of our
passage through space than if we had made a journey of common occurrence
in a railway train.

And then he becomes increasingly unfair to me. Unfair, indeed, to an
extent I should not have expected in a man trained in the search for
truth. Looking back over my previously written account of these things, I
must insist that I have been altogether juster to Cavor than he has been
to me. I have extenuated little and suppressed nothing. But his account
is:--

"It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our
circumstances and surroundings--great loss of weight, attenuated but
highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular
effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid
sky--was exciting my companion unduly. On the moon his character seemed to
deteriorate. He became impulsive, rash, and quarrelsome. In a little while
his folly in devouring some gigantic vesicles and his consequent
intoxication led to our capture by the Selenites--before we had had the
slightest opportunity of properly observing their ways...."

(He says, you observe, nothing of his own concession to these same
"vesicles.")

And he goes on from that point to say that "We came to a difficult passage
with them, and Bedford mistaking certain gestures of theirs"--pretty
gestures they were!--"gave way to a panic violence. He ran amuck, killed
three, and perforce I had to flee with him after the outrage. Subsequently
we fought with a number who endeavoured to bar our way, and slew seven or
eight more. It says much for the tolerance of these beings that on my
recapture I was not instantly slain. We made our way to the exterior and
separated in the crater of our arrival, to increase our chances of
recovering our sphere. But presently I came upon a body of Selenites, led
by two who were curiously different, even in form, from any of these we
had seen hitherto, with larger heads and smaller bodies, and much more
elaborately wrapped about. And after evading them for some time I fell
into a crevasse, cut my head rather badly, and displaced my patella, and,
finding crawling very painful, decided to surrender--if they would still
permit me to do so. This they did, and, perceiving my helpless condition,
carried me with them again into the moon. And of Bedford I have heard or
seen nothing more, nor, so far as I can gather, any Selenite. Either the
night overtook him in the crater, or else, which is more p