Some day, thought I, an inscription standing there right midst hollow It came , if only this teeming world within knew full import moment, how furious its tumult would become !

But it could scarcely be dreaming significance coming For did, the crater would surely be an uproar of pursuit, instead of as still as death ! I looked about for some place signal Cavor, and saw that same patch of rock he had leapt from my present standpoint, still bare and barren sun For moment I hesitated at going sphere Then with pang of shame hesitation, I leapt . .

vantage point I surveyed the crater again Far away top enormous shadow I cast little white handkerchief fluttering bushes very little and very far, and Cavor was not in sight It seemed that he looking That agreement But nowhere seen

I stood waiting and watching, hands shading my eyes, expecting every moment to distinguish him Very probably I stood there for quite I tried to shout, and was reminded thinness air an undecided step back towards the sphere But lurking dread Selenites made me hesitate to signal my whereabouts by hoisting sleeping-blankets on adjacent scrub I searched the crater again

It had an effect of emptiness that chilled me And still; Any sound Selenites beneath, even had died away as still as death Save faint stir shrub about me little breeze that was rising, no sound nor shadow of sound breeze blew chill

Confound Cavor !

deep breath I put my hands sides mouth "Cavor ! " I bawled, sound was like some manikin shouting far away

I looked handkerchief, I looked behind me broadening shadow westward cliff I looked under my hand sun It seemed that almost visibly creeping down the sky act instantly if to save Cavor I whipped off my vest and flung it as mark sere bayonets shrubs behind me, and then set off in straight line towards the handkerchief Perhaps couple of miles away - matter of few hundred leaps and strides already told how one seemed to hang through those lunar leaps In each suspense I sought Cavor, and marvelled why hidden In each leap feel the sun setting behind me I touched the ground tempted back

last leap and depression below our handkerchief, stride, and I stood former vantage point within arms' reach of it I stood up straight and scanned the world about me, between its lengthening bars of shadow Far away, down long declivity, opening tunnel up which we had fled, and my shadow reached towards it, stretched towards it, and touched it, like finger night

Not sign of Cavor, not sound in all the stillness, only the stir and waving scrub and shadows increased And suddenly and violently I shivered "Cav-" I began, and realised once more the uselessness human voice thin air Silence The silence of death

Then my eye caught something - little thing lying, perhaps fifty yards away down the slope, amidst litter of bent and broken branches it ? , and yet for some reason know I went nearer It little cricket-cap Cavor had worn touch it, I stood looking at it

then scattered branches forcibly smashed and trampled I hesitated, stepped forward, and picked it up

I stood with Cavor's cap in my hand, staring trampled reeds and thorns about me On some, were little smears of something dark, something that I dared not touch dozen yards away, perhaps, the rising breeze dragged something into view, something small and vividly white

little piece of paper crumpled tightly, it clutched tightly I picked it up, and were smears of red My eye caught faint pencil marks I smoothed it out, and saw uneven and broken writing ending at last in crooked streak up paper

I set myself to decipher this

" injured knee, my kneecap is hurt, and run or crawl," it began - pretty distinctly written

Then less legibly: "They chasing me for , and only question of" - the word "time" seemed written here and erased in favour of something illegible - " get me beating all about me "

Then the writing became convulsive " hear them," I guessed the tracing meant, and then quite unreadable for space Then came little string of words that were quite distinct: "a different sort of Selenite altogether, who appears directing the" The writing became mere hasty confusion again

" larger brain cases - much larger, and slenderer bodies, and very short legs They make gentle noises, and move with organized deliberation .

"And though wounded and helpless here, their appearance still gives me hope " That was like Cavor " not shot at me or attempted . injury I intend -"

Then came the sudden streak pencil across the paper, and back and edges - blood !

And as I stood there stupid, and perplexed, dumbfounding relic in my hand, something very soft and light and chill touched my hand for moment and ceased , and then thing, little white speck, drifted athwart shadow tiny snowflake, the first snowflake, the herald night

I looked up with start, sky had darkened almost to blackness, and was thick with gathering multitude of coldly watchful stars I looked eastward, light shrivelled world was touched with sombre bronze; westward, sun robbed now by thickening white mist of half its heat and splendour, was touching the crater rim, was sinking out of sight, and all the shrubs and jagged and tumbled rocks stood out against it in bristling disorder of black shapes great lake of darkness westward, vast wreath of mist was sinking cold wind set all the crater shivering Suddenly, for moment, in puff of falling snow, and all the world about me gray and dim

And then I heard, not loud and penetrating as at first, but faint and dim like dying voice, that tolling, that same tolling that had welcomed the coming day: Boom ! . Boom ! . Boom ! .

It echoed crater, it seemed to throb throbbing greater stars, the blood-red crescent sun's disc sank as it tolled out: Boom ! . Boom ! . Boom ! .

What had happened to Cavor ? All tolling I stood there stupidly, and at last the tolling ceased

And suddenly the open mouth tunnel down below there, shut like an eye and vanished out of sight

Then indeed was I alone

Over me, around me, closing in on me, embracing me ever nearer, Eternal; that beginning, which triumphs over the end; that enormous void all light and life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendour of falling star, the cold, the stillness, the silence - the infinite and final Night of space

The sense of solitude and desolation became the sense of an overwhelming presence that stooped towards me, that almost touched me

"No," I cried "No ! Not yet ! not yet ! Wait ! Wait ! Oh, wait ! " My voice went shriek I flung the crumpled paper from me, scrambled back crest my bearings, and then, with all the will that was in me, leapt out towards the mark I had left, dim and distant now very margin shadow

Leap, leap, leap, and each leap was seven ages