Chương Chương 15 · The Giddy Bridge

. The Giddy Bridge

Just for a moment that hostile pause endured. I suppose that both we

and the Selenites did some very rapid thinking. My clearest impression

was that there was nothing to put my back against, and that we were

bound to be surrounded and killed. The overwhelming folly of our

presence there loomed over me in black, enormous reproach. Why had I

ever launched myself on this mad, inhuman expedition?

Cavor came to my side and laid his hand on my arm. His pale and

terrified face was ghastly in the blue light.

“We can’t do anything,” he said. “It’s a mistake. They don’t

understand. We must go. As they want us to go.”

I looked down at him, and then at the fresh Selenites who were coming

to help their fellows. “If I had my hands free—”

“It’s no use,” he panted.

“No.”

“We’ll go.”

And he turned about and led the way in the direction that had been

indicated for us.

I followed, trying to look as subdued as possible, and feeling at the

chains about my wrists. My blood was boiling. I noted nothing more of

that cavern, though it seemed to take a long time before we had marched

across it, or if I noted anything I forgot it as I saw it. My thoughts

were concentrated, I think, upon my chains and the Selenites, and

particularly upon the helmeted ones with the goads. At first they

marched parallel with us, and at a respectful distance, but presently

they were overtaken by three others, and then they drew nearer, until

they were within arms length again. I winced like a beaten horse as

they came near to us. The shorter, thicker Selenite marched at first on

our right flank, but presently came in front of us again.

How well the picture of that grouping has bitten into my brain; the

back of Cavor’s downcast head just in front of me, and the dejected

droop of his shoulders, and our guide’s gaping visage, perpetually

jerking about him, and the goad-bearers on either side, watchful, yet

open-mouthed—a blue monochrome. And after all, I _do_ remember one

other thing besides the purely personal affair, which is, that a sort

of gutter came presently across the floor of the cavern, and then ran

along by the side of the path of rock we followed. And it was full of

that same bright blue luminous stuff that flowed out of the great

machine. I walked close beside it, and I can testify it radiated not a

particle of heat. It was brightly shining, and yet it was neither

warmer nor colder than anything else in the cavern.

Clang, clang, clang, we passed right under the thumping levers of

another vast machine, and so came at last to a wide tunnel, in which we

could even hear the pad, pad, of our shoeless feet, and which, save for

the trickling thread of blue to the right of us, was quite unlit. The

shadows made gigantic travesties of our shapes and those of the

Selenites on the irregular wall and roof of the tunnel. Ever and again

crystals in the walls of the tunnel scintillated like gems, ever and

again the tunnel expanded into a stalactitic cavern, or gave off

branches that vanished into darkness.

We seemed to be marching down that tunnel for a long time. “Trickle,

trickle,” went the flowing light very softly, and our footfalls and

their echoes made an irregular paddle, paddle. My mind settled down to

the question of my chains. If I were to slip off one turn _so_, and

then to twist it _so_ ...

If I tried to do it very gradually, would they see I was slipping my

wrist out of the looser turn? If they did, what would they do?

“Bedford,” said Cavor, “it goes down. It keeps on going down.”

His remark roused me from my sullen pre-occupation.

“If they wanted to kill us,” he said, dropping back to come level with

me, “there is no reason why they should not have done it.”

“No,” I admitted, “that’s true.”

“They don’t understand us,” he said, “they think we are merely strange

animals, some wild sort of mooncalf birth, perhaps. It will be only

when they have observed us better that they will begin to think we have

minds—”

“When you trace those geometrical problems,” said I.

“It may be that.”

We tramped on for a space.

“You see,” said Cavor, “these may be Selenites of a lower class.”

“The infernal fools!” said I viciously, glancing at their exasperating

faces.

“If we endure what they do to us—”

“We’ve got to endure it,” said I.

“There may be others less stupid. This is the mere outer fringe of

their world. It must go down and down, cavern, passage, tunnel, down at

last to the sea—hundreds of miles below.”

