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 only this teeming world within knew of the full import of the moment, how furious its tumult would become!

But as yet it could scarcely be dreaming of the significance of our coming.  For if it did, the crater would surely be an uproar of pursuit, instead of as still as death!  I looked about for some place from which I might signal Cavor, and saw that same patch of rock to which he had leapt from my present standpoint, still bare and barren in the sun.  For a moment I hesitated at going so far from the sphere.  Then with a pang of shame at that hesitation, I leapt....