“ ‘I could whistle short conversations’ ”
“Oh, dear me,” sighed the Moon Man, almost petulantly, “my memory, you know, for dates as far back as that, is awfully poor. To-day it seems as though I had talked Heron and Geranium all my life. But just when it was, actually, that I reached the point where I could converse freely with the insects and plants, I couldn’t give you the vaguest idea. I do know that it took me far, far longer to get in touch with the vegetable forms of life than it did with either the insects or the birds. I am afraid that our keeping count of time throughout has been pretty sketchy—certainly in our earlier history anyway. But then you must remember we were occupied with a great number of far more serious tasks. Recently—the last thousand years or so—we have been making an effort to keep a history and we can show you, I think, a pretty good record of most of the more important events within that time. The trouble is that nearly all of the dates you want are earlier than that.”
“Well, never mind,” said the Doctor. “We are getting on very well under the circumstances. I would like very much to see that record you speak of and will ask you to show it to me, if you will be so good, later.”
He then entered into a long examination of the Moon Man (carefully avoiding all dates, periods and references to time) on a whole host of subjects. The majority of them were concerned with insect and plant evolution and he kept a strict eye on me to see that all questions and replies were jotted down in the notebook. Gracious! What an unending list it seemed to my tired mind! How had the Moon Man first realized that the plants were anxious to talk and cooperate with him? What had led him to believe that the bees were in communication with the flowers they fed on? Which fruits and vegetables had he found were good for human food and how had he discovered their nutritious qualities without poisoning himself? etc., etc., etc. It went on for hours. I got most of it down, with very few mistakes, I think. But I know I was more than half asleep during the last hours of the interview.
The only trouble with most of it was this same old bug-bear of time. After all these ages of living without human company the poor giant’s mind had got to the point where it simply didn’t use time. Even in this record of the last thousand years, which he had proudly told us was properly dated, we found, when he showed it to us, an error of a century more or less meant very little.
This history had been carved in pictures and signs on the face of a wide flat rock. The workmanship of Otho the pre-historic artist showed up here to great advantage. While the carvings were not by any means to be compared with his masterpiece of the kneeling girl, they nevertheless had a dash and beauty of design that would arrest the attention of almost any one.
“This history had been carved in pictures on the face of a rock”
Nevertheless despite the errors of time, both in his recollections and his graven history, we got down the best booking that we could in the circumstances. And with all its slips and gaps it was a most thrilling and exciting document. It was the story of a new world’s evolution; of how a man, suddenly transported into space with nothing but what his two hands held at the moment of the catastrophe, had made himself the kindly monarch of a kingdom—a kingdom more wondrous than the wildest imaginings of the mortals he had left behind. For he was indeed a king, even if he called himself no more than the President of the Council. And what hardships and terrible difficulties he had overcome in doing it, only we could realize—we, who had come here with advantages and aids which he had never known.
Finally a lull did come in this long, long conversation between the Doctor and the Moon Man. And while I lay back and stretched my right hand, cramped from constant writing, Polynesia gave vent to a great deal which she had evidently had on her mind for some time.