His words made me think of the mile or so of rock and tunnel that might

be over our heads already. It was like a weight dropping on my

shoulders. “Away from the sun and air,” I said. “Even a mine half a

mile deep is stuffy.”

“This is not, anyhow. It’s probable—Ventilation! The air would blow

from the dark side of the moon to the sunlit, and all the carbonic acid

would well out there and feed those plants. Up this tunnel, for

example, there is quite a breeze. And what a world it must be. The

earnest we have in that shaft, and those machines—”

“And the goad,” I said. “Don’t forget the goad!”

He walked a little in front of me for a time.

“Even that goad—” he said.

“Well?”

“I was angry at the time. But—it was perhaps necessary we should get

on. They have different skins, and probably different nerves. They may

not understand our objection—just as a being from Mars might not like

our earthly habit of nudging.”

“They’d better be careful how they nudge _me_.”

“And about that geometry. After all, their way is a way of

understanding, too. They begin with the elements of life and not of

thought. Food. Compulsion. Pain. They strike at fundamentals.”

“There’s no doubt about _that_,” I said.

He went on to talk of the enormous and wonderful world into which we

were being taken. I realised slowly from his tone, that even now he was

not absolutely in despair at the prospect of going ever deeper into

this inhuman planet-burrow. His mind ran on machines and invention, to

the exclusion of a thousand dark things that beset me. It wasn’t that

he intended to make any use of these things, he simply wanted to know

them.

“After all,” he said, “this is a tremendous occasion. It is the meeting

of two worlds! What are we going to see? Think of what is below us

here.”

“We shan’t see much if the light isn’t better,” I remarked.

“This is only the outer crust. Down below— On this scale— There will be

everything. Do you notice how different they seem one from another? The

story we shall take back!”

“Some rare sort of animal,” I said, “might comfort himself in that way

while they were bringing him to the Zoo.... It doesn’t follow that we

are going to be shown all these things.”

“When they find we have reasonable minds,” said Cavor, “they will want

to learn about the earth. Even if they have no generous emotions, they

will teach in order to learn.... And the things they must know! The

unanticipated things!”

He went on to speculate on the possibility of their knowing things he

had never hoped to learn on earth, speculating in that way, with a raw

wound from that goad already in his skin! Much that he said I forget,

for my attention was drawn to the fact that the tunnel along which we

had been marching was opening out wider and wider. We seemed, from the

feeling of the air, to be going out into a huge space. But how big the

space might really be we could not tell, because it was unlit. Our

little stream of light ran in a dwindling thread and vanished far

ahead. Presently the rocky walls had vanished altogether on either

hand. There was nothing to be seen but the path in front of us and the

trickling hurrying rivulet of blue phosphorescence. The figures of

Cavor and the guiding Selenite marched before me, the sides of their

legs and heads that were towards the rivulet were clear and bright

blue, their darkened sides, now that the reflection of the tunnel wall

no longer lit them, merged indistinguishably in the darkness beyond.

And soon I perceived that we were approaching a declivity of some sort,

because the little blue stream dipped suddenly out of sight.

In another moment, as it seemed, we had reached the edge. The shining

stream gave one meander of hesitation and then rushed over. It fell to

a depth at which the sound of its descent was absolutely lost to us.

Far below was a bluish glow, a sort of blue mist—at an infinite

distance below. And the darkness the stream dropped out of became

utterly void and black, save that a thing like a plank projected from

the edge of the cliff and stretched out and faded and vanished

altogether. There was a warm air blowing up out of the gulf.

For a moment I and Cavor stood as near the edge as we dared, peering

into a blue-tinged profundity. And then our guide was pulling at my

arm.

Then he left me, and walked to the end of that plank and stepped upon

it, looking back. Then when he perceived we watched him, he turned

about and went on along it, walking as surely as though he was on firm

earth. For a moment his form was distinct, then he became a blue blur,

and then vanished into the obscurity. I became aware of some vague

shape looming darkly out of the black.

There was a pause. “Surely!—” said Cavor.

One of the other Selenites walked a few paces out upon the plank, and

turned and looked back at us unconcernedly. The others stood ready to

follow after us. Our guide’s expectant figure reappeared. He was

returning to see why we had not advanced.

