A closer examination of the tracks made by the Giant Human in these parts where they were especially clear told the Doctor that his right leg stride was considerably longer than his left. The mysterious Moon Man evidently walked with a limp. But with such a stride he would clearly be a very formidable creature anyway.
When we got back and started unpacking the bundles and boxes which had been left behind I saw, as I have already said, how well the Doctor had prepared for his voyage. He seemed to have brought everything that he could possibly need for the trip: hatchets, wire, nails, files, a hand saw, all the things we couldn’t get on the Moon. It was so different from his ordinary preparations for a voyage—which hardly ever consisted of more than the little black bag and the clothes he stood in.
“He seemed to have brought everything he could need”
As usual he rested only long enough to get a few mouthfuls of food before he set to work. There seemed to be a dozen different apparatuses he wanted to set up at once, some for the testing of sound, others for vibrations, etc., etc. With the aid of a saw and an ax and a few other tools, half a dozen small huts had sprung up in an hour around our camp.
THE TENTH CHAPTER
The Magellan of the Moon
Laying aside for the present all worry on the score of why he had been summoned to the Moon—of why the Animal Kingdom continued to treat us with suspicion, of why the Giant Human so carefully kept out of our way, the Doctor now plunged into the study of plant languages heart and soul.
He was always happy so, working like a demon, snatching his meals and his sleep here and there when he thought of such earthly matters. It was a most exhausting time for the rest of us, keeping pace with this firebrand of energy when he got on an interesting scent. And yet it was well worthwhile too. In one and a half days he had established the fact that the trees did converse with one another by means of branch gestures. But that was only the first step. Copying and practising, he rigged himself up like a tree and talked in the glade—after a fashion—with these centuries-old denizens of the jungle.
From that he learned still more—that language, of a kind, was carried on by using other means—by scents given out, in a definite way—short or long perfumes, like a regular Morse Code; by the tones of wind-song when branches were set to the right angle to produce certain notes; and many other odd strange means.
Every night, by bed-time, I was nearly dead from the strain and effort of taking notes in those everlasting books, of which he seemed to have brought an utterly inexhaustible supply.