
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  Speaker 1: creasing all its leathery skin, rolled again, and so wallowed
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  Speaker 1: past us, smashing a path amidst the scrub, and was
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  Speaker 1: speedily hidden from our eyes by the dense interlacings beyond.
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  Speaker 1: Another appeared more distantly, and then another, and then as
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  Speaker 1: though he was guiding these animated lumps of prevender to
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  Speaker 1: their pasture. A sellen night came momentarily into ken. My
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  Speaker 1: grip upon Cavorre's foot became convulsive at the sight of him,
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  Speaker 1: and we remained motionless and peering long after he had
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  Speaker 1: passed out of our range. By contrast with the mooncalves,
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  Speaker 1: he seemed a trivial, being a mere aunt scarcely five
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  Speaker 1: feet high. He was wearing garments of some leathery substance,
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  Speaker 1: so that no portion of his actual body appeared. But
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  Speaker 1: of this, of course, we were entirely ignorant. He presented
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  Speaker 1: himself therefore as a compact, bristling creature, having much of
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  Speaker 1: the quality of a complicated insect, with whiplike tentacles and
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  Speaker 1: a clanging arm projecting from his shining cylindrical body case.
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  Speaker 1: The form of his head was hidden by his enormous,
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  Speaker 1: many spiked helmet. We discovered afterwards that he used the
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  Speaker 1: spikes for prodding refractory mooncalves, and a pair of goggles
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  Speaker 1: of darkened glass set very much at the side. It
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  Speaker 1: gave a birdlike quality to the metallic apparatus that covered
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  Speaker 1: his face. His arms did not project beyond his body case,
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  Speaker 1: and he carried himself upon short legs that wrapt, though
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  Speaker 1: they were in warm coverings, seemed to our terrestrial eyes
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  Speaker 1: inordinately flimsy. They had very short thighs, very long shanks,
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  Speaker 1: and little feet. In spite of his heavy looking clothing,
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  Speaker 1: he was progressing with what would be from the terrestrial
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  Speaker 1: point of view, very considerable strides, and his clanging arm
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  Speaker 1: was busy. The quality of his motion during the instant
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  Speaker 1: of his passing suggested haste and a certain anger, and
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  Speaker 1: soon after we had lost sight of him, we heard
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  Speaker 1: the bellow of a mooncalf change abruptly into a short,
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  Speaker 1: sharp squeal, followed by the scuffle of its acceleration, and
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  Speaker 1: gradually that bellowing receded and then came to an end,
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  Speaker 1: as if the pastures sought had been attained. We listened
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  Speaker 1: for a space. The moon world was still, but it
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  Speaker 1: was some time before we resumed our crawling search for
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  Speaker 1: the vanished sphere. When next we saw moon calves, they
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  Speaker 1: were some little distance away from us, in a place
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  Speaker 1: of tumbled rocks. The less vertical surfaces of the rocks
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  Speaker 1: were thick with a speckled green plant growing in dense
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  Speaker 1: mossy clumps upon which these creatures were browsing. We stopped
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  Speaker 1: at the edge of the reeds amidst which we were crawling,
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  Speaker 1: at the sight of them, peering out at them and
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  Speaker 1: looking round for a second glimpse of a selenite. They
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  Speaker 1: lay against their food like stupendous slugs, huge greasy hulls,
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  Speaker 1: eating greedily and noisily with a sort of sobbing avidity.
