CHAPTER X - The Moon Pool
Da Costa, who had
come aboard unnoticed by either of us, now tapped me on the arm.
"Doctair
Goodwin," he said, ”can I see you in my cabin, sair?"
At last, then, he
was going to speak. I followed him.
"Doctair,"
he said, when we had entered, ”this is a veree strange thing that has happened
to Olaf. Veree strange. An' the natives of Ponape, they have been very much
excite' lately.
"Of what
they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that quick, furtive crossing of
himself. ”But this I have to tell you. There came to me from Ranaloa last month
a man, a Russian, a doctair, like you. His name it was Marakinoff. I take him
to Ponape an' the natives there they will not take him to the Nan-Matal where
he wish to go - no! So I take him. We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument
carefully tied up. I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food. He tell me to
tell no one an' pay me not to. But you are a friend an' Olaf he depend much
upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
"You know
nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked. ”Nothing of another
expedition?"
"No,"
he shook his head vehemently. ”Nothing more."
"Hear the
name Throckmartin while you were there?" I persisted.
"No,"
his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor had crept again into his
face.
I was not so
sure. But if he knew more than he had told me why was he afraid to speak? My
anxiety deepened and later I sought relief from it by repeating the
conversation to O'Keefe.
"A Russian,
eh," he said. ”Well, they can be damned nice, or damned - otherwise.
Considering what you did for me, I hope I can look him over before the Dolphin
shows up."
Next morning we
raised Ponape, without further incident, and before noon the Suwarna and the
Brunhilda had dropped anchor in the harbour. Upon the excitement and manifest
dread of the natives, when we sought among them for carriers and workmen to
accompany us, I will not dwell. It is enough to say that no payment we offered
could induce a single one of them to go to the Nan-Matal. Nor would they say
why.
Finally it was
agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in charge of a half-breed Chinaman,
whom both Da Costa and Huldricksson knew and trusted. We piled her long-boat up
with my instruments and food and camping equipment. The Suwarna took us around
to Metalanim Harbour, and there, with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the
blue water beneath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a scant
mile from us, left us.
Then with
Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and Larry at the rudder, we rounded
the titanic wall that swept down into the depths, and turned at last into the
canal that Throckmartin, on his map, had marked as that which, running between
frowning Nan-Tauach and its satellite islet, Tau, led straight to the gate of
the place of ancient mysteries.
And as we entered
that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a silence so intense, so - weighted
that it seemed to have substance; an alien silence that clung and stifled and
still stood aloof from us - the living. It was a stillness, such as might
follow the long tramping of millions into the grave; it was - paradoxical as it
may be - filled with the withdrawal of life.
Standing down in
the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known something of such silence
- but never such intensity as this. Larry felt it and I saw him look at me
askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow, felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue
eyes, with again the glint of ice within them, watched the channel before us.
As we passed,
there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt blocks, cyclopean,
towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there by the sinking of their deep
foundations.
In front of us
the mangroves widened out and filled the canal. On our right the lesser walls
of Tau, sombre blocks smoothed and squared and set with a cold, mathematical
nicety that filled me with vague awe, slipped by. Through breaks I caught
glimpses of dark ruins and of great fallen stones that seemed to crouch and
menace us, as we passed. Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that
poured the moon fire down upon the Moon Pool.
Now we were among
the mangroves and, sail down, the three of us pushed and pulled the boat
through their tangled roots and branches. The noise of our passing split the
silence like a profanation, and from the ancient bastions came murmurs - forbidding,
strangely sinister. And now we were through, floating on a little open space of
shadow-filled water. Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic,
broken, incredibly old; shattered portals through which had passed men and
women of earth's dawn; old with a weight of years that pressed leadenly upon
the eyes that looked upon it, and yet was in some curious indefinable way - menacingly
defiant.
Beyond the gate,
back from the portals, stretched a flight of enormous basalt slabs, a giant's
stairway indeed; and from each side of it marched the high walls that were the
Dweller's pathway. None of us spoke as we grounded the boat and dragged it upon
a half-submerged pier. And when we did speak it was in whispers.
"What
next?" asked Larry.
"I think we
ought to take a look around," I replied in the same low tones. ”We'll
climb the wall here and take a flash about. The whole place ought to be plain
as day from that height."
Huldricksson, his
blue eyes alert, nodded. With the greatest difficulty we clambered up the
broken blocks.
