grunting, and the snapping of a shutter in its sash. I made an effort,

thrust back our blanket-wrapped luggage, and emerged from beneath it. Our

open windows were just visible as a deeper black set with stars.

We were still alive, and we were lying in the darkness of the shadow of

the wall of the great crater into which we had fallen.

We sat getting our breath again, and feeling the bruises on our limbs. I

don't think either of us had had a very clear expectation of such rough

handling as we had received. I struggled painfully to my feet. "And now,"

said I, "to look at the landscape of the moon! But--! It's tremendously

dark, Cavor!"

The glass was dewy, and as I spoke I wiped at it with my blanket. "We're

half an hour or so beyond the day," he said. "We must wait."

It was impossible to distinguish anything. We might have been in a sphere

of steel for all that we could see. My rubbing with the blanket simply

smeared the glass, and as fast as I wiped it, it became opaque again with

freshly condensed moisture mixed with an increasing quantity of blanket

hairs. Of course I ought not to have used the blanket. In my efforts to

clear the glass I slipped upon the damp surface, and hurt my shin against

one of the oxygen cylinders that protruded from our bale.

The thing was exasperating--it was absurd. Here we were just arrived upon

the moon, amidst we knew not what wonders, and all we could see was the

The First Men In The Moon