“They are on every hand.  Have you not yet seen the vast craters, the mountains of barren cinder, the stumps of immense pillars, partly excavated?  All this, and very much more, silently unfolds a tale of horror that can be faintly pictured only by the imagination.  Think of a holocaust so terrible that one hundred million human creatures are thereby swept into death in the narrow compass of forty days!  The records that have been brought down to us by the few survivors indicate the continual wails of horror rending the sky while the volcanic disturbances continued.  Thousands and millions ran from place to place to find shelter from the storm of fire.  At one place the surface would open and at another the lava would run.  Fate, with a merciless hand, was dragging each one into one or another of the inevitable pits.”

“How many were saved?” I asked with deepening interest.

“Parts of only eight families aggregating nineteen human beings.”

“And how many people are on the Moon now?”

“Almost forty million.”

“How do you account for this slow growth?” I asked after I had explained that on our globe a much larger number of inhabitants sprang from a smaller number than nineteen in a shorter period of time.

This allusion cost me much explanation, and, after I had selfishly brushed his rising questions aside, I learned that large companies of the Moonites had been swept into death by frequent volcanic outbursts all along the line of the centuries.

No one can estimate my interest as I continued the conversation.  But finally I decided to stroll through certain parts of the city and, thinking it advisable to give no notice of my departure, I suddenly vanished from his sight.  However, before leaving the room, I observed that my bewildered auditor conjectured for a long time and reached his former conclusion that he had been in touch with an apparition.

Again I resumed my visible form and walked along one of the principal streets of the city.  What novel sights greeted my eyes on every side!  One cannot well imagine what excitement I aroused.  Citizens who first saw me lifted their flabby arms in terror and ran to the city Bizen, a place where every inhabitant, under oath, is obliged to carry special news before communicating it elsewhere.

[Illustration:  Visiting a City on the Moon.]

In a very short time the city Plins, or in our language, city authorities, were coming toward me in their costly vehicles.  They were preceded, however, by what we would call a body guard.  Imagine their surprise to hear me shout at the top of my voice, which sounded to them as thunder would to us:  “You need not fear, I will do you no harm!”

My voice had a magical effect on the assembling host of pigmies.  They looked at me with as much curiosity as I looked at them.  I stepped over their heads but was careful not to trample on the children who scampered at my approach.  If one could ship a car load of these children to the Earth, they would make excellent dolls, for they range in size from only six to ten inches.  Finally, I sat on the roof of one of their lower buildings to watch the gathering of the multitudes and study their curious countenances.