against the brightening sky. What strange men can have reared these

vertical piles in such an amplitude of space I do not know. There they

are, like pieces of Brighton lost in the waste.

For a long time I sat there, yawning and rubbing my face. At last I

struggled to rise. It made me feel that I was lifting a weight. I stood

up.

I stared at the distant houses. For the first time since our starvation in

the crater I thought of earthly food. "Bacon," I whispered, "eggs. Good

toast and good coffee.... And how the devil am I going to all this stuff

to Lympne?" I wondered where I was. It was an east shore anyhow, and I

had seen Europe before I dropped.

I heard footsteps crunching in the sand, and a little round-faced,

friendly-looking man in flannels, with a bathing towel wrapped about his

shoulders, and his bathing dress over his arm, appeared up the beach. I

knew instantly that I must be in England. He was staring most intently at

the sphere and me. He advanced staring. I dare say I looked a ferocious

savage enough--dirty, unkempt, to an indescribable degree; but it did not

occur to me at the time. He stopped at a distance of twenty yards.

Hul-lo, my man!" he said doubtfully.

"Hullo yourself!" said I.

He advanced, reassured by that. "What on earth is that thing?" he asked.

The First Men In The Moon