To the east and
south of us, set like children's blocks in the midst of the sapphire sea, lay
dozens of islets, none of them covering more than two square miles of surface;
each of them a perfect square or oblong within its protecting walls.
On none was there
sign of life, save for a few great birds that hovered here and there, and gulls
dipping in the blue waves beyond.
We turned our
gaze down upon the island on which we stood. It was, I estimated, about
three-quarters of a mile square. The sea wall enclosed it. It was really an
enormous basalt-sided open cube, and within it two other open cubes. The
enclosure between the first and second wall was stone paved, with here and
there a broken pillar and long stone benches. The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and
a number of small shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its
stark loneliness.
"Wonder
where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
I shook my head.
There was no sign of life here. Had Marakinoff gone - or had the Dweller taken
him, too? Whatever had happened, there was no trace of him below us or on any
of the islets within our range of vision. We scrambled down the side of the
gateway. Olaf looked at me wistfully.
"We start
the search now, Olaf," I said. ”And first, O'Keefe, let us see whether the
grey stone is really here. After that we will set up camp, and while I unpack,
you and Olaf search the island. It won't take long."
Larry gave a look
at his service automatic and grinned. ”Lead on, Macduff," he said. We made
our way up the steps, through the outer enclosures and into the central square,
I confess to a fire of scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged with a dread
that O'Keefe's analysis might be true. Would we find the moving slab and, if
so, would it be as Throckmartin had described? If so, then even Larry would
have to admit that here was something that theories of gases and luminous
emanations would not explain; and the first test of the whole amazing story
would be passed. But if not - And there before us, the faintest tinge of grey
setting it apart from its neighbouring blocks of basalt, was the moon door!
There was no
mistaking it. This was, in very deed, the portal through which Throckmartin had
seen pass that gloriously dreadful apparition he called the Dweller. At its base
was the curious, seemingly polished cup-like depression within which, my lost
friend had told me, the opening door swung.
What was that
portal - more enigmatic than was ever sphinx? And what lay beyond it? What did
that smooth stone, whose wan deadness whispered of ages-old corridors of time
opening out into alien, unimaginable vistas, hide? It had cost the world of
science Throckmartin's great brain - as it had cost Throckmartin those he
loved. It had drawn me to it in search of Throckmartin - and its shadow had
fallen upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thousands upon
thousands more I wondered, since the brains that had conceived it had vanished
with their secret knowledge?
What lay beyond
it?
I stretched out a
shaking hand and touched the surface of the slab. A faint thrill passed through
my hand and arm, oddly unfamiliar and as oddly unpleasant; as of electric
contact holding the very essence of cold. O'Keefe, watching, imitated my
action. As his fingers rested on the stone his face filled with astonishment.
"It's the
door?" he asked. I nodded. There was a low whistle from him and he pointed
up toward the top of the grey stone. I followed the gesture and saw, above the
moon door and on each side of it, two gently curving bosses of rock, perhaps a
foot in diameter.
"The moon
door's keys," I said.
"It begins
to look so," answered Larry. ”If we can find them," he added.
"There's
nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied. ”And we've none too much time
to prepare as it is. Come!"
A little later we
were beside our boat. We lightered it, set up the tent, and as it was now but a
short hour to sundown I bade them leave me and make their search. They went off
together, and I busied myself with opening some of the paraphernalia I had
brought with me.
First of all I
took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers that I had bought in Sydney. Their
lenses would collect and intensify to the fullest extent any light directed
upon them. I had found them most useful in making spectroscopic analysis of
luminous vapours, and I knew that at Yerkes Observatory splendid results had
been obtained from them in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for
the same purpose.
If my theory of
the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was practically certain that with
the satellite only a few nights past the full we could concentrate enough light
on the bosses to open the rock. And as the ray streams through the seven globes
described by Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could
enter the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our
preliminary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped so far that
the concentration in the condensers would fall below that necessary to keep the
portal from closing.
I took out also a
small spectroscope, and a few other instruments for the analysis of certain
light manifestations and the testing of metal and liquid. Finally, I put aside
my emergency medical kit.
