We made a few gargantuan strides, leapt three or four times more, and sat down at last in a lichenous hollow.  Our lungs were painful.  We sat holding our sides and recovering our breath, looking appreciation to one another.  Cavor panted something about “amazing sensations.”  And then came a thought into my head.  For the moment it did not seem a particularly appalling thought, simply a natural question arising out of the situation.

“By the way,” I said, “where exactly is the sphere?”

Cavor looked at me.  “Eh?”

The full meaning of what we were saying struck me sharply.

“Cavor!” I cried, laying a hand on his arm, “where is the sphere?”

Chapter 10

Lost Men in the Moon

His face caught something of my dismay.  He stood up and stared about him at the scrub that fenced us in and rose about us, straining upward in a passion of growth.  He put a dubious hand to his lips.  He spoke with a sudden lack of assurance.  “I think,” he said slowly, “we left it ... somewhere ... about there.”

He pointed a hesitating finger that wavered in an arc.

“I’m not sure.”  His look of consternation deepened.  “Anyhow,” he said, with his eyes on me, “it can’t be far.”

We had both stood up.  We made unmeaning ejaculations, our eyes sought in the twining, thickening jungle round about us.

All about us on the sunlit slopes frothed and swayed the darting shrubs, the swelling cactus, the creeping lichens, and wherever the shade remained the snow-drifts lingered.  North, south, east, and west spread an identical monotony of unfamiliar forms.  And somewhere, buried already among this tangled confusion, was our sphere, our home, our only provision, our only hope of escape from this fantastic wilderness of ephemeral growths into which we had come.

“I think after all,” he said, pointing suddenly, “it might be over there.”

“No,” I said.  “We have turned in a curve.  See! here is the mark of my heels.  It’s clear the thing must be more to the eastward, much more.  No—­the sphere must be over there.”

“I think,” said Cavor, “I kept the sun upon my right all the time.”

“Every leap, it seems to me,” I said, “my shadow flew before me.”

We stared into one another’s eyes.  The area of the crater had become enormously vast to our imaginations, the growing thickets already impenetrably dense.

“Good heavens!  What fools we have been!”

“It’s evident that we must find it again,” said Cavor, “and that soon.  The sun grows stronger.  We should be fainting with the heat already if it wasn’t so dry.  And ...  I’m hungry.”

I stared at him.  I had not suspected this aspect of the matter before.  But it came to me at once—­a positive craving.  “Yes,” I said with emphasis.  “I am hungry too.”

He stood up with a look of active resolution.  “Certainly we must find the sphere.”