Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The First Men in the Moon Chapter 18 - In the Sunlight

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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 18 - In the Sunlight · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen 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 eighteen. In the sunlight, presently we saw that the
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  Speaker 1: cavern before us opened upon a hazy void. In another
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  Speaker 1: moment we had emerged upon a sort of slanting gallery
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  Speaker 1: that projected into a vast circular space, a huge cylindrical
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  Speaker 1: pit running vertically up and down round this pit. The
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  Speaker 1: slanting gallery ran without any parapet or protection for a
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  Speaker 1: turn and a half, and then plunged high above into
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  Speaker 1: the rock again. Somehow, it reminded me of one of
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  Speaker 1: those spiral turns of the railway through the Saint Goddard.
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  Speaker 1: It was all tremendously huge. I can scarcely hope to
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  Speaker 1: convey to you the Titanic proportion of all that place,
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  Speaker 1: the Titanic effect of it. Our eyes followed up the
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  Speaker 1: vast declivity of the pit wall, and overhead and far
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  Speaker 1: above we beheld a round opening set with faint stars,
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  Speaker 1: and half of the lip about it well nigh blinding
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  Speaker 1: with the white light of the sun. At that, we
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  Speaker 1: cried aloud simultaneously. Come on, I said, leading the way.
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  Speaker 1: But there, said Cavor, and very carefully stepped nearer the
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  Speaker 1: edge of the gallery. I followed his example, and craned
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  Speaker 1: forward and looked down. But I was dazzled by that
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  Speaker 1: gleam of light above, and I could see only a
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  Speaker 1: bottomless darkness, with spectral patches of crimson and purple floating therein.
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  Speaker 1: Yet if I could not see, I could hear. Out
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  Speaker 1: of this darkness came a sound, a sound like the
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  Speaker 1: angry hum one can hear if one put one's ear
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  Speaker 1: outside a hive of bees, A sound out of that
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  Speaker 1: enormous hollow it may be four miles beneath our feet.
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  Speaker 1: For a moment, I listened, then tightened my grip on
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  Speaker 1: my crowbar, and led the way up the gallery. This
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  Speaker 1: must be the shaft we looked down upon, said Kavor,
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  Speaker 1: Under that lid, and below there is where we saw
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  Speaker 1: the lights. The lights, said he yes, the lights of
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  Speaker 1: the world that now we shall never see. We'll come back,
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  Speaker 1: I said, for now we had escaped so much I
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  Speaker 1: was rashly sanguine that we should recover the sphere. His
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  Speaker 1: answer I did not catch eh. I asked, it doesn't matter,
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  Speaker 1: he answered, and we hurried on in silence. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: that slanting lateral way was four or five miles long,
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  Speaker 1: allowing for its curvature, and at the slope that would
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  Speaker 1: have made it almost impossibly steep on Earth, but which
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  Speaker 1: one strode up easily under lunar conditions. We saw only
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  Speaker 1: two Selenites during all that portion of our flight, and
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  Speaker 1: directly they became aware of us, they ran headlong. It
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  Speaker 1: was clear that the knowledge of our strength and violence
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  Speaker 1: had reached them. Our weight to the exterior was unexpectedly plain.
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  Speaker 1: The spiral gallery straightened into a steeply ascended tunnel, its
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  Speaker 1: floor bearing abundant traces of the moon calves, and so
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  Speaker 1: straight and short in proportion to its vast arch that
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  Speaker 1: no part of it was absolutely dark. Almost immediately it
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  Speaker 1: began to lighten, and then far off and high up,
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  Speaker 1: and quite blindingly brilliant, appeared its opening. On the exterior,
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  Speaker 1: a slope of alpine steepness, surmounted by a crest of
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  Speaker 1: bayonet shrub, tall and broken down now and dry, and
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  Speaker 1: dead in spiky silhouette against the sun. And it is
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  Speaker 1: strange that we men, to whom this very vegetation had
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  Speaker 1: seemed so weird and horrible a little time ago, should
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  Speaker 1: now behold it with the emotion a homecoming exile might
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  Speaker 1: feel at sight of his native land. We welcomed even
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  Speaker 1: the rareness of the air that made us pant as
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  Speaker 1: we ran, and which rendered speaking no longer the easy
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  Speaker 1: thing that it had been, but an effort to make
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  Speaker 1: oneself heard. Larger grew the sunlit circle above us and larger,
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  Speaker 1: and all the nearer tunnels sank into a rim of
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  Speaker 1: indistinguishable black. We saw the dead bayonet shrub, no longer
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  Speaker 1: with any touch of green in it, but brown and
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  Speaker 1: dry and thick, and the shadow of its upper branches,
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  Speaker 1: high out of sight, made a densely interlaced pattern upon
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  Speaker 1: the tumbled rocks. And at the immediate mouth of the
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  Speaker 1: tunnel was a wide, trampled space where the moon calves
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  Speaker 1: had come and gone. We came out upon this space
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  Speaker 1: at last, into a light and heat that hit impressed
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  Speaker 1: upon us. We traversed the exposed area painfully, and clambered
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  Speaker 1: up a slope among the scrub stems, and sat down
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  Speaker 1: at last, panting, in a high place, beneath the shadow
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  Speaker 1: of a mass of twisted lava. Even in the shade,
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  Speaker 1: the rock felt hot, the air was intensely hot, and
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  Speaker 1: we were in great physical discomfort. But for all that
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  Speaker 1: we were no longer in a nightmare. We seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have come to our own province again, beneath the stars.
