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back. This and Cavor's sudden shout and leap clearly astonished all the Selenites. They receded hastily, facing us. For one of those moments that seem to last for ever, we stood in angry protest, with a scattered semicircle of these inhuman beings about us. "He pricked me!" said Cavor, with a catching of the voice. "I saw him," I answered. "Confound it!" I said to the Selenites; "we're not going to stand that! What on earth do you take us for?" I glanced quickly right and left. Far away across the blue wilderness of cavern I saw a number of other Selenites running towards us; broad and slender they were, and one with a larger head than the others. The cavern spread wide and low, and receded in every direction into darkness. Its roof, I remember, seemed to bulge down as if with the weight of the vast thickness of rocks that prisoned us. There was no way out of it--no way out of it. Above, below, in every direction, was the unknown, and these inhuman creatures, with goads and gestures, confronting us, and we two unsupported men! Chapter 15 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 pres
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