Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The First Men in the Moon Chapter 19 - Mr. Bedford Alone

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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 19 - Mr. Bedford Alone · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of the First Man 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 nineteen. Mister Bedford alone in a little while. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me as though I had always been alone
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  Speaker 1: on the moon. I hunted for a time with a
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  Speaker 1: certain intentness, but the heat was still very great, and
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  Speaker 1: the thinness of the air felt like a hoop about
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  Speaker 1: one's chest. I came presently into a hollow basin bristling
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  Speaker 1: with tall, brown, dry fronds about its edge, and I
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  Speaker 1: sat down under these to rest and cool. I intended
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  Speaker 1: to rest for only a little while. I put down
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  Speaker 1: my clubs beside me, and sat resting my chin on
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  Speaker 1: my hands. I saw with a sort of colorless interest,
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  Speaker 1: that the rocks of the basin, where here and there
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  Speaker 1: the crackling dry lichens had shrunk away to show them,
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  Speaker 1: were all veined and spattered with gold, and that here
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  Speaker 1: and there bosses of rounded and wrinkled gold projected from
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  Speaker 1: among the litter. What did that matter? Now? A sort
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  Speaker 1: of languor had possession of my limbs and mind. I
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  Speaker 1: did not believe for a moment that we should ever
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  Speaker 1: find the sphere in that vast, desiccated wilderness. I seemed
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  Speaker 1: to lack a motive for effort until the Selenites should come. Then,
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  Speaker 1: I supposed I should exert myself, obeying that unreasonable imperative
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  Speaker 1: that urges a man, before all things, to preserve and
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  Speaker 1: defend his life, albeit he may preserve it only to
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  Speaker 1: die more painfully in a little while. Why had we
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  Speaker 1: come to the moon. The thing presented itself to me
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  Speaker 1: as a perplexing problem. What is this spirit in man
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  Speaker 1: that urges him forever to depart from happiness and security,
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  Speaker 1: to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk even
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  Speaker 1: a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me up
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  Speaker 1: there in the moon as a thing. I ought always
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  Speaker 1: to have known that man is not made simply to
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  Speaker 1: go about being safe and comfortable and well fed and amused.
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  Speaker 1: Almost any man, if you put the thing to him,
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  Speaker 1: not in words, but in the shape of opportunities, will
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  Speaker 1: show that he knows as much against his interests, against
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  Speaker 1: his happiness. He is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things.
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  Speaker 1: Some force, not himself, impels him, and go he must.
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  Speaker 1: But why why sitting there in the midst of that
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  Speaker 1: useless moon gold a man? It's the things of another world.
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  Speaker 1: I took count of all my life, assuming I was
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  Speaker 1: to die a castaway upon the moon. I failed altogether
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  Speaker 1: to see what purpose I had served. I got no
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  Speaker 1: light on that point. But at any rate, it was
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  Speaker 1: clearer to me than it had ever been in my
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  Speaker 1: life before that I was not serving my own purpose.
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  Speaker 1: That all my life I had, in truth, never served
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  Speaker 1: the purposes of my private life? Whose purposes? What purposes
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  Speaker 1: was I serving? I ceased to speculate on why we
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  Speaker 1: had come to the moon, and took a wider sweep.
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  Speaker 1: Why had I come to the earth? Why had I
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  Speaker 1: a private life at all? I lost myself at last
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  Speaker 1: in bottomless speculations. My thoughts became vague and cloudy, no
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  Speaker 1: longer leading in definite directions. I had not felt heavy
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  Speaker 1: or weary. I cannot imagine one doing so upon the moon.
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  Speaker 1: But I suppose I was greatly fatigued. At any rate,
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  Speaker 1: I slept slumbering there, rested me greatly I think in
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  Speaker 1: the sun was setting, and the violence of the heat
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  Speaker 1: abating through all the time I slumbered. When at last
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  Speaker 1: I was roused from my slumbers by a remote clamor.