I had hardly
finished examining and adjusting these before O'Keefe and Huldricksson
returned. They reported signs of a camp at least ten days old beside the
northern wall of the outer court, but beyond that no evidence of others beyond
ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
We prepared
supper, ate and talked a little, but for the most part were silent. Even
Larry's high spirits were not in evidence; half a dozen times I saw him take
out his automatic and look it over. He was more thoughtful than I had ever seen
him. Once he went into the tent, rummaged about a bit and brought out another revolver
which, he said, he had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges.
He passed the gun over to Olaf.
At last a glow in
the southeast heralded the rising moon. I picked up my instruments and the
medical kit; Larry and Olaf shouldered each a short ladder that was part of my
equipment, and, with our electric flashes pointing the way, walked up the great
stairs, through the enclosures, and straight to the grey stone.
By this time the
moon had risen and its clipped light shone full upon the slab. I saw faint
gleams pass over it as of fleeting phosphorescence - but so faint were they
that I could not be sure of the truth of my observation.
We set the
ladders in place. Olaf I assigned to stand before the door and watch for the
first signs of its opening - if open it should. The Becquerels were set within
three-inch tripods, whose feet I had equipped with vacuum rings to enable them
to hold fast to the rock.
I scaled one
ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss; descended; sent Larry up to watch
it, and, ascending the second ladder, rapidly fixed the other in its place.
Then, with O'Keefe watchful on his perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes fixed upon
the moon door, we began our vigil. Suddenly there was an exclamation from
Larry.
"Seven little
lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
But I had already
seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a silvery lustre. Swiftly
the rays within the condenser began to thicken and increase, and as they did so
the seven small circles waxed like stars growing out of the dusk, and with a
queer - curdled is the best word I can find to define it - radiance entirely
strange to me.
Beneath me I
heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of Huldricksson:
"It opens - the
stone turns -”
I began to climb
down the ladder. Again came Olaf's voice:
"The stone -
it is open -” And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish and pity, of rage
and despair - and the sound of swift footsteps racing through the wall beneath
me!
I dropped to the ground.
The moon door was wide open, and through it I caught a glimpse of a corridor
filled with a faint, pearly vaporous light like earliest misty dawn. But of
Olaf I could see - nothing! And even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came
the sharp crack of a rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew
into fragments; he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand
flashed once, twice, into the darkness.
And the moon door
began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place!
I rushed toward
the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it open. As I thrust my hands
against it there came at my back a snarl and an oath and Larry staggered under
the impact of a body that had flung itself straight at his throat. He reeled at
the lip of the shallow cup at the base of the slab, slipped upon its polished
curve, fell and rolled with that which had attacked him, kicking and writhing,
straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
Forgetting all
else, I sprang to his aid. As I leaped I felt the closing edge of the moon door
graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a fist, brought it down upon the temple of
the man who had grappled with him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily
to his feet, I heard shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as
though some giant's hand had whirled me -
The end of the
corridor no longer opened out into the moonlit square of ruined Nan-Tauach. It
was barred by a solid mass of glimmering stone. The moon door had closed!
O'Keefe took a
stumbling step toward the barrier behind us. There was no mark of juncture with
the shining walls; the slab fitted into the sides as closely as a mosaic.
"It's shut
all right," said Larry. ”But if there's a way in, there's a way out.
Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've been heading for - so why
worry?" He grinned at me cheerfully. The man on the floor groaned, and he
dropped to his knees beside him.
"Marakinoff!"
he cried.
At my exclamation
he moved aside, turning the face so I could see it. It was clearly Russian, and
just as clearly its possessor was one of unusual force and intellect.
The strong,
massive brow with orbital ridge unusually developed, the dominant, high-bridged
nose, the straight lips with their more than suggestion of latent cruelty, and
the strong lines of the jaw beneath a black, pointed beard all gave evidence
that here was a personality beyond the ordinary.
"Couldn't be
anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on my thoughts. ”He must have been
watching us over there from Chau-ta-leur's vault all the time."
Swiftly he ran
practised hands over his body; then stood erect, holding out to me two
wicked-looking magazine pistols and a knife. ”He got one of my bullets through
his right forearm, too," he said. ”Just a flesh wound, but it made him
drop his rifle. Some arsenal, our little Russian scientist, what?"
I opened my
medical kit. The wound was a slight one, and Larry stood looking on as I
bandaged it.
"Got another
one of those condensers?" he asked, suddenly. ”And do you suppose Olaf
will know enough to use it?"