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  Speaker 1: All the fear and stress of our flight through the
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  Speaker 1: dim passages and fissures below had fallen from us. That
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  Speaker 1: last fight had filled us with an enormous confidence in
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  Speaker 1: our cells, so far as the Selenites were concerned. We
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  Speaker 1: looked back, almost incredulously at the black opening from which
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  Speaker 1: we had just emerged. Down There, it was in a
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  Speaker 1: blue glow that now, in our memories, seemed the next
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  Speaker 1: thing to absolute darkness. We had met with things like
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  Speaker 1: man mockeries of men, helmet headed creatures, and had walked
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  Speaker 1: in fear before them, and had submitted to them until
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  Speaker 1: we could submit no longer. And behold, they had smashed
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  Speaker 1: like wax, and scattered like chaff, and fled and vanished
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  Speaker 1: like the creatures of a dream. I rubbed my eyes,
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  Speaker 1: doubting whether we had not slept and dreamt these things
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  Speaker 1: by reason of the fungus we had eaten. And suddenly
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  Speaker 1: discovered the blood upon my face, and then that my
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  Speaker 1: shirt was sticking painfully to my shoulder and arm. Confound it,
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  Speaker 1: I said, gaging my injuries with an investigatory hand. And
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  Speaker 1: suddenly that distant tunnel mouth became as it were a
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  Speaker 1: watching eye. Cavor, I said, what are they going to
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  Speaker 1: do now? And what are we going to do? He
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  Speaker 1: shook his head, with his eyes fixed upon the tunnel.
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  Speaker 1: How can one tell what they will do? It depends
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  Speaker 1: on what they think of us, and I don't see
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  Speaker 1: how we can begin to guess that. And it depends
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  Speaker 1: upon what they have in reserve. It's as you say, Cavor,
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  Speaker 1: we have touched the merest outside of this world. They
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  Speaker 1: may have all sorts of things inside here. Even with
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  Speaker 1: those shooting things, they might have made it bad for us. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: after all, I said, even if we don't find the
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  Speaker 1: sphere at once, there is a chance for us we
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  Speaker 1: might hold out even through the night. We might go
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  Speaker 1: down there again and make a fight for it. I
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  Speaker 1: stared about me with speculative eyes. The character of the
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  Speaker 1: scenery had altered altogether, by reason of the enormous growth
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  Speaker 1: and subsequent drying of the scrub. The crest on which
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  Speaker 1: we sat was high and commanded a wide prospect of
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  Speaker 1: the crater landscape, and we saw it now, all sere
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  Speaker 1: and dry in the late autumn of the lunar afternoon
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  Speaker 1: rising one behind the other were long slopes and fields
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  Speaker 1: of trampled brown where the mooncalves had pastured, and far away,
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  Speaker 1: in the full blaze of the sun, a drove of them,
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  Speaker 1: bast slumbrously scattered shapes, each with a blot of shadow
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  Speaker 1: against it, like sheep on the side of a down
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  Speaker 1: But never a sign of a selenite was to be seen.
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  Speaker 1: Whether they had fled on our emergence from the interior passages,
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  Speaker 1: or whether they were accustomed to retire after driving out
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  Speaker 1: the mooncalves, I cannot guess. At the time, I believed
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  Speaker 1: the former was the case. If we were to set
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  Speaker 1: fire to all this stuff, I said, we might find
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  Speaker 1: the sphere among the ashes. Cavor did not seem to
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  Speaker 1: hear me. He was peering under his hand at the
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  Speaker 1: stars that, still, in spite of the intense sunlight, were
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  Speaker 1: abundantly visible in the sky. How long do you think
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  Speaker 1: we've been here, he asked, at last been ware on
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  Speaker 1: the moon? Two earthly days, perhaps more nearly ten? Do
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  Speaker 1: you know? The sun is past its zenith and sinking
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  Speaker 1: in the west. In four days time or less, it
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  Speaker 1: will be night. But we've only eaten once. I know that.
