The First Men in the Moon by H. Wells (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

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 half-way 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 twilight 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, and 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