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  Speaker 1: They seemed monsters of mere fatness, clumsy and overwhelmed to
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  Speaker 1: a degree that would make a Smithfield ox seem a
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  Speaker 1: model of agility. Their busy writhing, chewing, mouths and eyes closed,
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  Speaker 1: together with the appetizing sound of their munching, made up
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  Speaker 1: an effect of animal enjoyment that was singularly stimulating to
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  Speaker 1: our empty frames. Hoggs said, cavor with unusual passion, disgusting hogs,
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  Speaker 1: and after one glare of angry envy, crawled off through
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  Speaker 1: the bushes to our right. I stayed long enough to
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  Speaker 1: see that the speckled plant was quite hopeless for human nourishment,
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  Speaker 1: then crawled after him, nibbling a quill of it between
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  Speaker 1: my teeth. Presently, we were arrested again by the proximity
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  Speaker 1: of a selenite, and this time we were able to
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  Speaker 1: observe him more exactly. Now we could see that the
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  Speaker 1: selenite covering was indeed clothing, and not a sort of
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  Speaker 1: crustacean integument. He is quite similar in his costume to
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  Speaker 1: the former one we had glimpsed, except that ends of
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  Speaker 1: something like wadding were protruding from his neck. And he
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  Speaker 1: stood on a promontory of rock, and moved his head
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  Speaker 1: this way and there, as though he was surveying the crater.
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  Speaker 1: We lay quite still, fearing to attract his attention if
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  Speaker 1: we moved, And after a time he turned about and disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: We came upon another drove of moon calves bellowing up
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  Speaker 1: a ravine, and then we passed over a place of sounds,
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  Speaker 1: sounds of beating machinery, as if some huge hall of
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  Speaker 1: industry came near the surface there. And while these sounds
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  Speaker 1: were still about us, we came to the edge of
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  Speaker 1: a great open space, perhaps two hundred yards in diameter
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  Speaker 1: and perfectly level, save for a few lichens that advanced
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  Speaker 1: from its margin. This space was bare and presented a
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  Speaker 1: powdery surface of a dusty yellow color. We were afraid
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  Speaker 1: to strike out across this space. But as it presented
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  Speaker 1: less obstruction to our crawling than the scrub, we went
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  Speaker 1: down upon it and began very circumspectully to skirt its edge.
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  Speaker 1: For a little while, the noises from below ceased, and
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  Speaker 1: every everything, save for the faint stir of the growing vegetation,
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  Speaker 1: was very still. Then abruptly there began an uproar, louder,
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  Speaker 1: more vehement and nearer than any we had so far
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  Speaker 1: heard of a certainty, it came from below. Instinctively, we
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  Speaker 1: crouched as flat as we could, ready for a prompt
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  Speaker 1: plunge into the thicket beside us. Each knock and throb
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  Speaker 1: seemed to vibrate through our bodies. Louder grew this throbbing
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  Speaker 1: and beating, and that irregular vibration increased, until the whole
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  Speaker 1: moon world seemed to be jerking, impulsing. Cover whispered Cavour,
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  Speaker 1: and I turned towards the bushes. At that instant came
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  Speaker 1: a thud, like the thud of a gun. And then
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  Speaker 1: a thing happened. It still haunts me in my dreams.
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  Speaker 1: I had turned my head to look at Kavoor's face
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  Speaker 1: and thrust out my hand in front of me. As
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  Speaker 1: I did so, and my hand met nothing. I plunged
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  Speaker 1: suddenly into a bottomless hole. My chest hit something hard,
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  Speaker 1: and I found myself with my chin on the edge
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  Speaker 1: of an unfathomable abyss that had suddenly opened beneath me.
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  Speaker 1: My hand extended stiffly into the void. The whole of
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  Speaker 1: that flat, circular area was no more than a gigantic
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  Speaker 1: lid that was now sliding sideways from off the pit
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  Speaker 1: it had covered into a slot prepared for it. Had
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  Speaker 1: it not been for Cauvore, I think I should have
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  Speaker 1: remained rigid, hanging over this margin and staring into the
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  Speaker 1: enormous gulf below, until at last the edges of the
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  Speaker 1: slot scraped me off and hurled me into its depths.
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  Speaker 1: But Cavoor had not received the shock that had paralyzed me.
