第 十七 章 · The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers

. The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers

I do not know how far we clambered before we came to the grating. It

may be we ascended only a few hundred feet, but at the time it seemed

to me we might have hauled and jammed and hopped and wedged ourselves

through a mile or more of vertical ascent. Whenever I recall that time,

there comes into my head the heavy clank of our golden chains that

followed every movement. Very soon my knuckles and knees were raw, and

I had a bruise on one cheek. After a time the first violence of our

efforts diminished, and our movements became more deliberate and less

painful. The noise of the pursuing Selenites had died away altogether.

It seemed almost as though they had not traced us up the crack after

all, in spite of the tell-tale heap of broken fungi that must have lain

beneath it. At times the cleft narrowed so much that we could scarce

squeeze up it; at others it expanded into great drusy cavities, studded

with prickly crystals or thickly beset with dull, shining fungoid

pimples. Sometimes it twisted spirally, and at other times slanted down

nearly to the horizontal direction. Ever and again there was the

intermittent drip and trickle of water by us. Once or twice it seemed

to us that small living things had rustled out of our reach, but what

they were we never saw. They may have been venomous beasts for all I

know, but they did us no harm, and we were now tuned to a pitch when a

weird creeping thing more or less mattered little. And at last, far

above, came the familiar bluish light again, and then we saw that it

filtered through a grating that barred our way.

We whispered as we pointed this out to one another, and became more and

more cautious in our ascent. Presently we were close under the grating,

and by pressing my face against its bars I could see a limited portion

of the cavern beyond. It was clearly a large space, and lit no doubt by

some rivulet of the same blue light that we had seen flow from the

beating machinery. An intermittent trickle of water dropped ever and

again between the bars near my face.

My first endeavour was naturally to see what might be upon the floor of

the cavern, but our grating lay in a depression whose rim hid all this

from our eyes. Our foiled attention then fell back upon the suggestion

of the various sounds we heard, and presently my eye caught a number of

faint shadows that played across the dim roof far overhead.

Indisputably there were several Selenites, perhaps a considerable

number, in this space, for we could hear the noises of their

intercourse, and faint sounds that I identified as their footfalls.

There was also a succession of regularly repeated sounds—chid, chid,

chid—which began and ceased, suggestive of a knife or spade hacking at

some soft substance. Then came a clank as if of chains, a whistle and a

rumble as of a truck running over a hollowed place, and then again that

chid, chid, chid resumed. The shadows told of shapes that moved quickly

and rhythmically, in agreement with that regular sound, and rested when

it ceased.

We put our heads close together, and began to discuss these things in

noiseless whispers.

“They are occupied,” I said, “they are occupied in some way.”

“Yes.”

“They’re not seeking us, or thinking of us.”

“Perhaps they have not heard of us.”

“Those others are hunting about below. If suddenly we appeared here—”

We looked at one another.

“There might be a chance to parley,” said Cavor.

“No,” I said. “Not as we are.”

For a space we remained, each occupied by his own thoughts.

Chid, chid, chid went the chipping, and the shadows moved to and fro.

I looked at the grating. “It’s flimsy,” I said. “We might bend two of

the bars and crawl through.”

We wasted a little time in vague discussion. Then I took one of the

bars in both hands, and got my feet up against the rock until they were

almost on a level with my head, and so thrust against the bar. It bent

so suddenly that I almost slipped. I clambered about and bent the

adjacent bar in the opposite direction, and then took the luminous

fungus from my pocket and dropped it down the fissure.

“Don’t do anything hastily,” whispered Cavor, as I twisted myself up

through the opening I had enlarged. I had a glimpse of busy figures as

I came through the grating, and immediately bent down, so that the rim

of the depression in which the grating lay hid me from their eyes, and

so lay flat, signalling advice to Cavor as he also prepared to come

through. Presently we were side by side in the depression, peering over

the edge at the cavern and its occupants.

It was a much larger cavern than we had supposed from our first glimpse

of it, and we looked up from the lowest portion of its sloping floor.

It widened out as it receded from us, and its roof came down and hid

the remoter portion altogether. And lying in a line along its length,

vanishing at last far away in that tremendous perspective, were a

number of huge shapes, huge pallid hulls, upon which the Selenites were

busy. At first they seemed big white cylinders of vague import. Then I

noted the heads upon them lying towards us, eyeless and skinless like

the heads of sheep at a butcher’s, and perceived they were the

carcasses of mooncalves being cut up, much as the crew of a whaler

might cut up a moored whale. They were cutting off the flesh in strips,

and on some of the farther trunks the white ribs were showing. It was

the sound of their hatchets that made that chid, chid, chid. Some way

away a thing like a trolley cable, drawn and loaded with chunks of lax

meat, was running up the slope of the cavern floor. This enormous long

avenue of hulls that were destined to be food gave us a sense of the

vast populousness of the moon world second only to the effect of our

first glimpse down the shaft.

It seemed to me at first that the Selenites must be standing on

trestle-supported planks,[2] 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.

