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that covered every projecting point on their south-eastern face. It
was the same rich green that one sees on forest moss or on the
lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual
twilight.
'The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched away
to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the
wan sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of
wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a
gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal sea was still moving
and living. And along the margin where the water sometimes broke was
a thick incrustation of salt--pink under the lurid sky. There was a
sense of oppression in my head, and I noticed that I was breathing
very fast. The sensation reminded me of my only experience of
mountaineering, and from that I judged the air to be more rarefied
than it is now.
'Far away up the desolate slope I heard a harsh scream, and saw a
thing like a huge white butterfly go slanting and fluttering up into
the sky and, circling, disappear over some low hillocks beyond. The
sound of its voice was so dismal that I shivered and seated myself
more firmly upon the machine. Looking round me again, I saw that,
quite near, what I had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving
slowly towards me. Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous
crab-like creature. Can you imagine a crab as large as yonder table,
with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, its big claws
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