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  Speaker 1: And but there are the stars. But why should time
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  Speaker 1: seem different because we are on a smaller planet? I
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  Speaker 1: don't know there it is? How does one tell time? Hunger, fatigue?
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  Speaker 1: All those things are different? Everything is different everything. To me,
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  Speaker 1: it seems that since first we came out of the
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  Speaker 1: sphere has been only a question of hours, long hours,
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  Speaker 1: at most ten days. I said that leaves. I looked
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  Speaker 1: up at the sun for a moment, and then saw
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  Speaker 1: that it was half way from the zenith to the
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  Speaker 1: western edge of things, four days cavor. We mustn't se
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  Speaker 1: sit here and dream. How do you think we may begin?
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  Speaker 1: I stood up. We must get a fixed point we
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  Speaker 1: can recognize. We might hoist a flag or a handkerchief
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  Speaker 1: or something, and quarter the ground and work round that.
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  Speaker 1: He stood up beside me. Yes, he said, there is
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  Speaker 1: nothing for it but to hunt the sphere. Nothing. We
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  Speaker 1: may find it. Certainly we may find it and if not,
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  Speaker 1: we must keep on looking. He looked this way and that,
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  Speaker 1: glanced up at the sky and down at the tunnel,
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  Speaker 1: and astonished me by a sudden gesture of impatience. Oh
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  Speaker 1: but we have done foolishly to have come to this pass.
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  Speaker 1: Think how it might have been, and the things we
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  Speaker 1: might have done. We might do something, yet, never the
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  Speaker 1: things we might have done. Here below our feet is
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  Speaker 1: a world. Think of what that world must be. Think
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  Speaker 1: of that machine, we say, and the lid and the shaft.
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  Speaker 1: They were just remote, outlying things. And those creatures we
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  Speaker 1: have seen and fought with no more than ignorant peasants,
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  Speaker 1: dwellers in the outskirts, yokels, and laborers, half akin to
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  Speaker 1: brutes down below, caverns, beneath caverns, tunnels, structures, ways. It
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  Speaker 1: must open out and be greater and wider and more
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  Speaker 1: populous as one descends, assuredly right down at the last,
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  Speaker 1: the central sea that washes round the core of the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: Think of its inky waters under the spare lights, if
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  Speaker 1: indeed their eyes need lights. Think of the cascading tributaries
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  Speaker 1: pouring down their channels to feed it. Think of the
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  Speaker 1: tides upon its surface, and the rush and swirl of
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  Speaker 1: its ebb and flow. Perhaps they have ships that go
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  Speaker 1: upon it. Perhaps down there are mighty cities and swarming ways,
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  Speaker 1: and wisdom and order, passing the wit of man. And
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  Speaker 1: we may die here upon it and never see the
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  Speaker 1: masters who must be ruling over all these things. We
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  Speaker 1: may freeze and die here, and the air will freeze
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  Speaker 1: and thaw upon us, And then then they will come
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  Speaker 1: upon us, come on our stiff and silent bodies, and
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  Speaker 1: find the fear we cannot find, and they will understand
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  Speaker 1: at last, too late, all the thought and effort that
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  Speaker 1: ended here in vain. His voice, for all that speech,
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  Speaker 1: sounded like the voice of someone heard in a telephone,
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  Speaker 1: weak and far away. But the darkness, I said, one
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  Speaker 1: might get over that. How I don't know. How am
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  Speaker 1: I to know. One might carry a torch, one might
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  Speaker 1: have a lamp. The others might understand. He stood for
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  Speaker 1: a moment with his hands held down and a rueful
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  Speaker 1: face staring out over the waist that defied him. Then,
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  Speaker 1: with a gesture of renunciation, he turned towards me with
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  Speaker 1: proposals for the systematic hunting of the sphere. We can return,
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  Speaker 1: I said. He looked about him, First of all, we
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  Speaker 1: shall have to get to Earth. We could bring back
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  Speaker 1: lamps to carry, and climbing irons, and a hundred necessary things. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: he said, we can take back in earnest of success,
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  Speaker 1: in this gold. He looked at my golden crowbars and
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  Speaker 1: said nothing. For a space he stood with his hands
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  Speaker 1: clasped behind his back, staring across the crater. At last
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  Speaker 1: he sighed and spoke. It was I found the way here.
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  Speaker 1: But to find a way isn't always to be master
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  Speaker 1: of a way. If I take my secret back to Earth,
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  Speaker 1: what will happen? I do not see how I can
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  Speaker 1: keep my secret for a year, for even a part
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  Speaker 1: of a year. Sooner or later it must come out,
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  Speaker 1: even if other men rediscover it. And then governments and
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  Speaker 1: powers will struggle to get hither. They will fight against
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  Speaker 1: one another and against these moon people. It will only
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  Speaker 1: spread warfare and multiply the occasions of war. In a
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  Speaker 1: little while, in a very little while, if I tell
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  Speaker 1: my secret, this planet to its deepest galleries will be
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  Speaker 1: strewn with human dead. Other things are doubtful, but that
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  Speaker 1: is certain. It is not as though man had any
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  Speaker 1: use for the moon. What good would the moon be
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  Speaker 1: to men, even of their own planet. What have they
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  Speaker 1: made but a battleground and theater of infinite folly. Small
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  Speaker 1: as his world is, in short, as is his time.
