Tales of Space and Time | Page 7

creatures, like great dragon-flies and moths and flying
beetles, and across the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic
ground-beetles crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways
and terraces, large-headed creatures similar to the greater winged flies,
but wingless, were visible, hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle
of tentacles.
Allusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts
that stood upon the terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr.
Cave, after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one
particularly vivid day, that the glittering object there was a crystal
exactly like that into which he peered. And a still more careful scrutiny
convinced him that each one in a vista of nearly twenty carried a
similar object.
Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to one,
and folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about the
mast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a space--, sometimes for as
long as fifteen minutes. And a series of observations, made at the
suggestion of Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers that, so far as this
visionary world was concerned, the crystal into which they peered
actually stood at the summit of the end-most mast on the terrace, and
that on one occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this other world
had looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making these
observations.
So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless we
dismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have to
believe one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in two
worlds at once, and that, while it was carried about in one, it remained
stationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that it
had some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly
similar crystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior
of the one in this world, was under suitable conditions, visible to an

observer in the corresponding crystal in the other world; and vice versa.
At present indeed, we do not know of any way in which two crystals
could so come en rapport, but nowadays we know enough to
understand that the thing is not altogether impossible. This view of the
crystals as en rapport was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace,
and to me at least it seems extremely plausible...
And where was this other world? On this also, the alert intelligence of
Mr. Wace speedily threw light. After sunset, the sky darkened
rapidly--there was a very brief twilight interval indeed--and the stars
shone out. They were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged
in the same constellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the Pleiades,
Aldebaran, and Sirius: so that the other world must be somewhere in
the solar system, and at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions of
miles from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that the
midnight sky was a darker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that
the sun seemed a little smaller. And there were two small moons! "Like
our moon but smaller, and quite differently marked" one of which
moved so rapidly that its motion was clearly visible as one regarded it.
These moons were never high in the sky, but vanished as they rose: that
is, every time they revolved they were eclipsed because they were so
near their primary planet. And all this answers quite completely
although, Mr. Cave did not know it, to what must be the condition of
things on Mars.
Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering into
this crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and its
inhabitants. And if that be the case, then the evening star that shone so
brilliantly in the sky of that distant vision, was neither more nor less
than our own familiar earth.
For a time the Martians--if they were Martians--do not seem to have
known of Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to peer,
and go away very shortly to some other mast, as though the vision was
unsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch the
proceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by their
attentions, and although his report is necessarily vague and fragmentary,

it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression of humanity
a Martian observer would get who, after a difficult process of
preparation and with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to peer
at London from the steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, at
longest, of four minutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if
the winged Martians were the same as the Martians who hopped about
the causeways and terraces, and if