“Look!” said I, turning, and behold Cavor had vanished.

For an instant I stood transfixed.  Then I made a hasty step to look over the verge of the rock.  But in my surprise at his disappearance I forgot once more that we were on the moon.  The thrust of my foot that I made in striding would have carried me a yard on earth; on the moon it carried me six—­a good five yards over the edge.  For the moment the thing had something of the effect of those nightmares when one falls and falls.  For while one falls sixteen feet in the first second of a fall on earth, on the moon one falls two, and with only a sixth of one’s weight.  I fell, or rather I jumped down, about ten yards I suppose.  It seemed to take quite a long time, five or six seconds, I should think.  I floated through the air and fell like a feather, knee-deep in a snow-drift in the bottom of a gully of blue-gray, white-veined rock.

I looked about me.  “Cavor!” I cried; but no Cavor was visible.

“Cavor!” I cried louder, and the rocks echoed me.

I turned fiercely to the rocks and clambered to the summit of them.  “Cavor!” I cried.  My voice sounded like the voice of a lost lamb.

The sphere, too, was not in sight, and for a moment a horrible feeling of desolation pinched my heart.

Then I saw him.  He was laughing and gesticulating to attract my attention.  He was on a bare patch of rock twenty or thirty yards away.  I could not hear his voice, but “jump” said his gestures.  I hesitated, the distance seemed enormous.  Yet I reflected that surely I must be able to clear a greater distance than Cavor.

I made a step back, gathered myself together, and leapt with all my might.  I seemed to shoot right up in the air as though I should never come down.

It was horrible and delightful, and as wild as a nightmare, to go flying off in this fashion.  I realised my leap had been altogether too violent.  I flew clean over Cavor’s head and beheld a spiky confusion in a gully spreading to meet my fall.  I gave a yelp of alarm.  I put out my hands and straightened my legs.

I hit a huge fungoid bulk that burst all about me, scattering a mass of orange spores in every direction, and covering me with orange powder.  I rolled over spluttering, and came to rest convulsed with breathless laughter.

I became aware of Cavor’s little round face peering over a bristling hedge.  He shouted some faded inquiry.  “Eh?” I tried to shout, but could not do so for want of breath.  He made his way towards me, coming gingerly among the bushes.

“We’ve got to be careful,” he said.  “This moon has no discipline.  She’ll let us smash ourselves.”

He helped me to my feet.  “You exerted yourself too much,” he said, dabbing at the yellow stuff with his hand to remove it from my garments.

I stood passive and panting, allowing him to beat off the jelly from my knees and elbows and lecture me upon my misfortunes.  “We don’t quite allow for the gravitation.  Our muscles are scarcely educated yet.  We must practise a little, when you have got your breath.”