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  Speaker 1: He is still in his little life down there, far
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  Speaker 1: more than he can do. No science has toiled too
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  Speaker 1: long forging weapons for fools to use. It is time
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  Speaker 1: she held her hand. Let him find out for himself
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  Speaker 1: again in a thousand years time. There are methods of secrecy,
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  Speaker 1: I said. He looked up at me and smiled. After all,
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  Speaker 1: he said, why should one worry? There is little chance
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  Speaker 1: of our finding the sphere, and down below things are brewing.
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  Speaker 1: It's simply the human habit of hoping till we die
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  Speaker 1: that makes us think of return. Our travels are only beginning.
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  Speaker 1: We have shown these moon folk violence, and we have
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  Speaker 1: given them a taste of our quality. And our chances
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  Speaker 1: are about as good as a tiger's that has got
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  Speaker 1: loose and killed a man in Hyde Park. The news
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  Speaker 1: of us must be running down from gallery to gallery,
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  Speaker 1: down towards the central parts. No sane beings will ever
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  Speaker 1: let us take that sphere back to Earth. After so
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  Speaker 1: much as they have seen of us, we aren't improving
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  Speaker 1: our chances, said I by sitting here we stood up
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  Speaker 1: side by side. After all, he said, we must separate.
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  Speaker 1: We must stick up a handkerchief on these tall spikes
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  Speaker 1: here and fasten it firmly. And from this as a center,
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  Speaker 1: we must work over the crater. You must go westward,
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  Speaker 1: moving out in semicircles to and fro towards the setting sun.
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  Speaker 1: You must move first with your shadow on your right
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  Speaker 1: until it is at right angles with the direction of
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  Speaker 1: your handkerchief, and then with your shadow on your left,
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  Speaker 1: And I will do the same to the east. We
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  Speaker 1: will look into every gully, examine every scary of rocks.
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  Speaker 1: We will do all we can to find my sphere.
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  Speaker 1: If we see the selenites, we will hide from them
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  Speaker 1: as well as we can. For drink, we must take snow.
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  Speaker 1: And if we feel the need of food, we must
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  Speaker 1: fill a mooncalf if we can, and each such flesh
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  Speaker 1: as it has raw. And so each will go his
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  Speaker 1: own way. And if one of us comes upon the sphere,
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  Speaker 1: he must come back to the white handkerchief and stand
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  Speaker 1: by it and signal to the other. And if neither
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  Speaker 1: cavor glanced up at the sun, we go on seeking
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  Speaker 1: until the night and cold overtake us. Suppose the Selenites
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  Speaker 1: have found the sphere and hidden it, he shrugged his shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: Or if presently they come hunting us, He made no answer.
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  Speaker 1: You had better take a club, I said. He shook
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  Speaker 1: his head and stared away from me across the waist,
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  Speaker 1: but for a moment he did not start. He looked
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  Speaker 1: round at me, shyly, hesitated avoir. He said, I felt
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  Speaker 1: an odd stab of emotion, A sense of how we
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  Speaker 1: had galled each other, and particularly how I must have
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: gulled him. Came to me confound it, thought I we
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  Speaker 1: might have done better. I was on the point of
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  Speaker 1: asking him to shake hands, for that, somehow, was how
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  Speaker 1: I felt. Just then, when he put his feet together
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  Speaker 1: and leaped away from me towards the north. He seemed
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  Speaker 1: to drift through the air as a dead leaf would do,
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  Speaker 1: fell lightly, and leaped again. I stood for a moment
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  Speaker 1: watching him, then faced westward reluctantly, pulled myself together, and,
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  Speaker 1: with something of the feeling of a man who leaps
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  Speaker 1: into icy water, selected a leaping point and plunged forward
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  Speaker 1: to explore my solitary half of the moon world. I
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  Speaker 1: dropped rather clumsily among rocks, stood up and looked about me,
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  Speaker 1: clambered onto a rocky slab, and leaped again. When presently
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  Speaker 1: I looked for Cavor, he was hidden from my eyes,
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  Speaker 1: but the handkerchief showed out bravely on its headland, white
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  Speaker 1: in the blaze of the sun. I determined not to
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  Speaker 1: lose sight of that handkerchief, whatever might be tied. End
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  Speaker 1: of chapter