"Larry,"
I answered, ”Olaf's not outside! He's in here somewhere!"
His jaw dropped.
"The hell
you say!" he whispered.
"Didn't you
hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I asked.
"I heard him
yell, yes," he said. ”But I didn't know what was the matter. And then this
wildcat jumped me -” He paused and his eyes widened. ”Which way did he
go?" he asked swiftly. I pointed down the faintly glowing passage.
"There's
only one way," I said.
"Watch that
bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Marakinoff - and pistol in hand
stretched his long legs and raced away. I looked down at the Russian. His eyes
were open, and he reached out a hand to me. I lifted him to his feet.
"I have
heard," he said. ”We follow, quick. If you will take my arm, please, I am
shaken yet, yes -” I gripped his shoulder without a word, and the two of us set
off down the corridor after O'Keefe. Marakinoff was gasping, and his weight
pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with all the will and strength that were
in him.
As we ran I took
hasty note of the tunnel. Its sides were smooth and polished, and the light
seemed to come not from their surfaces, but from far within them - giving to
the walls an illusive aspect of distance and depth; rendering them in a
peculiarly weird way - spacious. The passage turned, twisted, ran down, turned
again. It came to me that the light that illumined the tunnel was given out by
tiny points deep within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly and spread
upon their polished faces.
There was a cry
from Larry far ahead.
"Olaf!"
I gripped
Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on. Now we were coming fast to the end of
the passage. Before us was a high arch, and through it I glimpsed a dim,
shifting luminosity as of mist filled with rainbows. We reached the portal and
I looked into a chamber that might have been transported from that enchanted
palace of the Jinn King that rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
Before me stood
O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him, Huldricksson, with something clasped
tightly in his arms. The Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining,
silvery lip of stone within whose oval lay a blue pool. And down upon this pool
staring upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light - one
of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and three of
emerald, of silver, and of amber. They fell each upon the azure surface, and I
knew that these were the seven streams of radiance, within which the Dweller
took shape - now but pale ghosts of their brilliancy when the full energy of
the moon stream raced through them.
Huldricksson bent
and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool that which he held - and I saw
that it was the body of a child! He set it there so gently, bent over the side and
thrust a hand down into the water. And as he did so he moaned and lurched
against the little body that lay before him. Instantly the form moved - and
slipped over the verge into the blue. Huldricksson threw his body over the
stone, hands clutching, arms thrust deep down - and from his lips issued a
long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in it
nothing human!
Close on its wake
came a cry from Marakinoff.
"Catch
him!" shouted the Russian. ”Drag him back! Quick!"
He leaped forward,
but before he could half clear the distance, O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught
the Norseman by the shoulders and toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering
and sobbing. And as I rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of
the Pool and cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it
with real pity in his cold eyes.
Then I stared
down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was a little maid whose
dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked straight into mine; and ever
sinking slowly, slowly - vanished! And I knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his
beloved yndling!
But where was the
mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?
The Russian was
first to speak.
"You have
nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my medical kit that I
had gripped unconsciously and carried with me during the mad rush down the
passage. I nodded and drew it out.
"Hypodermic,"
he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it accurately with its one
one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned over Huldricksson. He rolled up the
sailor's sleeves half-way to the shoulder. The arms were white with somewhat of
that weird semitranslucence that I had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a
tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
whiteness - like a baroque pearl. Above the line of white, Marakinoff thrust
the needle.
"He will
need all his heart can do," he said to me.
Then he reached
down into a belt about his waist and drew from it a small, flat flask of what
seemed to be lead. He opened it and let a few drops of its contents fall on
each arm of the Norwegian. The liquid sparkled and instantly began to spread
over the skin much as oil or gasoline dropped on water does - only far more
rapidly. And as it spread it drew a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and
little wisps of vapour rose from it. The Norseman's mighty chest heaved with
agony. His hands clenched. The Russian gave a grunt of satisfaction at this,
dropped a little more of the liquid, and then, watching closely, grunted again
and leaned back. Huldricksson's laboured breathing ceased, his head dropped
upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and hands the whiteness swiftly withdrew.
Marakinoff arose
and contemplated us - almost benevolently.
"He will all
right be in five minutes," he said. ”I know. I do it to pay for that shot
of mine, and also because we will need him. Yes." He turned to Larry. ”You
have a poonch like a mule kick, my young friend," he said. ”Some time you
pay me for that, too, eh?" He smiled; and the quality of the grimace was
not exactly reassuring. Larry looked him over quizzically.
