t's the end of the matter. If they take us, they'll probably kill us,
through some misunderstanding. After we're done for, they may discuss us
perhaps, but we shan't get much fun out of that."

"Go on."

"On the other hand, here's gold knocking about like cast iron at home. If
only we can get some of it back, if only we can find our sphere again
before they do, and get back, then--"

"Yes?"

"We might put the thing on a sounder footing. Come back in a bigger
sphere with guns."

"Good Lord!" cried Cavor, as though that was horrible.

I shied another luminous fungus down the cleft.

"Look here, Cavor," I said, "I've half the voting power anyhow in this
affair, and this is a case for a practical man. I'm a practical man, and
you are not. I'm not going to trust to Selenites and geometrical diagrams
if I can help it. That's all. Get back. Drop all this secrecy--or most
of it. And come again."

He reflected. "When I came to the moon," he said, "I ought to have come
alone."

"The question before the meeting," I said, "is how to get back to the
sphere."

For a time we nursed our knees in silence. Then he seemed to decide for my
reasons.

"I think," he said, "one can get data. It is clear that while the sun is
on this side of the moon the air will be blowing through this planet
sponge from the dark side hither. On this side, at any rate, the air will
be expanding and flowing out of the moon caverns into the craters....
Very well, there's a draught here."

"So there is."

"And that means that this is not a dead end; somewhere behind us this
cleft goes on and up. The draught is blowing up, and that is the way we
have to go. If we try to get up any sort of chimney or gully there is, we
shall not only get out of these passages where they are hunting for us--"

"But suppose the gully is too narrow?"

"We'll come down again."

"Ssh!" I said suddenly; "what's that?"

We listened. At first it was an indistinct murmur, and then one picked out
the clang of a gong. "They must think we are mooncalves," said I, "to be
frightened at that."

"They're coming along that passage," said Cavor.

"They must be."

"They'll not think of the cleft. They'll go past."

I listened again for a space. "This time," I whispered, "they're likely to
have some sort of weapon."

Then suddenly I sprang to my feet. "Good heavens, Cavor!" I cried. "But
they will! They'll see the fungi I have been pitching down. They'll--"

I didn't fi