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  Speaker 1: I felt active and capable again. I rubbed my eyes
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  Speaker 1: and stretched my arms. I rose to my feet. I
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  Speaker 1: was a little stiff, and at once prepared to resume
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  Speaker 1: my search. I shouldered my golden clubs, one on each shoulder,
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  Speaker 1: and went on out of the ravine of the gold
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  Speaker 1: veined rocks. The sun was certainly lower, much lower than
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  Speaker 1: it had been, and the air was very much cooler.
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  Speaker 1: I perceived I must have slept some time. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that a faint touch of misty blueness hung
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  Speaker 1: about the western cliff. As I leapt to a little
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  Speaker 1: boss of rock and surveyed the crater, I could see
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  Speaker 1: no signs of moon calves or selenites, nor could I
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  Speaker 1: see cavore. But I could see my handkerchief far off,
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  Speaker 1: spread out on its thicket of thorns. I looked about me,
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  Speaker 1: and then leaped forward to the next convenient viewpoint. I
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  Speaker 1: beat my round in a semicircle, and back again in
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  Speaker 1: a still remoter crescent. It was very fatiguing and hopeless.
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  Speaker 1: The air was really very much cooler, and it seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that the shadow under the westward cliff was
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  Speaker 1: growing broad. Ever and again I stopped and reconnoitered, but
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  Speaker 1: there was no sign of Cavore, no sign of Selenites,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed to me the moon calves must have
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  Speaker 1: been driven into the interior. Again I could see none
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  Speaker 1: of them. I became more and more desirous of seeing Cavore.
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  Speaker 1: The winged outline of the sun had sunk now until
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  Speaker 1: it was scarcely the distance of its diameter from the
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  Speaker 1: rim of the sky. I was oppressed by the idea
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  Speaker 1: that the Selenites would presently close their lids in valves
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  Speaker 1: and shut us out under the inexorable onrush of the
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  Speaker 1: lunar night. It seemed to me high time that he
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  Speaker 1: abandoned his search, and that we took counsel together. I
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  Speaker 1: felt how urgent it was that we should decide soon
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  Speaker 1: upon our course. We had failed to find the sphere.
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  Speaker 1: We no longer had time to seek it, and once
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  Speaker 1: these valves were closed, with us outside, we were lost men.
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  Speaker 1: The great night of space would descend upon us, that
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  Speaker 1: blackness of the void which is the only absolute death.
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  Speaker 1: All my being shrank from that approach. We must get
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  Speaker 1: into the moon again, though we were slain in doing it.
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  Speaker 1: I was haunted by a vision of our freezing to death,
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  Speaker 1: of our hammering with our last strength on the valve
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  Speaker 1: of the great pit. I took no thought any more
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  Speaker 1: of the Sphere. I thought only of finding Kvore again.
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  Speaker 1: I was half inclined to go back into the moon
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  Speaker 1: without him, rather than seek him until it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: I was already half way back towards our handkerchief when
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  Speaker 1: suddenly I saw the sphere. I did not find it
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  Speaker 1: so much as it found me. It was lying much
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  Speaker 1: farther to the westward than I had gone, and the
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  Speaker 1: sloping rays of the sinking sun reflected from its glass
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  Speaker 1: had suddenly proclaimed its presence in a dazzling beam. For
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  Speaker 1: an instant I thought this was some new device of
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  Speaker 1: the Selenites against us, And then I understood. I threw
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  Speaker 1: up my arms, shouted a ghostly shout, and set off
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  Speaker 1: in vast leaps towards it. I missed one of my
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  Speaker 1: leaps and dropped into a deep ravine and twisted my ankle.
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  Speaker 1: And after that I stumbled At almost every leap, I
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  Speaker 1: was in a state of hysterical agitation, trembling violently and
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  Speaker 1: quite breathless, long before I got to it. Three times
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  Speaker 1: at least I had to stop with my hands resting
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  Speaker 1: on my side, and in spite of the then dryness
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  Speaker 1: of the air, the perspiration was wet upon my face.