"You're
Marakinoff, of course," he said. The Russian nodded, betraying no surprise
at the recognition.
"And
you?" he asked.
"Lieutenant
O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied Larry, saluting. ”And this
gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Goodwin."
Marakinoff's face
brightened.
"The
American botanist?" he queried. I nodded.
"Ah,"
cried Marakinoff eagerly, ”but this is fortunate. Long I have desired to meet
you. Your work, for an American, is most excellent; surprising. But you are
wrong in your theory of the development of the Angiospermae from Cycadeoidea
dacotensis. Da - all wrong -”
I was
interrupting him with considerable heat, for my conclusions from the fossil
Cycadeoidea I knew to be my greatest triumph, when Larry broke in upon me
rudely.
"Say,"
he spluttered, ”am I crazy or are you? What in damnation kind of a place and
time is this to start an argument like that?
"Angiospermae,
is it?" exclaimed Larry. ”HELL!"
Marakinoff again
regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
"You have
not the scientific mind, young friend," he said. ”The poonch, yes! But so
has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is important - not you, not me,
not this" - he pointed to Huldricksson -”or its sorrows. Only the fact,
whatever it is, is real, yes. But" - he turned to me -”another time -”
Huldricksson
interrupted him. The big seaman had risen stiffly to his feet and stood with
Larry's arm supporting him. He stretched out his hands to me.
"I saw
her," he whispered. ”I saw mine Freda when the stone swung. She lay there
- just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine Freda was dead. But I
hoped - and I thought maybe mine Helma was somewhere here, too, So I ran with
mine yndling - here -” His voice broke. ”I thought maybe she was not
dead," he went on. ”And I saw that" - he pointed to the Moon Pool -”and
I thought I would bathe her face and she might live again. And when I dipped my
hands within - the life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them
into my heart. And mine Freda - she fell -” he covered his eyes, and dropping
his head on O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to tear at
his very soul.
CHAPTER XI - The Flame-Tipped
Shadows
Marakinoff nodded
his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
"Da!"
he said. ”That which comes from here took them both - the woman and the child.
Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon them. But why it left
the child behind I do not understand."
"How do you
know that?" I cried in amazement.
"Because I
saw it," answered Marakinoff simply. ”Not only did I see it, but hardly
had I time to make escape through the entrance before it passed whirling and
murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da! It was what you call the squeak
close, that."
"Wait a
moment," I said - stilling Larry with a gesture. ”Do I understand you to
say that you were within this place?"
Marakinoff
actually beamed upon me.
"Da, Dr.
Goodwin," he said, ”I went in when that which comes from it went
out!"
I gaped at him,
stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept a suggestion of grudging
respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
"Dr. Goodwin
and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoff after a moment's
silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include Huldricksson in his
address -”it is time that we have an understanding. I have a proposal to make
to you also. It is this; we are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in
it. Da! We need all hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and
our brains and resources - and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he
looked wickedly at O'Keefe, ”and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After
that -”
"All very
well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, ”but I don't feel very safe in any
boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the back."
Marakinoff waved
a deprecatory hand.
"It was
natural that," he said, ”logical, da! Here is a very great secret, perhaps
many secrets to my country invaluable -” He paused, shaken by some overpowering
emotion; the veins in his forehead grew congested, the cold eyes blazed and the
guttural voice harshened.
"I do not
apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff. ”But I will tell you,
da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment to liberate the world.
And here are the other nations ringing us like wolves and waiting to spring at
our throats at the least sign of weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe
of the English wolves, and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack - and here in
this place may be that will enable my country to win its war for the worker.
What are the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I
crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
He suddenly
gripped himself.
"But that is
not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly. ”Not that nor my
shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My proposal is so: that we join
interests, and what you call see it through together; find our way through this
place and those secrets learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that
is done we will go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our
lands as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge - and it is very
valuable, Dr. Goodwin - and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe do the
same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not think his
usefulness lies in his brains, no."
"In effect,
Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, ”the professor's proposition is
this: he wants to know what's going on here but he begins to realize it's no
one man's job and besides we have the drop on him. We're three to his one, and
we have all his hardware and cutlery. But also we can do better with him than
without him - just as he can do better with us than without us. It's an even
break - for a while. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then
look out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges again
- and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to one against
him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm for taking him up, if you
are."
