CHAPTER 15

In the Sunlight

Presently we emerged upon a sort of sloping gallery that projected into a vast circular pit. Round this pit the gallery ran without any wall or protection for a turn and a half, and then plunged high above into the rock again. Overhead there was a round opening through which we could see the white light of the sun. At that we cried aloud at the same time.

"Come on!" I said, leading the way.

Cavor carefully stepped nearer the edge of the gallery and looked down into the dark pit.

"This must be the shaft we looked down upon," he said. "Under that lid."

"And below there, is where we saw the lights."

"The lights!" said he. "Yes—the lights of the world that now we shall never see."

"We'll come back," I said.

His answer I did not catch.

The spiral gallery was four or five miles long, and it ascended at a slope that would have made it impossibly steep on earth, but on the moon it was very easy to climb. At last we came to its opening on the exterior.

The plants of the moon were now dry and dead. The light and heat pressed upon us, and the thin air made breathing and speech difficult. We sat down at last, panting, among the bushes. Even in the shade the rock felt hot. We were utterly weary, but the fear and hardship of our flight through the dim passages and cracks below had left us.

"Cavor!" I said, "what are they going to do now? And what are we going to do?"

He shook his head, with his eyes fixed upon the tunnel. "How can one tell what they will do?"

"If we were to set fire to all these dry bushes," I said, "we might find the sphere among the ashes."

Cavor did not seem to hear. He was peering under his hand at the stars still visible in the bright sunlight. "How long do you think we have been here?" he asked at last.

"Two earthly days, perhaps."

"More nearly ten. The sun is sinking in the west, and in four days' time or less it will be night."

"But—we've only eaten once! Why should time seem different because we are on a smaller planet?"

"I don't know. There it is! Everything is different—hunger—fatigue—everything."

"Ten days," I said; "that leaves four days ... ! Cavor, we mustn't sit here and dream. We must get a fixed spot we can recognize—we might put up a flag or a handkerchief—and divide the ground into parts and search round that."

"Yes," said Cavor, "there is nothing for it but to hunt the sphere. We may find it. And if not—"

"We must keep looking."

He startled me by saying suddenly: "Oh! We have acted foolishly! Think how it might have been, and the things we might have done! Here below our feet is a world. Caverns beneath caverns, tunnels, ways. It must open out and be greater and wider and more populous as one descends. Right down at last to the sea that washes round the central part of the moon. Perhaps they have ships that go upon it, perhaps down there are mighty cities, and wisdom and order passing the mind of man. And we may die upon it and never see the masters who must be ruling over these things!"

"We can return," I said; "we could bring back lamps to carry and climbing irons, and a hundred necessary things." He stood staring across the crater. At last, he sighed and spoke. "It was I," he said, "who found the way here, but to find a way isn't always to be master of a way. If I take my secret back to earth, what will happen? I do not see how I can keep it for a year, for even a part of a year. Sooner or later it must come out. And then ... Governments and powers will struggle to get hither, they will fight against one another and against these moon people. In a little while this planet will be covered with human dead ... 

But, after all, why should one worry? There is little chance of our finding the sphere. Our troubles are only beginning. We have shown these moon people violence. The news of us must be running down from gallery to gallery towards the central parts."

"We aren't improving our chances," said I, "by sitting here."

We stood up side by side.

"After all," he said, "we must separate. We must stick up a handkerchief on these tall plants, and from this as a centre we must hunt over the crater. You must go westwards, moving out in semicircles, and I must go eastwards. For drink we must take snow, and for food we must kill a mooncalf if we can, and so each will go his own way."

"And if one of us comes upon the sphere?"

"He must come back to the white handkerchief, and stand by it, and signal to the other."

"And if neither—?"

Cavor glanced up at the sun. "We go on seeking until the night and cold overtake us."

"Suppose the Selenites have found the sphere and hidden it?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Or if presently they come hunting us?"

He made no answer.

"You had better take a club," I said.

He shook his head. "Good-bye," he said.

I felt an odd stab of emotion. I was about to ask him to shake hands when he put his feet together and leapt away from me. I stood for a moment watching him, then leapt westwards.

When presently I looked round for Cavor he was hidden from my eyes, but the handkerchief showed out clearly on its post.