Tales of Space and TimeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Tales of Space and Time
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English
It was a splendid night, beset with shining constellations, the same
stars, but not the same constellations we know, for since those days all
the stars have had time to move into new places. Far away across the
open space beyond where the heavy-shouldered, lean-bodied hyænas
blundered and howled, was a beechwood, and the mountain slopes rose
beyond, a dim mystery, until their snow-capped summits came out white
and cold and clear, touched by the first rays of the yet unseen moon. It
was a vast silence, save when the yell of the hyænas flung a vanishing
discordance across its peace, or when from down the hills the trumpeting
of the new-come elephants came faintly on the faint breeze. And below
now, the red flicker had dwindled and was steady, and shone a deeper
red, and Ugh-lomi had finished his story and was preparing to sleep, and
Eudena sat and listened to the strange voices of unknown beasts, and
watched the dark eastern sky growing deeply luminous at the advent of
the moon. Down below, the river talked to itself, and things unseen went
to and fro.
After a time the bear went away, but in an hour he was back again. Then,
as if struck by a thought, he turned, and went up the gorge....
The night passed, and Ugh-lomi slept on. The waning moon rose and lit
the gaunt white cliff overhead with a light that was pale and vague. The
gorge remained in a deeper shadow and seemed all the darker. Then by
imperceptible degrees, the day came stealing in the wake of the
moonlight. Eudena's eyes wandered to the cliff brow overhead once, and
then again. Each time the line was sharp and clear against the sky, and
yet she had a dim perception of something lurking there. The red of the
fire grew deeper and deeper, grey scales spread upon it, its vertical
column of smoke became more and more visible, and up and down the gorge
things that had been unseen grew clear in a colourless illumination. She
may have dozed.
Suddenly she started up from her squatting position, erect and alert,
scrutinising the cliff up and down.
She made the faintest sound, and Ugh-lomi too, light-sleeping like an
animal, was instantly awake. He caught up his axe and came noiselessly
to her side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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