There was almost
a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
"It is not
just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, ”but in its skeleton he
has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we are still in danger
here. I pledge you my honor on this."
Larry laughed.
"All right,
Professor," he grinned. ”I believe you mean every word you say.
Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
Marakinoff bowed,
imperturbably.
"And
now," he said, ”I will tell you what I know. I found the secret of the
door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by carelessness, my condensers
were broken. I was forced to wait while I sent for others - and the waiting
might be for months. I took certain precautions, and on the first night of this
full moon I hid myself within the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
An involuntary
thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the manifest heroism of
this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in Larry's face.
"I hid in
the vault," continued Marakinoff, ”and I saw that which comes from here
come out. I waited - long hours. At last, when the moon was low, it returned - ecstatically
- with a man, a native, in embrace enfolded. It passed through the door, and
soon then the moon became low and the door closed.
"The next
night more confidence was mine, yes. And after that which comes had gone, I
looked through its open door. I said, 'It will not return for three hours.
While it is away, why shall I not into its home go through the door it has left
open?' So I went - even to here. I looked at the pillars of light and I tested
the liquid of the Pool on which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not
water, and it is not any fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial,
its neck held in a long thong.
"Take
this," he said, ”and see."
Wonderingly, I
took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool. The liquid was extraordinarily
light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial buoyancy. I held it to the light. It
was striated, streaked, as though little living, pulsing veins ran through it.
And its blueness, even in the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
"Radioactive,"
said Marakinoff. ”Some liquid that is intensely radioactive; but what it is I
know not at all. Upon the living skin it acts like radium raised to the nth
power and with an element most mysterious added. The solution with which I
treated him," he pointed to Huldricksson, ”I had prepared before I came
here, from certain information I had. It is largely salts of radium and its
base is Loeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns. Taking
this man at once, before the degeneration had become really active, I could
negative it. But after two hours I could have done nothing."
He paused a
moment.
"Next I
studied the nature of these luminous walls. I concluded that whoever had made
them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufacture of light from the ether
itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance of these blocks confines an atomic - how
would you say - atomic manipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons,
light-emitting and perhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil
and wick are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,
indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardian warned
me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forth returned - this time
empty-handed.
"And the
next night I did the same thing. Engrossed in research, I let the moments go by
to the danger point, and scarcely was I replaced within the vault when the
shining thing raced over the walls, and in its grip the woman and child.
"Then you
came - and that is all. And now - what is it you know?"
Very briefly I
went over my story. His eyes gleamed now and then, but he did not interrupt me.
"A great
secret! A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended. ”We cannot
leave it hidden."
"The first
thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter of fact.
"There is no
use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
"Nevertheless
we'll try," said Larry. We retraced our way through the winding tunnel to
the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea of moving the slab from within
was hopeless. We returned to the Chamber of the Pool. The pillars of light were
fainter, and we knew that the moon was sinking. On the world outside before
long dawn would be breaking. I began to feel thirst - and the blue semblance of
water within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as my eyes rested on it.
"Da!"
it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. ”Da! We will be thirsty. And
it will be very bad for him of us who loses control and drinks of that, my
friend. Da!"
Larry threw back
his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
"This place
would give an angel of joy the willies," he said. ”I suggest that we look
around and find something that will take us somewhere. You can bet the people
that built it had more ways of getting in than that once-a-month family
entrance. Doc, you and Olaf take the left wall; the professor and I will take
the right."
He loosened one
of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
"After you,
Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We parted and set forth.
The chamber
widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc of an immense circle.
The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and from this curvature I estimated
that the roof was fully three hundred feet above us.
The floor was of
smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellow tinge. They were not
light-emitting like the blocks that formed the walls. The radiance from these
latter, I noted, had the peculiar quality of thickening a few yards from its
source, and it was this that produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As
we walked, the seven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes
high above us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its prismatic
shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlight in a thin cloud.
Now before us,
out from the wall, jutted a low terrace. It was all of a pearly rose-coloured
stone, slender, graceful pillars of the same hue. The face of the terrace was
about ten feet high, and all over it ran a bas-relief of what looked like
short-trailing vines, surmounted by five stalks, on the tip of each of which
was a flower.