“What is that beyond there?” I asked.

“I can’t see.”

“We can’t cross this at any price,” said I.

“I could not go three steps on it,” said Cavor, “even with my hands

free.”

We looked at each other’s drawn faces in blank consternation.

“They can’t know what it is to be giddy!” said Cavor.

“It’s quite impossible for us to walk that plank.”

“I don’t believe they see as we do. I’ve been watching them. I wonder

if they know this is simply blackness for us. How can we make them

understand?”

“Anyhow, we must make them understand.”

I think we said these things with a vague half hope the Selenites might

somehow understand. I knew quite clearly that all that was needed was

an explanation. Then as I saw their faces, I realised that an

explanation was impossible. Just here it was that our resemblances were

not going to bridge our differences. Well, I wasn’t going to walk the

plank, anyhow. I slipped my wrist very quickly out of the coil of chain

that was loose, and then began to twist my wrists in opposite

directions. I was standing nearest to the bridge, and as I did this two

of the Selenites laid hold of me, and pulled me gently towards it.

I shook my head violently. “No go,” I said, “no use. You don’t

understand.”

Another Selenite added his compulsion. I was forced to step forward.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Cavor; but I knew his ideas.

“Look here!” I exclaimed to the Selenites. “Steady on! It’s all very

well for you—”

I sprang round upon my heel. I burst out into curses. For one of the

armed Selenites had stabbed me behind with his goad.

I wrenched my wrists free from the little tentacles that held them. I

turned on the goad-bearer. “Confound you!” I cried. “I’ve warned you of

that. What on earth do you think I’m made of, to stick that into me? If

you touch me again—”

By way of answer he pricked me forthwith.

I heard Cavor’s voice in alarm and entreaty. Even then I think he

wanted to compromise with these creatures. “I say, Bedford,” he cried,

“I know a way!” But the sting of that second stab seemed to set free

some pent-up reserve of energy in my being. Instantly the link of the

wrist-chain snapped, and with it snapped all considerations that had

held us unresisting in the hands of these moon creatures. For that

second, at least, I was mad with fear and anger. I took no thought of

consequences. I hit straight out at the face of the thing with the

goad. The chain was twisted round my fist.

There came another of these beastly surprises of which the moon world

is full.

My mailed hand seemed to go clean through him. He smashed like—like

some softish sort of sweet with liquid in it! He broke right in! He

squelched and splashed. It was like hitting a damp toadstool. The

flimsy body went spinning a dozen yards, and fell with a flabby impact.

I was astonished. I was incredulous that any living thing could be so

flimsy. For an instant I could have believed the whole thing a dream.

Then it had become real and imminent again. Neither Cavor nor the other

Selenites seemed to have done anything from the time when I had turned

about to the time when the dead Selenite hit the ground. Every one

stood back from us two, every one alert. That arrest seemed to last at

least a second after the Selenite was down. Every one must have been

taking the thing in. I seem to remember myself standing with my arm

half retracted, trying also to take it in. “What next?” clamoured my

brain; “what next?” Then in a moment every one was moving!

I perceived we must get our chains loose, and that before we could do

this these Selenites had to be beaten off. I faced towards the group of

the three goad-bearers. Instantly one threw his goad at me. It swished

over my head, and I suppose went flying into the abyss behind.

I leaped right at him with all my might as the goad flew over me. He

turned to run as I jumped, and I bore him to the ground, came down

right upon him, and slipped upon his smashed body and fell. He seemed

to wriggle under my foot.

I came into a sitting position, and on every hand the blue backs of the

Selenites were receding into the darkness. I bent a link by main force

and untwisted the chain that had hampered me about the ankles, and

sprang to my feet, with the chain in my hand. Another goad, flung

javelin-wise, whistled by me, and I made a rush towards the darkness

out of which it had come. Then I turned back towards Cavor, who was

still standing in the light of the rivulet near the gulf convulsively

busy with his wrists, and at the same time jabbering nonsense about his

idea.

