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And with that incandescence came a sound, the first sound that had reached
us from without since we left the earth, a hissing and rustling, the
stormy trailing of the aerial garment of the advancing day. And with the
coming of the sound and the light the sphere lurched, and blinded and
dazzled we staggered helplessly against each other. It lurched again, and
the hissing grew louder. I had shut my eyes perforce, I was making clumsy
efforts to cover my head with my blanket, and this second lurch sent me
helplessly off my feet. I fell against the bale, and opening my eyes had a
momentary glimpse of the air just outside our glass. It was running - it
was boiling - like snow into which a white-hot rod is thrust. What had
been solid air had suddenly at the touch of the 'sun become a paste, a
mud, a slushy liquefaction, that hissed and bubbled into gas.
There came a still more violent whirl of the sphere and we had clutched
one another. In another moment we were spun about again. Pound we went and
over, and then I was on all fours. The lunar dawn had hold of us. It meant
to show us little men what the moon could do with us.
I caught a second glimpse of things without, puffs of vapour, half liquid
slush, excavated, sliding, falling, sliding. We dropped into darkness. I
went down with Cavor's knees in my chest. Then he seemed to fly away from
me, and for a moment I lay with all the breath out of my body staring
upward. A toppling crag of the melting stuff had splashed over us, buried
us, and now it thinned and boiled off us. I saw the bubbles dancing on the
glass above. I heard Cavor exclaiming feebly.
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