We passed along
the terrace. It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard a hail, and there, fifty
feet away, at the curving end of a wall identical with that where we stood,
were Larry and Marakinoff. Obviously the left side of the chamber was a
duplicate of that we had explored. We joined. In front of us the columned
barriers ran back a hundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was
another wall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much
heavier.
We took a step
forward - there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, a guttural exclamation
from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, the wall before us, a great oval
began to glow, waxed almost to a flame and then shone steadily out as though
from behind it a light was streaming through the stone itself!
And within the
roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stood for a moment, and then
seemed to float out upon its surface. The shadows wavered; the tips of flame
that nimbused them with flickering points of vermilion pulsed outward, drew
back, darted forth again, and once more withdrew themselves - and as they did
so the shadows thickened - and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
One was a girl - a
girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabled lilies of Kwan-Yung that were
born of the kiss of the sun upon the amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e
carved for him; whose softly curved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose
golden-brown hair reached to her knees!
And the second
was a gigantic frog - A woman frog, head helmeted with carapace of shell around
which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewels shone; enormous round eyes of blue
circled with a broad iris of green; monstrous body of banded orange and white
girdled with strand upon strand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if
an inch, and with one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs
resting upon the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
Moments must have
passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing at that incredible apparition.
The two figures, although as real as any of those who stood beside me,
unphantomlike as it is possible to be, had a distinct suggestion of - projection.
They were there
before us - golden-eyed girl and grotesque frog-woman - complete in every line
and curve; and still it was as though their bodies passed back through
distances; as though, to try to express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two
shapes we were looking upon were the end of an infinite number stretching in
fine linked chain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in
the brain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the unseen
others.
The gigantic eyes
of the frog-woman took us all in - unwinkingly. Little glints of
phosphorescence shone out within the metallic green of the outer iris ring. She
stood upright, her great legs bowed; the monstrous slit of a mouth slightly
open, revealing a row of white teeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw
resting on the girl's shoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its
five webbed digits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
delicate texture of the flesh.
But if the
frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the rosy wall. Her eyes
were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with extraordinary intentness. She
was tall, far over the average of women, almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe
himself; not more than twenty years old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she
leaned forward, the golden eyes softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as
though she were speaking.
Larry took a
quick step, and his face was that of one who after countless births comes at
last upon the twin soul lost to him for ages. The frog-woman turned her eyes
upon the girl; her huge lips moved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl
held out a warning hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger
upon one of the five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,
three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that her hand was
curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful tapering ones the
painters we call the primitive gave to their Virgins.
Three times she
pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larry once more. A slow, sweet
smile curved the crimson lips. She stretched both hands out toward him again
eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly over white breasts and flowerlike face.
Like the clicking
out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded and golden-eyed girl and
frog-woman were gone!
And thus it was
that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and Larry O'Keefe first looked
into each other's hearts!
Larry stood rapt,
gazing at the stone.
"Eilidh,"
I heard him whisper;”Eilidh of the lips like the red, red rowan and the
golden-brown hair!"
"Clearly of
the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, ”a development of the fossil
Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
"Ranadae,
yes," I answered. ”But from the Stegocephalia; of the order Ecaudata -”
Never such a
complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as he interrupted.
"What do you
mean - fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked. ”She was a girl, a
wonder girl - a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not an O'Keefe!"
"We were
talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
His eyes were
wild as he regarded us.
"Say,"
he said, ”if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve took the apple,
you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for counting the scales on the
snake!"
He strode swiftly
over to the wall. We followed. Larry paused, stretched his hand up to the
flowers on which the tapering fingers of the golden-eyed girl had rested.
"It was here
she put up her hand," he murmured. He pressed caressingly the carved
calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as she had - and silently and softly
the wall began to split; on each side a great stone pivoted slowly, and before
us a portal stood, opening into a narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy
lustre that had gleamed around the flame-tipped shadows!
"Have your
gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry. ”We follow Golden Eyes," he said to me.
"Follow?"
I echoed stupidly.
"Follow!"
he said. ”She came to show us the way! Follow? I'd follow her through a thousand
hells!"
And with Olaf at
one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them with automatics in hand, and
Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped over the threshold.
At our right, a
few feet away, the passage ended abruptly in a square of polished stone, from
which came faint rose radiance. The roof of the place was less than two feet
over O'Keefe's head.
