It seemed to me at first that the Selenites must be standing on trestle-supported planks,[1] and then I saw that the planks and supports and the hatchets were really of the same leaden hue as my fetters had seemed before white light came to bear on them. A number of very thick-looking crowbars lay about the floor and had apparently assisted to turn the dead mooncalf over on its side. They were perhaps six feet long, with shaped handles; very tempting looking weapons. The whole place was lit by three transverse streams of the blue fluid.
We lay for a long time noting all these things in silence. "Well?" said Cavor at last.
I crouched lower and turned to him. I had come upon a brilliant idea. "Unless they lowered those bodies by a crane," I said, "we must be nearer the surface than I thought."
"Why?"
"The mooncalf doesn't hop and it hasn't got wings."
He peered over the edge of the hollow again. "I wonder, now—" he began. "After all we have never gone far from the surface."
I stopped him by a grip on his arm. I had heard a noise from the cleft below us!
We twisted ourselves about and lay as still as death, with every sense alert. In a little while I did not doubt that something was quietly ascending the
- ↑ I do not remember seeing any wooden things on the moon; doors, tables, everything corresponding to our terrestrial joinery was made of metal, and I believe for the most part of gold, which as a metal would, of course, naturally recommend itself—other things being equal—on account of the ease in working it and its toughness and durability.
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