Good Heavens!"

I resumed my destruction of the fungi. Then suddenly I saw something that

struck me even then. "Cavor," I said, "these chains are of gold!"

He was thinking intently, with his hands gripping his cheeks. He turned

his head slowly and stared at me, and when I had repeated my words, at the

twisted chain about his right hand. "So they are," he said, "so they

are." His face lost its transitory interest even as he looked. He

hesitated for a moment, then went on with his interrupted meditation. I

sat for a space puzzling over the fact that I had only just observed this,

until I considered the blue light in which we had been, and which had

taken all the colour out of the metal. And from that discovery I also

started upon a train of thought that carried me wide and far. I forgot

that I had just been asking what business we had in the moon. Gold....

It was Cavor who spoke first. "It seems to me that there are two courses

open to us."

Well?"

Either we can attempt to make our way--fight our way if necessary--out

to the exterior again, and then hunt for our sphere until we find it, or

the cold of the night comes to kill us, or else--"

167

The First Men In The Moon