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."