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  Speaker 1: He had been a little distance from the edge when
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  Speaker 1: the lid had first opened, and, perceiving the peril that
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  Speaker 1: held me helpless, gripped my legs and pulled me backwards.
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  Speaker 1: I came into a sitting position, crawled away from the
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  Speaker 1: edge for a space on all fours, then staggered up
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  Speaker 1: and ran after him across the thundering, quivering sheet of metal.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to be swinging open with a steadily accelerated velocity,
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  Speaker 1: and the bushes in front of me shifted sideways. As
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  Speaker 1: I ran, I was none too soon Cavour's back vanished
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  Speaker 1: amidst the bristling thicket, and as I scrambled up after him,
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  Speaker 1: the monstrous valve came into its position with a clang.
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  Speaker 1: For a long time we lay panting, not daring to
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  Speaker 1: approach the pit, But at last, very cautiously, and bit
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  Speaker 1: by bit, we crept into a position from which we
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  Speaker 1: could peer down. The bushes about us creaked and swayed
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  Speaker 1: with the force of a breeze that was blowing down
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  Speaker 1: the shaft. We could see nothing at first except smooth,
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  Speaker 1: vertical walls, descending at last into an impenetrable black, And
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  Speaker 1: then very gradually we became aware of a number of
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  Speaker 1: very faint and little lights going to and fro. For
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  Speaker 1: a time, that stupendous gulf of mystery held us so
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  Speaker 1: that we forgot even our sphere. In time, as we
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  Speaker 1: grew more accustomed to the darkness, we could make out
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  Speaker 1: very small, dim elusive shapes moving about among those needle
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  Speaker 1: point illuminations. We peered amazed and incredulous, understanding so little
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  Speaker 1: that we could find no words to say. We could
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  Speaker 1: distinguish nothing that would give us a clue to the
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  Speaker 1: meaning of the faint shapes we saw. What can it be?
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  Speaker 1: I asked, what can it be? The engineering? They must
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  Speaker 1: live in these caverns during the night and come out
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  Speaker 1: during the day. Cavour I said, can they be that
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  Speaker 1: it was something like men, that was not a man?
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  Speaker 1: We dare risk nothing. We dared do nothing until the sphere.
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  Speaker 1: We can do nothing until we find the sphere. He
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  Speaker 1: assented with a groan, and stirred himself to move. He
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  Speaker 1: stared about him for a space, sighed and indicated a direction.
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  Speaker 1: We struck out through the jungle. For a time we
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  Speaker 1: crawled resolutely, then with diminishing vigor, presently among great shapes
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  Speaker 1: of flabby purple. There came a noise of trampling and
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  Speaker 1: cries about us. We lay close, and for a long
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  Speaker 1: time the sounds went to and fro and very near.
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  Speaker 1: But this time we saw nothing. I tried to whisper
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  Speaker 1: to Cavour that I could hardly go without food much longer.
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  Speaker 1: But my mouth had become too dry for whispering. Cavour
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  Speaker 1: I said, I must have food. He turned a face
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  Speaker 1: full of dismay towards me. It's a case for holding out,
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  Speaker 1: he said, But I must, I said, And look at
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  Speaker 1: my lips. I've been thirsty sometime. If only some of
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  Speaker 1: that snow had remained, It's clean gone. We're driving from
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  Speaker 1: arctic to tropical at the rate of a degree a minute.
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  Speaker 1: I gnawed my hand the sphere. He said, There is
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  Speaker 1: nothing for it but the sphere. We roused ourselves to
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  Speaker 1: another spurt of crawling. My mind ran entirely on edible things,
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  Speaker 1: on the hissing profundity of summer drinks. More particularly, I
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  Speaker 1: craved for beer. I was haunted by the memory of
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  Speaker 1: a sixteen gallon cask that had swaggered in my limpney cellar.