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  Speaker 1: I thought of nothing but the sphere. Until I reached it,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot even my trouble of Kovoor's whereabouts. My last
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  Speaker 1: leap flung me with my hands hard against its glass.
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  Speaker 1: Then I lay against it, panting and trying vainly to shout, Cavore,
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  Speaker 1: here is the sphere. When I had recovered a little,
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  Speaker 1: I peered through the thick glass, and the things inside
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  Speaker 1: seemed tumbled. I stooped to peer closer. Then I attempted
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  Speaker 1: to get in. I had to hoist it over a
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  Speaker 1: little to get my head through the manhole. The screw
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  Speaker 1: stopper was inside, and I could see now that nothing
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  Speaker 1: had been touched, nothing had suffered. It lay there as
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  Speaker 1: we had left it when we had dropped out amidst
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  Speaker 1: the snow. For a time I was wholly occupied in
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  Speaker 1: making and remaking this inventory. I found. I was trembling violently.
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  Speaker 1: It was good to see that familiar dark interior again.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how good. Presently I crept inside
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  Speaker 1: and sat down among the things. I looked through the
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  Speaker 1: glass at the moon world and shivered. I placed my
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  Speaker 1: gold clubs upon the table and sought out and took
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  Speaker 1: a little food, not so much because I wanted it,
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  Speaker 1: but because it was there. Then it occurred to me
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  Speaker 1: that it was time to go out and signal for Cavore.
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  Speaker 1: But I did not go out and signal for Cavore.
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  Speaker 1: Forthwith something held me to the sphere. After all, everything
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  Speaker 1: was coming right. There would be still time for us
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  Speaker 1: to get more of the magic stone that gives one
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  Speaker 1: mastery over men. Away there close handy was gold for
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  Speaker 1: the picking up, and the sphere would travel as well,
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  Speaker 1: half full of gold, as though it were empty. We
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  Speaker 1: could go back now, masters of ourselves and our world.
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  Speaker 1: And then I roused myself at last, and with an effort,
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  Speaker 1: go myself out of the sphere. I shivered as I emerged,
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  Speaker 1: for the evening air was growing very cold. I stood
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  Speaker 1: in the hollows, staring about me. I scrutinized the bushes
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  Speaker 1: round me very carefully, before I leaped to the rocky
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  Speaker 1: shelf hard by and took once more what had been
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  Speaker 1: my first leap in the moon. But now I made
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  Speaker 1: it with no effort whatever. The growth and decay of
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  Speaker 1: the vegetation had gone on apace, and the whole aspect
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  Speaker 1: of the rocks had changed. But still it was possible
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  Speaker 1: to make out the slope on which the seeds had germinated,
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  Speaker 1: and the rocky mass from which we had taken our
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  Speaker 1: first view of the crater. But the spiky shrub on
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  Speaker 1: the slope stood brown and sear now and thirty feet
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  Speaker 1: high and cast long shadows that stretched out of sight,
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  Speaker 1: And the little seeds that clustered in its upper branches
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  Speaker 1: were brown and ripe. Its work was done, and it
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  Speaker 1: was brittle and ready to fall and crumple under the
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  Speaker 1: freezing air as soon as the nightfall came. And the
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  Speaker 1: huge cacti that had swollen as we watched them had
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  Speaker 1: long since burst and scattered their spores to the four
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  Speaker 1: quarters of the moon. Amazing little corner in the universe,
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  Speaker 1: the landing place of men. Someday, thought I, I will
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  Speaker 1: have an inscription standing there right in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: the hollow. It came to me. If only this teeming
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  Speaker 1: world within knew of the full import of the moment,
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  Speaker 1: how furious its tumult would become. But as yet it
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  Speaker 1: could scarcely be dreaming of the significance of our coming,
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  Speaker 1: For if it did, the crater would surely be an
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  Speaker 1: uproar of pursuit instead of its still as death. I
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  Speaker 1: looked about for some place from which I might signal Cavore,
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  Speaker 1: and saw that same patch of rock to which he
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  Speaker 1: had leapt from my present standpoint, still bare and barren
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  Speaker 1: in the sun. For a moment I hesitated it, going
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  Speaker 1: so far from the sphere. Then, with a pang of
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  Speaker 1: shame at that hesitation, I leaped from this vantage point.