[2] 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.

We lay for a long time noting all these things in silence. “Well?” said

Cavor at last.

I crouched over 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 cleft. Very slowly and quite noiselessly I assured myself

of a good grip on my chain, and waited for that something to appear.

“Just look at those chaps with the hatchets again,” I said.

“They’re all right,” said Cavor.

I took a sort of provisional aim at the gap in the grating. I could

hear now quite distinctly the soft twittering of the ascending

Selenites, the dab of their hands against the rock, and the falling of

dust from their grips as they clambered.

Then I could see that there was something moving dimly in the blackness

below the grating, but what it might be I could not distinguish. The

whole thing seemed to hang fire just for a moment—then smash! I had

sprung to my feet, struck savagely at something that had flashed out at

me. It was the keen point of a spear. I have thought since that its

length in the narrowness of the cleft must have prevented its being

sloped to reach me. Anyhow, it shot out from the grating like the

tongue of a snake, and missed and flew back and flashed again. But the

second time I snatched and caught it, and wrenched it away, but not

before another had darted ineffectually at me.

I shouted with triumph as I felt the hold of the Selenite resist my

pull for a moment and give, and then I was jabbing down through the

bars, amidst squeals from the darkness, and Cavor had snapped off the

other spear, and was leaping and flourishing it beside me, and making

inefficient jabs. Clang, clang, came up through the grating, and then

an axe hurtled through the air and whacked against the rocks beyond, to

remind me of the fleshers at the carcasses up the cavern.

I turned, and they were all coming towards us in open order waving

their axes. They were short, thick, little beggars, with long arms,

strikingly different from the ones we had seen before. If they had not

heard of us before, they must have realised the situation with

incredible swiftness. I stared at them for a moment, spear in hand.

“Guard that grating, Cavor,” I cried, howled to intimidate them, and

rushed to meet them. Two of them missed with their hatchets, and the

rest fled incontinently. Then the two also were sprinting away up the

cavern, with hands clenched and heads down. I never saw men run like

them!

I knew the spear I had was no good for me. It was thin and flimsy, only

effectual for a thrust, and too long for a quick recover. So I only

chased the Selenites as far as the first carcass, and stopped there and

picked up one of the crowbars that were lying about. It felt

comfortingly heavy, and equal to smashing any number of Selenites. I

threw away my spear, and picked up a second crowbar for the other hand.

I felt five times better than I had with the spear. I shook the two

threateningly at the Selenites, who had come to a halt in a little

crowd far away up the cavern, and then turned about to look at Cavor.

He was leaping from side to side of the grating, making threatening

jabs with his broken spear. That was all right. It would keep the

Selenites down—for a time at any rate. I looked up the cavern again.

What on earth were we going to do now?

We were cornered in a sort of way already. But these butchers up the

cavern had been surprised, they were probably scared, and they had no

special weapons, only those little hatchets of theirs. And that way lay

escape. Their sturdy little forms—ever so much shorter and thicker than

the mooncalf herds—were scattered up the slope in a way that was

eloquent of indecision. I had the moral advantage of a mad bull in a

street. But for all that, there seemed a tremendous crowd of them. Very

probably there was. Those Selenites down the cleft had certainly some

infernally long spears. It might be they had other surprises for us....

But, confound it! if we charged up the cave we should let them up

behind us, and if we didn’t those little brutes up the cave would

probably get reinforced. Heaven alone knew what tremendous engines of

warfare—guns, bombs, terrestrial torpedoes—this unknown world below our

feet, this vaster world of which we had only pricked the outer cuticle,

might not presently send up to our destruction. It became clear the

only thing to do was to charge! It became clearer as the legs of a

number of fresh Selenites appeared running down the cavern towards us.

“Bedford!” cried Cavor, and behold! he was halfway between me and the

grating.

“Go back!” I cried. “What are you doing—”

“They’ve got—it’s like a gun!”

And struggling in the grating between those defensive spears appeared

the head and shoulders of a singularly lean and angular Selenite,

bearing some complicated apparatus.

I realised Cavor’s utter incapacity for the fight we had in hand. For a

moment I hesitated. Then I rushed past him whirling my crowbars, and

shouting to confound the aim of the Selenite. He was aiming in the

queerest way with the thing against his stomach. “_Chuzz!_” The thing

wasn’t a gun; it went off like a cross-bow more, and dropped me in the

middle of a leap.

I didn’t fall down, I simply came down a little shorter than I should

have done if I hadn’t been hit, and from the feel of my shoulder the

thing might have tapped me and glanced off. Then my left hand hit

against the shaft, and I perceived there was a sort of spear sticking

half through my shoulder. The moment after I got home with the crowbar

in my right hand, and hit the Selenite fair and square. He collapsed—he

crushed and crumpled—his head smashed like an egg.