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  Speaker 1: I thought of the adjacent larder, and especially of steak
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  Speaker 1: and kidney pie, tender steak and plenty of kidney and
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  Speaker 1: rich thick gravy between. Ever and again I was seized
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  Speaker 1: with fits of hungry yawning. We came to flat places
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  Speaker 1: overgrown with fleshy re things, monstrous coraline growths. As we
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  Speaker 1: pushed against them, they snapped and broke. I noted the
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  Speaker 1: quality of the broken surfaces. The confounded stuff certainly looked
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  Speaker 1: of a bitible texture. Then it seemed to me that
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  Speaker 1: it smelt rather well. I picked up a fragment and
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  Speaker 1: sniffed at it, cavour I said, in a hoarse undertone.
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  Speaker 1: He glanced at me with his face screwed up. Don't
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  Speaker 1: he said. I put down the fragment, and we crawled
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  Speaker 1: on through this tempting fleshiness for a space. Cavour I asked,
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  Speaker 1: why not poison? I heard him say, but he did
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  Speaker 1: not look round. We crawled some way before I decided
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  Speaker 1: I'll chance it, said I. He made a belated gesture
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  Speaker 1: to prevent me. I stuffed my mouth full. He crouched,
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  Speaker 1: watching my face. His own twisted into the oddest expression.
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  Speaker 1: It's good, I said, Oh lord, he cried. He watched
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  Speaker 1: me munch, His face wrinkled between desire and disapproval, then
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  Speaker 1: suddenly succumbed to appetite and began to tear off huge mouthfuls.
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  Speaker 1: For a time, we did nothing but eat. The stuff
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  Speaker 1: was not unlike a terrestrial mushroom, only it was much
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  Speaker 1: laxer in texture, and as one swallowed it, it warmed
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  Speaker 1: the throat. At first, we experienced a mere mechanical satisfaction
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  Speaker 1: in eating. Then our blood began to run warmer, and
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  Speaker 1: we tingled at the lips and fingers, And then new
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  Speaker 1: and slightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds.
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  Speaker 1: It's good, said I, infernally good. What a home for
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  Speaker 1: our surplus population, our poor surplus population, And I broke
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  Speaker 1: off another large portion. It filled me with a curiously
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  Speaker 1: benevolent satisfaction that there was such good food in the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: The depression of my hunger gave way to an irrational exhilaration.
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  Speaker 1: The dread and discomfort in which I had been living
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  Speaker 1: vanished entirely. I perceived the Moon no longer as a
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  Speaker 1: planet from which I most earnestly desired the means of escape,
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  Speaker 1: but as a possible refuge from human destitution. I think
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  Speaker 1: I forgot the selenites, the moon calves, the lid, and
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  Speaker 1: the noises completely. So soon as I had eaten that
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  Speaker 1: fungus cavour replied to my third repetition of my surplus population,
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  Speaker 1: remarked with similar words of approval. I felt that my
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  Speaker 1: head swam, but I put this down to the stimulating
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  Speaker 1: effect of food. After a long, fast, excellent discovery yours,
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  Speaker 1: cavour said, I second only to the Tata. Why's your mean,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: asked Kavore, discovery of the moon second only to the Tata.
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  Speaker 1: I looked at him, shocked at his suddenly hoarse voice
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  Speaker 1: and by the badness of his articulation. It occurred to
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  Speaker 1: me in a flash that he was intoxicated, possibly by
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  Speaker 1: the fungus. It also occurred to me that he erred
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  Speaker 1: in imagining that he had discovered the moon. He had
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  Speaker 1: not discovered it. He had only reached it. I tried
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  Speaker 1: to lay my hand on his arm and explain this
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  Speaker 1: to him, but the issue was too subtle for his brain.