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  Speaker 1: I surveyed the crater again. Far away, at the top
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  Speaker 1: of the enormous shadow I cast was the little white
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  Speaker 1: handkerchief fluttering on the bushes. It was very little and
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  Speaker 1: very far, and cavor was not in sight. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that by this time he ought to be
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  Speaker 1: looking for me, that was the agreement, But he was
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  Speaker 1: nowhere to be seen. I stood waiting and watching, hand
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  Speaker 1: shading my eyes, expecting every moment to distinguish him. Very probably.
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  Speaker 1: I stood there for quite a long time. I tried
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  Speaker 1: to shout, and was reminded of the thinness of the air.
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  Speaker 1: I made an undecided step back towards the sphere, but
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  Speaker 1: a lurking dread of the Selenites made me hesitate to
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  Speaker 1: signal my whereabouts by hoisting one of our sleeping blankets
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  Speaker 1: on to the adjacent scrub. I searched the crater again.
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  Speaker 1: It had an effect of emptiness that chilled me, and
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  Speaker 1: it was still Any sound from the Selenites in the
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  Speaker 1: world beneath had died away. It was as still as death,
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  Speaker 1: save for the faint stir of the shrub about me,
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  Speaker 1: and the little breeze that was rising. There was no sound,
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  Speaker 1: nor shadow of a sound, and the breeze blew. Chill
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  Speaker 1: confound Cavore. I took a deep breath. I put my
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  Speaker 1: hands to the sides of my mouth. Cavore I bawled,
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  Speaker 1: and the sound was like some mannekin shouting far away.
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  Speaker 1: I looked at the handkerchief. I looked behind me at
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  Speaker 1: the broadening shadow of the westward cliff. I looked under
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  Speaker 1: my hand at the sun. It seemed to me that
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  Speaker 1: almost visibly, it was creeping down the sky. I felt
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  Speaker 1: I must act instantly if I were to save Cavore.
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  Speaker 1: I whipped off my vest and flung it as a
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  Speaker 1: mark on the sere bayonets of the shrubs behind me,
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  Speaker 1: and then set off in a straight line towards the handkerchief.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps it was a couple of miles away, a matter
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  Speaker 1: of a few hundred leaps and strides. I have already
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  Speaker 1: told how one seemed to hang through those lunar leaps.
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  Speaker 1: In each suspense, I sought cavour and marveled why he
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  Speaker 1: should be hidden. In each leap, I could feel the
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  Speaker 1: sun setting behind me. Each time I touched the ground.
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  Speaker 1: I was tempted to go back a last leap, and
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  Speaker 1: I was in the depression below our handkerchief a stride,
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  Speaker 1: and I stood on our former vantage point, within arm's
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  Speaker 1: reach of it. I stood up straight and scanned the
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  Speaker 1: world about me. Between its lengthening bars of shadow. Far
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  Speaker 1: away down a long declivity was the opening of the
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  Speaker 1: tunnel up which we had fled, and my shadow reached
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  Speaker 1: towards it, stretched towards it, and touched it like a
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  Speaker 1: finger of the night. Not a sign of Cavore, not
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  Speaker 1: a sound in all the stillness, only the stir and
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  Speaker 1: waving of the scrub and of the shadows increased, and
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  Speaker 1: suddenly and violently I shivered go I began and realized
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  Speaker 1: once more the uselessness of the human voice in that
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  Speaker 1: thin air silence, the silence of death. Then it was
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  Speaker 1: my eye caught something, a little thing, lying perhaps fifty
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  Speaker 1: yards away down the slope, amidst the litter of bent
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  Speaker 1: and broken branches. What was it, I knew, and yet
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  Speaker 1: for some reason I would not know. I went nearer
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  Speaker 1: to it. It was the little cricket cap Cavore had warned.
