Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 6.pdf/188

Rh its zenith, and sinking in the west? In four days' time or less it will be night."

"But—we've only eaten once!"

"I know that. And—but there are the stars!"

"But why should time seem different because we are on a smaller planet?"

"I don't know. There it is!"

"How does one tell time?"

"Hunger—fatigue—all those things are different. Everything is different. Everything. To me it seems that since first we came out of the sphere it has been only a question of hours—long hours. At most."

"Ten days," I said; "that leaves—" I looked up at the sun for a moment and then saw that it was half-way from the zenith to the western edge. "Four days! Cavor, we mustn't sit here and dream. How do you think we can begin?"

I stood up. "We must get a fixed point which we can recognise. We might hoist a flag, or a handkerchief or something—and quarter the ground and work round that."

He stood up beside me.

"Yes," he said, "there is nothing for it but to hunt for the sphere. Nothing. We may find it—certainly we may find it. And if not"

"We must keep on looking."

He looked this way and that, glanced up at the sky and down at the tunnel and astonished me by a sudden gesture of impatience. "Oh! but we have done foolishly! To have come to this pass! Think how it might have been and the things we might have done!"