"With one hand," he said. "The pull of those asteroids is a weak and puny thing to anyone accustomed to Earth. I felt pretty strong on Mars, but that's nothing to what one could do here, in Eros, or whichever it was.

"I got out at the edge of a forest of minute scrub-oak, the size of the ones that are dwarfed by the Japanese. I looked any out for any disgusting beasts such as those foul things on Mars, but saw nothing of any sort. A few small moths, as I thought them, flew by me out of the trees; though, looking back think they were birds. Well, then I settled down to work out my new calculations. I was so near Earth now, that I might get it if I could pull away from the asteroid, and if only I was close in my guess (and it could be no more) at the pace the asteroid was doing. More than guess I could not make, for I did not even know on what little planet I was, and guesses are bad things for calculations. But you must use them when you've got nothing else. I knew at least where the path of these asteroids lay, so I knew how far they had to go, but the time that they took to do it I could only guess from the time that I knew their neighbors took. Had I been further from Earth these guesses would have ruined my calculations and I should never have found my way home.

"Well, I sat there undisturbed by anything except my own rapid breathing and worked out those, and worked out those calculations as near as I could. I had to breathe three or four times as fast as one on Earth, for there didn't seem as much air as there is here. And of course there wouldn't be in a little place like Eros. What troubled me far more than the breathing was the thought that I had only my engines to pull me clear of the planet, having used the last of my rockets in leaving Mars, and never guessing I should need them again. Imagine a passenger from Southampton to New York being suddenly landed at an island in the Atlantic. He would be far less surprised than I was at landing here, and I was not prepared for it. The pull of Eros,or whatever small world it was, was not much to get away from; but the amount of atmosphere I should have in which to pull away from it was bound to be diminutive also, like the planet round which it was wrapped. I knew I could get up enough speed to pull clear of Eros, if only I had long enough to do it, if only the air went far enough. I knew roughly how far it went, as I had felt it in the wings of my 'plane on the way down. But would it go far enough? That was the thought that was troubling me as I worked at my figures, and breathed as men breathe in high fevers. I wouldn't use my compressed air while I had air of any kind to breathe outside. For the hours that I could live before I reached Earth were numbered by my supply of compressed air. Well, I made my plans, and arranged my aim at the Earth, in leisure, such as I had not had on Mars, while the little planet spun towards the sun, and its day was dawning where I had landed in twilight. Then I had time to look round at the oak-forest, whose billowy tops were rolling away below me. Take a look now at this match-box. Handle it gently. Now what would you say made that hole in it?"

I took from his hand a Bryant and May's match-box, considerably shattered; shattered from the inside; leaving a hole large enough for a mouse to run through.

"It looks as if something had gone through it pretty hard," I said.

"Not through it," he answered. "There's only a hole on one side."

"Well into it," I said.

"Nor into it. Look again," said Terner.

Sure enough it was all burst outwards. But what had done it was more than I could see. And so I told Terner.

Then he took it over to the mantelpiece, where he had two little cottages made of china, and put it between the two, and put a little thatch over the match-box, that he had made to fit it. The little cottages on each side of it were just about the same size.

"Now what do you make of it?" he asked.

I didn't know, and I had told him so, but I had to say something.

"It looks as if an elephant had broken out of a cottage," I said.

Terner looked round at Jorkens, who was nodding an approving head, almost benevolent except for a certain slyness.

I didn't understand this vehement exchange of glances.

"What?" I said.

"The very thing," said Terner.

"An elephant?" I said.

"There were herds of them in the oak-forest," said Terner "I was stooping down to pick a branch of a tree to bring back, when if suddenly saw them in the dawn. They stampeded and I caught one, a magnificent tusker and none of them bigger than mice. This I knew must be absolute proof. I threw away the branch; after all they were only small oak-leaves; and I put the elephant into that match-box and put an elastic band round it to keep it shut. The match-box I threw into a haversack that I wore over my bandages.

"Well, I might have collected lots more things; but, as I said, I had absolute proof, and I had hanging over me all the while, and oppressing me with its weight, that feeling that I was on the wrong planet. It is a feeling that no one who experiences it can shake off for a single moment. You Jorkens you have traveled a good deal too; you've been in deserts and queer places."

"Yes, the papyrus-marshes," muttered Jorkens.

"But," continued Terner "not even there, nor far out with the Sahara all round you, can you have had so irresistibly, so unremittingly, that feeling I spoke of. It is no mere homesickness, it is an always-present overwhelming knowledge that you are in the wrong place, so strong that it amounts to a menacing warning that your very spirit repeats to you with every beat of the pulse. It is a thing I cannot explain to anyone who has not been lost outside Earth, an emotion I can share with no one.

"Very natural," said Jorkens.