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  Speaker 1: I did not touch it. I stood looking at it.
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  Speaker 1: I saw then that the scattered branches about it had
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  Speaker 1: been forcibly smashed and trampled. I hesitated, stepped forward and
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  Speaker 1: picked it up. I stood with Kavoor's cap in my hand,
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  Speaker 1: staring at the trampled reeds and thorns about me. On
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  Speaker 1: some of them were little smears of something dark, something
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  Speaker 1: that I dared not touch. A dozen yards away. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: the rising breeze drags something into view, something small and
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  Speaker 1: vividly white. It was a little piece of paper, crumpled tightly,
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  Speaker 1: as though it had been clutched tightly. I picked it
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  Speaker 1: up and on it were smears of red. My eye
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  Speaker 1: caught faint pencil marks. I smoothed it out and saw
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  Speaker 1: uneven and broken writing, ending at last in a crooked
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  Speaker 1: streak up on the paper. I set myself to decipher this.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I have been injured about the knee. I think my
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  Speaker 1: kneecap is hurt, and I cannot run or crawl. It
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  Speaker 1: began pretty distinctly written, then less legibly. They have been
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  Speaker 1: chasing me for some time, and is only a question
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  Speaker 1: of the word time. Seemed to have been written here
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  Speaker 1: and erased in favor of something illegible before they gain me.
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  Speaker 1: They are beating all about me. Then the writing became convulsive.
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  Speaker 1: I can hear them. I guessed the tracing meant, and
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  Speaker 1: then it was quite unreadable for a space. Then came
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  Speaker 1: a little string of words that were quite distinct, A
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  Speaker 1: different sort of Selenite altogether, who appears to be directing
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  Speaker 1: the The writing became a mere hasty confusion again. They
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  Speaker 1: have larger brain cases, much larger and slenderer bodies, and
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  Speaker 1: very short legs. They make gentle noises and move with
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  Speaker 1: organized deliberation. And though I am wounded and helpless here
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  Speaker 1: their appearance still gives me hope. That was like cavor.
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  Speaker 1: They have not shot at me or attempted injury, I intend.
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  Speaker 1: Then came the sudden streak of the pencil across the
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  Speaker 1: paper and on the back and edges blood. And as
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  Speaker 1: I stood there, stupid and perplexed with this dumbfounding relic
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  Speaker 1: in my hand, something very soft and light and chill
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  Speaker 1: touched my hand for a moment and ceased to be.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And then a thing, a little white speck, drifted athwart
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  Speaker 1: a shadow. It was a tiny snowflake, the first snowflake,
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  Speaker 1: the herald of the night. I looked up with a start,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and the sky had darkened almost to blackness, and was
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  Speaker 1: thick with a gathering multitude of coldly watchful stars. I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: looked eastward, and the light of that shriveled world was
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  Speaker 1: touched with somber bronze westward, and the sun, robbed now
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  Speaker 1: by a thickening white mist of half its heat and splendor,
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  Speaker 1: was touching the crater rim was sinking out of sight,
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  Speaker 1: and all the shrubs and jagged and tumbled rocks stood
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  Speaker 1: out against it in a bristling disorder of black shapes,
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  Speaker 1: into the great lake of darkness. Westward, a vast wreath
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  Speaker 1: of mist was sinking. A cold wind set all the
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  Speaker 1: crater shivering. Suddenly, for a moment I was in a
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  Speaker 1: puff of falling snow, and all the world about me
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  Speaker 1: gray and dim. And then it was I heard, not
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  Speaker 1: loud and penetrating, as at first, but faint and dim,
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  Speaker 1: like a dying voice, that tolling, that same tolling that
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  Speaker 1: had welcomed the coming of the day. Boom boom, boom,
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  Speaker 1: it echoed about the crater. It seemed to throb with
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  Speaker 1: the throbbing of the greater stars. The blood red crescent
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  Speaker 1: of the Sun's disc sank as it toiled out, boom
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  Speaker 1: boom boom. What had happened to Cavore all through that tolling?