A yard at left of
us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade, stretching from wall to
wall - and beyond it was blackness; an utter and appalling blackness that
seemed to gather itself from infinite depths. The rose-glow in which we stood
was cut off by the blackness as though it had substance; it shimmered out to
meet it, and was checked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion
of sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrank back, and
Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, he strode to the wall and
peered over. He beckoned us.
"Flash your
pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into the thick darkness
below us. The little electric circle quivered down as though afraid, and came
to rest upon a surface that resembled nothing so much as clear, black ice. I
ran the light across - here and there. The floor of the corridor was of a substance
so smooth, so polished, that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped
downward at a slowly increasing angle.
"We'd have
to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tackle that," mused
Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge on which he was leaning.
Suddenly they hesitated and then gripped tightly.
"That's a
queer one!" he exclaimed. His right palm was resting upon a rounded
protuberance, on the side of which were three small circular indentations.
"A queer one
-” he repeated - and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
There was a sharp
click; the slabs that had opened to let us through swung swiftly together; a
curiously rapid vibration thrilled through us, a wind arose and passed over our
heads - a wind that grew and grew until it became a whistling shriek, then a
roar and then a mighty humming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in
rhythm painful almost to disintegration!
The rosy wall
dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
Wrapped in the
clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing, dropping, hurling at a
frightful speed - where?
And ever that
awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightning cleaving of the tangible
dark - so, it came to me oddly, must the newly released soul race through the
sheer blackness of outer space up to that Throne of Justice, where God sits
high above all suns!
I felt Marakinoff
creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed my pocket-light; saw Larry
standing, peering, peering ahead, and Huldricksson, one strong arm around his
shoulders, bracing him. And then the speed began to slacken.
Millions of
miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthly hurricane I heard Larry's
voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath its clamour.
"Got
it!" shrilled the voice. ”Got it! Don't worry!"
The wind died
down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriek and diminished to a
steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe's tones now came in normal
volume.
"Some little
shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted. ”Say - if they had this at Coney
Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in these holes and she goes
top-high. Diminish pressure - diminish speed. The curve of this - dashboard - here
sends the wind shooting up over our heads - like a windshield. What's behind
you?"
I flashed the
light back. The mechanism on which we were ended in another wall exactly
similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
"Well, we
can't fall out, anyway," he laughed. ”Wish to hell I knew where the brakes
were! Look out!"
We dropped
dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell - fell as into an abyss -
then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a throbbing green radiance.
O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down upon the controls, for we leaped
forward almost with the speed of light. I caught a glimpse of luminous
immensities on the verge of which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and
flitting through the incredible spaces - gigantic shadows as of the wings of
Israfel, which are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like
a nestling - and then - again the living blackness!
"What was
that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe that he had yet
shown.
"Trolldom!"
croaked the voice of Olaf.
"Chert!"
This from Marakinoff. ”What a space!"
"Have you
considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, ”a curious thing? We
know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten astronomers believe, that
the moon was hurled out of this same region we now call the Pacific when the
earth was yet like molasses; almost molten, I should say. And is it not curious
that that which comes from the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it
forth; is it not? And is it not significant again that the stone depends upon
the moon for operating? Da! And last - such a space in mother earth as we just
glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic birth - like
that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as statements of fact - no!
But as suggestions -”
I started; there
was so much that this might explain - an unknown element that responded to the
moon-rays in opening the moon door; the blue Pool with its weird radioactivity,
and the force within it that reacted to the same light stream -
It was not
inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a film of earth-flesh
which drew itself over that colossal abyss after our planet had borne its
satellite - that world womb did not close when her shining child sprang forth -
it was possible; and all that we know of earth depth is four miles of her eight
thousand.
What is there at
the heart of earth? What of that radiant unknown element upon the moon mount
Tycho? What of that element unknown to us as part of earth which is seen only
in the corona of the sun at eclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is
child of the sun as the moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other
unknown element we find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae - green as that
we had just passed through - and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is child of
the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is child of the
earth.
And what miracles
are there in coronium and nebulium which, as the child of nebula and sun, we
inherit? Yes - and in Tycho's enigma which came from earth heart?
We were flashing
down to earth heart! And what miracles were hidden there?
