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to me. I have extenuated little and suppressed nothing. But his account
is:--
"
It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our
circumstances and surroundings--great loss of weight, attenuated but
highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular
effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid
sky--was exciting my companion unduly. On the moon his character seemed to
deteriorate. He became impulsive, rash, and quarrelsome. In a little while
his folly in devouring some gigantic vesicles and his consequent
intoxication led to our capture by the Selenites--before we had had the
slightest opportunity of properly observing their ways...."
(He says, you observe, nothing of his own concession to these same
"vesicles.")
And he goes on from that point to say that "We came to a difficult passage
with them, and Bedford mistaking certain gestures of theirs"--pretty
gestures they were!--"gave way to a panic violence. He ran amuck, killed
three, and perforce I had to flee with him after the outrage. Subsequently
we fought with a number who endeavoured to bar our way, and slew seven or
eight more. It says much for the tolerance of these beings that on my
recapture I was not instantly slain. We made our way to the exterior and
separated in the crater of our arrival, to increase our chances of
recovering our sphere. But presently I came upon a body of Selenites, led
by two who were curiously different, even in form, from any of these we
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