CHAPTER 14

The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers

We went on climbing up the crack until at last we came to a grating which barred our way. Through the bars we could see a large, dimly-lit cavern in which a number of Selenites were busy. By bending two of the bars I managed to get through, and Cavor presently joined me. We hid in a hollow beside the grating, and from our hiding-place peered at the cavern and its occupants.

Lying in a line along the length of the cavern were a number of dead mooncalves. The Selenites were cutting off their flesh in strips, and a truck loaded with these strips was running up the slope of the cavern floor. They were using small axes made of the same metal as our chains! A number of very thick-looking crowbars lay about the floor, and had apparently been used to turn the dead mooncalves over on their sides.

Suddenly we heard a noise from the crack below us. We lay as still as death, with every sense alert. Something was quietly ascending the crack. I gripped my chain and waited for it to appear. I could hear now the soft twittering of the ascending Selenites. A spear flashed out at me. I snatched it and pulled it away, and with it I stabbed down through the bars, amidst shrieks from the darkness. Cavor had broken off another spear and was stabbing ineffectually with it. An axe came flying through the air and struck against the rocks.

The butchers were all coming towards us; waving their axes. They were short, thick, little creatures, with long arms, strikingly different from the Selenites we had seen before. I stared at them for a moment, spear in hand. "Guard that grating, Cavor," I cried, howled to frighten them, and rushed to meet them. Two of them missed with their axes, and the rest fled up the cavern. I picked two of the heavy crowbars and chased them for some distance, and then turned about to look at Cavor.

He had left his post, and was coming to me. A thin Selenite carrying something like a gun appeared struggling in the grating. I rushed upon him, whirling my crowbars and shouting to spoil his aim. He was aiming in the queerest way with the thing against his stomach. "Chuzz." The thing wasn't a gun; it went off like a bow, and its arrow dropped me in the middle of a leap. With the crowbar in my right hand I hit the Selenite. He collapsed—his head smashed like an egg. Then I started for the crowd up the cavern.

"Bedford!" cried Cavor. "Bedford!" as I flew past him.

I seem to remember him leaping behind me. With each leap, the cave opened out and the number of Selenites increased. At first they seemed all running about like ants in a disturbed ant-hill, then others came in sight carrying spears. Flick! Something flew over my head. Flick, flick! For a moment it was a shower.

I don't think I thought clearly then. I know I made a dash for the space between two of the dead mooncalves, and stood there panting.

"Bedford," panted Cavor behind me.

I glanced back. "What?" said I.

He was pointing upward over the mooncalves. "White light!" he said. "White light again!"

I looked, and it was true. That seemed to give me double strength. I hung my coat over my crowbar, ducked round the next mooncalf, then thrust up the coat. "Chuzz-zz-zz-zz! Chuzz!" In an instant it was bristling with arrows. I rushed out upon them.

For a minute perhaps it was massacre. I hit at them right and left, smashing them. Spears flew about me; I was slightly injured over the ear by one. I was stabbed once in the arm and once in the cheek, but I only found that out afterwards.

Suddenly the fighting was all over, and there was nothing to be seen but the backs and heads of escaping Selenites. I glanced for a moment at the smashed and struggling bodies that were scattered over the cavern floor, then hurried on after Cavor.