to get more of the magic stone that gives one mastery over men. Away

there, close handy, was gold for the picking up; and the sphere would

travel as well half full of gold as though it were empty. We could go

back now, masters of ourselves and our world, and then--

I roused myself at last, and with an effort got myself out of the sphere.

I shivered as I emerged, for the evening air was growing very cold. I

stood in the hollow staring about me. I scrutinised the bushes round me

very carefully before I leapt to the rocky shelf hard by, and took once

more what had been my first leap in the moon. But now I made it with no

effort whatever.

The growth and decay of the vegetation had gone on apace, and the whole

aspect of the rocks had changed, but still it was possible to make out the

slope on which the seeds had germinated, and the rocky mass from which we

had taken our first view of the crater. But the spiky shrub on the slope

stood brown and sere now, and thirty feet high, and cast long shadows that

stretched out of sight, and the little seeds that clustered in its upper

branches were brown and ripe. Its work was done, and it was brittle and

ready to fall and crumple under the freezing air, so soon as the nightfall

came. And the huge cacti, that had swollen as we watched them, had long

since burst and scattered their spores to the four quarters of the moon.

Amazing little corner in the universe--the landing place of men!

Some day, thought I, I will have an inscription standing there right in

the midst of the hollow. It came to me, if only this teeming world within

208

The First Men In The Moon