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  Speaker 1: I stood there stupidly, and at last the tolling ceased,
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly the open mouth of the tunnel down below
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  Speaker 1: there shut like an eye and vanished out of sight.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed was I alone, over me, around me, closing in
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  Speaker 1: on me, embracing me. Ever nearer was the eternal, that
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  Speaker 1: which was before the beginning, and that which triumphs over
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  Speaker 1: the end, that enormous void in which all light and
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  Speaker 1: life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendor
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  Speaker 1: of a falling star, the cold, the stillness, the silence,
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  Speaker 1: the infinite and final night of space. The sense of
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  Speaker 1: solitude and desolation became the sense of an overwhelming presence
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  Speaker 1: that stooped towards me, that almost touched me. No, I cried, no,
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  Speaker 1: not yet, not yet. Wait, wait, oh wait. My voice
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  Speaker 1: went up to a shriek. I flung the crumpled paper
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: from me, scrambled back to the crest to take my bearings,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and then, with all the will that was in me,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: leaped out towards the mark I had left, dim and distant,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: now in the very margin of the shadow. Leap, leap, leap,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and each leap was seven ages before me. The pale
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: serpent girdled section of the sun sank and sank, and
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the advancing shadow swept to seize the sphere before I
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: could reach it. I was two miles away, a hundred
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: leaps or more, and the air about me was thinning
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: out as it thins under an air pump, and the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: cold was gripping at my joints. But had I died,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I should have died. Leaping once and then again, my
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: foot slipped on the gathering snow. As I leaped and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: shortened my leap, I fell short into bushes that crashed
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and smashed into dusty chips and nothingness. And once I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: stumbled as I dropped and rolled head over heels into
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a gully, and rose bruised and bleeding and confused as
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to my direction. But such incidents were as nothing to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the intervals, those awful pauses. When one drifted through the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: air towards that pouring tide of night. My breathing made
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: of piping noise, and it was as though knives were
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: whirling in my lungs. My heart seemed to beat against
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the top of my brain. Shall I reach it? Oh, Heaven,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: shall I reach it? My whole being became anguish. Lie down,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: screamed my pain and despair. Lie down. The nearer I struggled,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the more awfully remote it seemed. I was numb. I stumbled,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I bruised and cut myself and did not bleed. It
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: was in sight. I fell on all fours, and my
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: lungs whooped. I crawled. The frost gathered on my lips,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: ey sickles hung from my mustache. I was white with
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a freezing atmosphere. I was a dozen yards from it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: My eyes had become dim. Lie down, screamed despair, Lie down.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I touched it and halted too late, screamed despair, Lie down.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I fought stiffly with it. I was on the manhole lip,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a stupefied, half dead being. The snow was all about me.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I pulled myself in there lurked within a little warmer air,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the snowflakes, the air flakes danced in about me. As
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I tried with chilling hands to thrust the valve in
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and spun it tight and hard. I sobbed, I will
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I chattered in my teeth, and then, with fingers that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: quivered and felt brittle, I turned to the shutter studs.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: As I fumbled with the switches, for I had never
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: controlled them before. I could see dimly through the steaming glass,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the blazing red streamers of the sinking sun dancing and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: flickering through the snowstorm, and the black forms of the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: scrub thickening and bending and breaking beneath the accumulating snow.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Thicker whirled the snow and thicker black against the light.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: What if even now the switches overcame me. Then something
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: clicked under my hands, and in an instant, that last
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: vision of the Moon World was hidden from my eyes.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I was in the silence and darkness of the interplanetary sphere.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: End of chapter