it over a
little to get my head through the manhole. The screw stopper was inside,
and I could see now that nothing had been touched, nothing had suffered.
It lay there as we had left it when we had dropped out amidst the snow.
For a time I was wholly occupied in making and remaking this inventory. I
found I was trembling violently. It was good to see that familiar dark
interior again! I cannot tell you how good. Presently I crept inside and
sat down among the things. I looked through the glass at the moon world
and shivered. I placed my gold clubs upon the table, and sought out and
took a little food; not so much because I wanted it, but because it was
there. Then it occurred to me that it was time to go out and signal for
Cavor. But I did not go out and signal for Cavor forthwith. Something
held me to the sphere.

After all, everything was coming right. There would be still time for us
to get more of the magic stone that gives one mastery over men. Away
there, close handy, was gold for the picking up; and the sphere would
travel as well half full of gold as though it were empty. We could go
back now, masters of ourselves and our world, and then--

I roused myself at last, and with an effort got myself out of the sphere.
I shivered as I emerged, for the evening air was growing very cold. I
stood in the hollow staring about me. I scrutinised the bushes round me
very carefully before I leapt to the rocky shelf hard by, and took once
more what had been my first leap in the moon. But now I made it with no
effort whatever.

The growth and decay of the vegetation had gone on apace, and the whole
aspect of the rocks had changed, but still it was possible to make out the
slope on which the seeds had germinated, and the rocky mass from which we
had taken our first view of the crater. But the spiky shrub on the slope
stood brown and sere now, and thirty feet high, and cast long shadows that
stretched out of sight, and the little seeds that clustered in its upper
branches were brown and ripe. Its work was done, and it was brittle and
ready to fall and crumple under the freezing air, so soon as the nightfall
came. And the huge cacti, that had swollen as we watched them, had long
since burst and scattered their spores to the four quarters of the moon.
Amazing little corner in the universe--the landing place of men!

Some day, thought I, I will have an inscription standing there right in
the midst of the hollow. It came to me, if