“Come on!” I cried.

“My hands!” he answered.

Then, realising that I dared not run back to him, because my

ill-calculated steps might carry me over the edge, he came shuffling

towards me, with his hands held out before him.

I gripped his chains at once to unfasten them.

“Where are they?” he panted.

“Run away. They’ll come back. They’re throwing things! Which way shall

we go?”

“By the light. To that tunnel. Eh?”

“Yes,” said I, and his hands were free.

I dropped on my knees and fell to work on his ankle bonds. Whack came

something—I know not what—and splashed the livid streamlet into drops

about us. Far away on our right a piping and whistling began.

I whipped the chain off his feet, and put it in his hand. “Hit with

that!” I said, and without waiting for an answer, set off in big bounds

along the path by which we had come. I had a nasty sort of feeling that

these things could jump out of the darkness on to my back. I heard the

impact of his leaps come following after me.

We ran in vast strides. But that running, you must understand, was an

altogether different thing from any running on earth. On earth one

leaps and almost instantly hits the ground again, but on the moon,

because of its weaker pull, one shot through the air for several

seconds before one came to earth. In spite of our violent hurry this

gave an effect of long pauses, pauses in which one might have counted

seven or eight. “Step,” and one soared off! All sorts of questions ran

through my mind: “Where are the Selenites? What will they do? Shall we

ever get to that tunnel? Is Cavor far behind? Are they likely to cut

him off?” Then whack, stride, and off again for another step.

I saw a Selenite running in front of me, his legs going exactly as a

man’s would go on earth, saw him glance over his shoulder, and heard

him shriek as he ran aside out of my way into the darkness. He was, I

think, our guide, but I am not sure. Then in another vast stride the

walls of rock had come into view on either hand, and in two more

strides I was in the tunnel, and tempering my pace to its low roof. I

went on to a bend, then stopped and turned back, and plug, plug, plug,

Cavor came into view, splashing into the stream of blue light at every

stride, and grew larger and blundered into me. We stood clutching each

other. For a moment, at least, we had shaken off our captors and were

alone.

We were both very much out of breath. We spoke in panting, broken

sentences.

“You’ve spoilt it all!” panted Cavor. “Nonsense,” I cried. “It was that

or death!”

“What are we to do?”

“Hide.”

“How can we?”

“It’s dark enough.”

“But where?”

“Up one of these side caverns.”

“And then?”

“Think.”

“Right—come on.”

We strode on, and presently came to a radiating dark cavern. Cavor was

in front. He hesitated, and chose a black mouth that seemed to promise

good hiding. He went towards it and turned.

“It’s dark,” he said.

“Your legs and feet will light us. You’re wet with that luminous

stuff.”

“But—”

A tumult of sounds, and in particular a sound like a clanging gong,

advancing up the main tunnel, became audible. It was horribly

suggestive of a tumultuous pursuit. We made a bolt for the unlit side

cavern forthwith. As we ran along it our way was lit by the irradiation

of Cavor’s legs. “It’s lucky,” I panted, “they took off our boots, or

we should fill this place with clatter.” On we rushed, taking as small

steps as we could to avoid striking the roof of the cavern. After a

time we seemed to be gaining on the uproar. It became muffled, it

dwindled, it died away.

I stopped and looked back, and I heard the pad, pad of Cavor’s feet

receding. Then he stopped also. “Bedford,” he whispered; “there’s a

sort of light in front of us.”

I looked, and at first could see nothing. Then I perceived his head and

shoulders dimly outlined against a fainter darkness. I saw, also, that

this mitigation of the darkness was not blue, as all the other light

within the moon had been, but a pallid grey, a very vague, faint white,

the daylight colour. Cavor noted this difference as soon, or sooner,

than I did, and I think, too, that it filled him with much the same

wild hope.

“Bedford,” he whispered, and his voice trembled. “That light—it is

possible—”

He did not dare to say the thing he hoped. Then came a pause. Suddenly

I knew by the sound of his feet that he was striding towards that

pallor. I followed him with a beating heart.