Again I realized how lucky we had been to have him with us. No one but a
monkey could have found his way through that dense, dimly lit forest to
water. He asked us to stay behind a moment on the edge of the woods
while he went forward to make sure that he could retrace his steps. We
sat down again and waited.
“Did you wake up at all during the night, Stubbins?” the Doctor asked
after a little.
“No,” I said. “I was far too tired. Why?”
“Did you, Polynesia?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“Yes,” said she. “I was awake several times.”
“Did you hear or see anything er—unusual?”
“Yes,” said she. “I can’t be absolutely certain. But I sort of felt
there was something moving around the camp keeping a watch on us.”
“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “So did I.”
Then he relapsed into silence.
[Illustration: “_‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was awake several times’_”]
Another rather strange thing that struck me as I gazed over the
landscape while we waited for Chee-Chee to return was the appearance of
the horizon. The Moon’s width being so much smaller than the Earth’s,
the distance one could see was a great deal shorter. This did not apply
so much where the land was hilly or mountainous; but on the level, or
the nearly level, it made a very striking difference. The _roundness_ of
this world was much more easily felt and understood than was that of the
world we had left. On this plateau, for example, you could only see
seven or eight miles, it seemed, over the level before the curve cut off
your vision. And it gave quite a new character even to the hills, where
peaks showed behind other ranges, dropping downward in a way that misled
you entirely as to their actual height.
[Illustration: “_‘You bet they were not!’ grunted Polynesia_”]
Finally Chee-Chee came back to us and said he had successfully retraced
his steps to the water he had found the night before. He was now
prepared to lead us to it. He looked kind of scared and ill at ease. The
Doctor asked him the reason for this, but he didn’t seem able to give
any.
“Everything’s all right, Doctor,” said he—“at least I suppose it is. It
was partly that—oh, I don’t know—I can’t quite make out what it is
they have asked you here for. I haven’t actually laid eyes on any animal
life since we left the moth who brought us. Yet I feel certain that
there’s lots of it here. It doesn’t appear to want to be seen. That’s
what puzzles me. On the Earth the animals were never slow in coming
forward when they were in need of your services.”
“You bet they were not!” grunted Polynesia. “No one who ever saw them
clamoring around the surgery door could doubt that.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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