of shadow. Far away, down a long declivity, was the opening of the tunnel

up which we had fled, and my shadow reached towards it, stretched towards

it, and touched it, like a finger of the night.

Not a sign of Cavor, not a sound in all the stillness, only the stir and

waving of the scrub and of the shadows increased. And suddenly and

violently I shivered. "Cav--" I began, and realised once more the

uselessness of the human voice in that thin air. Silence. The silence of

death.

Then it was my eye caught something--a little thing lying, perhaps fifty

yards away down the slope, amidst a litter of bent and broken branches.

What was it? I knew, and yet for some reason I would not know. I went

nearer to it. It was the little cricket-cap Cavor had worn. I did not

touch it, I stood looking at it.

I saw then that the scattered branches about it had been forcibly smashed

and trampled. I hesitated, stepped forward, and picked it up.

I stood with Cavor's cap in my hand, staring at the trampled reeds and

thorns about me. On some, of them were little smears of something dark,

something that I dared not touch. A dozen yards away, perhaps, the rising

breeze dragged something into view, something small and vividly white.

It was a little piece of paper crumpled tightly, as though it had been

clutched tightly. I picked it up, and on it were smears of red. My eye

211

The First Men In The Moon