(continued)

We were bitten by a spirit of enterprise.  We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other.  "Good!" we cried to each other;  "good!" and Cavor made three steps and went off to a tempting slope of snow a good twenty yards and more beyond.  I stood for a moment struck by the grotesque effect of his soaring figure—his dirty cricket cap, and spiky hair, his little round body, his arms and his knicker-bockered legs tucked up tightly—against the weird spaciousness of the lunar scene.  A gust of laughter seized me, and then I stepped off to follow.  Plump!  I dropped beside him.

We made a few gargantuan strides, leapt three or four times more, and sat down at last in a lichenous hollow.  Our lungs were painful.  We sat holding our sides and recovering our breath, looking appreciation to one another.  Cavor panted something about "amazing sensations."  And then came a thought into my head.  For the moment it did not seem a particularly appalling thought, simply a natural question arising out of the situation. 

"By the way," I said, "where exactly is the sphere?"

Cavor looked at me.  "Eh?"

The full meaning of what we were saying struck me sharply.

"Cavor!" I cried, laying a hand on his arm, "where is the sphere?"

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