I dropped a crowbar, pulled the spear out of my shoulder, and began to

jab it down the grating into the darkness. At each jab came a shriek

and twitter. Finally I hurled the spear down upon them with all my

strength, leapt up, picked up the crowbar again, and started for the

multitude up the cavern.

“Bedford!” cried Cavor. “Bedford!” as I flew past him.

I seem to remember his footsteps coming on behind me.

Step, leap ... whack, step, leap.... Each leap seemed to last ages.

With each, the cave opened out and the number of Selenites visible

increased. At first they seemed all running about like ants in a

disturbed ant-hill, one or two waving hatchets and coming to meet me,

more running away, some bolting sideways into the avenue of carcasses,

then presently others came in sight carrying spears, and then others. I

saw a most extraordinary thing, all hands and feet, bolting for cover.

The cavern grew darker farther up.

Flick! something flew over my head. Flick! As I soared in mid-stride I

saw a spear hit and quiver in one of the carcasses to my left. Then, as

I came down, one hit the ground before me, and I heard the remote

chuzz! with which their things were fired. Flick, flick! for a moment

it was a shower. They were volleying!

I stopped dead.

I don’t think I thought clearly then. I seem to remember a kind of

stereotyped phrase running through my mind: “Zone of fire, seek cover!”

I know I made a dash for the space between two of the carcasses, and

stood there panting and feeling very wicked.

I looked round for Cavor, and for a moment it seemed as if he had

vanished from the world. Then he came out of the darkness between the

row of the carcasses and the rocky wall of the cavern. I saw his little

face, dark and blue, and shining with perspiration and emotion.

He was saying something, but what it was I did not heed. I had realised

that we might work from mooncalf to mooncalf up the cave until we were

near enough to charge home. It was charge or nothing. “Come on!” I

said, and led the way.

“Bedford!” he cried unavailingly.

My mind was busy as we went up that narrow alley between the dead

bodies and the wall of the cavern. The rocks curved about—they could

not enfilade us. Though in that narrow space we could not leap, yet

with our earth-born strength we were still able to go very much faster

than the Selenites. I reckoned we should presently come right among

them. Once we were on them, they would be nearly as formidable as black

beetles. Only there would first of all be a volley. I thought of a

stratagem. I whipped off my flannel jacket as I ran.

“Bedford!” panted Cavor behind me.

I glanced back. “What?” said I.

He was pointing upward over the carcasses. “White light!” he said.

“White light again!”

I looked, and it was even so; a faint white ghost of light in the

remoter cavern roof. That seemed to give me double strength.

“Keep close,” I said. A flat, long Selenite dashed out of the darkness,

and squealed and fled. I halted, and stopped Cavor with my hand. I hung

my jacket over my crowbar, ducked round the next carcass, dropped

jacket and crowbar, showed myself, and darted back.

“Chuzz-flick,” just one arrow came. We were close on the Selenites, and

they were standing in a crowd, broad, short, and tall together, with a

little battery of their shooting implements pointing down the cave.

Three or four other arrows followed the first, then their fire ceased.

I stuck out my head, and escaped by a hair’s-breadth. This time I drew

a dozen shots or more, and heard the Selenites shouting and twittering

as if with excitement as they shot. I picked up jacket and crowbar

again.

“_Now!_” said I, and thrust out the jacket.

“Chuzz-zz-zz-zz! Chuzz!” In an instant my jacket had grown a thick

beard of arrows, and they were quivering all over the carcass behind

us. Instantly I slipped the crowbar out of the jacket, dropped the

jacket—for all I know to the contrary it is lying up there in the moon

now—and rushed out upon them.

For a minute perhaps it was massacre. I was too fierce to discriminate,

and the Selenites were probably too scared to fight. At any rate they

made no sort of fight against me. I saw scarlet, as the saying is. I

remember I seemed to be wading among those leathery, thin things as a

man wades through tall grass, mowing and hitting, first right, then

left; smash. Little drops of moisture flew about. I trod on things that

crushed and piped and went slippery. The crowd seemed to open and close

and flow like water. They seemed to have no combined plan whatever.

There were spears flew about me, I was grazed over the ear by one. I

was stabbed once in the arm and once in the cheek, but I only found

that out afterwards, when the blood had had time to run and cool and

feel wet.

What Cavor did I do not know. For a space it seemed that this fighting

had lasted for an age, and must needs go on for ever. Then suddenly it

was all over, and there was nothing to be seen but the backs of heads

bobbing up and down as their owners ran in all directions.... I seemed

altogether unhurt. I ran forward some paces, shouting, then turned

about. I was amazed.

I had come right through them in vast flying strides, they were all

behind me, and running hither and thither to hide.

I felt an enormous astonishment at the evaporation of the great fight

into which I had hurled myself, and not a little exultation. It did not

seem to me that I had discovered the Selenites were unexpectedly

flimsy, but that I was unexpectedly strong. I laughed stupidly. This

fantastic moon!

I glanced for a moment at the smashed and writhing bodies that were

scattered over the cavern floor, with a vague idea of further violence,

then hurried on after Cavor.