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  Speaker 1: It was also unexpectedly difficult to express. After a momentary
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  Speaker 1: attempt to understand me, I remember wondering if the fungus
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: had made my eyes as fishy as his. He set
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: off upon some observations on his own account. We are,
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  Speaker 1: he announced, with a solemn hiccup, the creatures of what
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: we eat and drink. He repeated this, and as I
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  Speaker 1: was now in one of my subtle moods, I determined
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  Speaker 1: to dispute it. Possibly I wandered a little from the point,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: but Cavora certainly did not attack at all. Properly. He
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: stood up as well as he could, putting a hand
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  Speaker 1: on my head to steady himself, which was disrespectful, and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: stood staring about him, quite devoid now of any fear
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  Speaker 1: of the moon beings. I tried to point out that
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  Speaker 1: this was dangerous for some reason that was not perfectly
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  Speaker 1: clear to me. But the word dangerous had somehow got
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  Speaker 1: mixed with indiscreet and came out rather more like injurious
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  Speaker 1: than either, And after an attempt to disentangle them, I
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  Speaker 1: resumed my argument, addressing myself principally to the unfamiliar but
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: attentive coraling growths on either side. I felt that it
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  Speaker 1: was necessary to clear up this confusion between the moon
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and a potato. At once. I wandered into a long
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: parenthesis on the importance of precision of definition. In argument.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I did my best to ignore the fact that my
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: bodily sensations were no longer agreeable in some way that
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  Speaker 1: I have now forgotten. My mind was led back to
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  Speaker 1: projects of colonization. We must satnex this moon, I said.
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  Speaker 1: There must be no shilly shallly. This is part of
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  Speaker 1: the white man's burthen cavor. We are sat trap uh
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: means sat traps, nimpire, Caesu never dreamt been old newspapers, cavalishia,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: bed for desha, bed for dshi limited mean unlimited. Practically certainly,
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  Speaker 1: I was intoxicated. I embarked upon an argument to show
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  Speaker 1: the infinite benefits our arrival would confer on the Moon.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I involved myself in a rather difficult proof that the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: arrival of Columbus was on the whole beneficial to America.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I found I had forgotten the line of argument I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: had intended to pursue, and continued to repeat similar to
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  Speaker 1: Columbus to fill up time. From that point my memory
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  Speaker 1: of the action of that abominable fungus becomes confused. I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: remember vaguely that we declared our intention of standing no
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: nonsense from any confounded insects, that we decided it ill
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  Speaker 1: became men to hide shamefully upon a mere satellite, that
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: we equipped ourselves with huge armfuls of the fungus. Whether
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  Speaker 1: for missile purposes or not, I do not know. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: heedless of the stabs of the bayonet's scrub, we started
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: forth into the sunshine. Almost immediately we must have come
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: upon the Selenites. There were six of them, and they
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: were marching in single file over a rocky place, making
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  Speaker 1: the most remarkable piping and whining sounds. They all seemed
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to become aware of us at once. All instantly became
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: silent and motionless, like animals with their faces turned toward us.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: For a moment, I was sobered. In sects murmured, cavor insects,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And they think I'm going to crawl about on my stomach,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: on my vertebrated stomach. Stomach, he repeated, slowly, as though
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: he chewed the indignity. Then suddenly, with a sort of fury,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: he made three vast strides and leaped towards them. He
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: leaped badly. He made a series of somersaults in the air,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: whirled right over them, and vanished with an enormous splash
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: amidst the cactus splatters. What the Selenites made of this
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: amazing and to my mind, undignified eruption from another planet?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I have no means of guessing. I seem to remember
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the sight of their backs as they ran in all directions,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: but I am not sure. All these last incidents before
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: oblivion came are vague and faint in my mind. I
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: know I made a step to Folloukeuvore, and tripped and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: fell headlong among the rocks. I was, I am certain,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: suddenly and vehemently ill. I seem to remember a violent
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: struggle and being gripped by metallic clasps. My next clear
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: recollection is that we were prisoners at We knew not
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: what depths beneath the moon's surface. We were in darkness
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: amidst strange, distracting noises. Our bodies were covered with scratches
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and bruises, and our heads racked with pain. End of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: chapter