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diff --git a/old/mpool11.txt b/old/mpool11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..253dcf5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mpool11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12433 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Moon Pool + +Author: A. Merritt + +Release Date: December, 1996 [EBook #765] +[This file was last updated on January 28, 2005] + +Edition: 11 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL *** + + + + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. + + + + + + + + + +The Moon Pool + +A. MERRITT + + + + +Foreword + + +The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin +has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International +Association of Science. + +First: + +To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin +Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have +threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his +youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever +since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the +disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the +subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from +the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands. + +Second: + +Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin's +experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the +lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important +to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers +understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented +through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form +which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary. + +For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt +to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the +stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council, +supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr. +Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive +Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book. + +Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D., +F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an +observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal +treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the +best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs +brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I +have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from +this popular presentation--because of the excessively menacing +potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might +develop--will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of +carefully guarded circulation. + +THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE +Per J. B. K., President + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The Thing on the Moon Path + + +For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering +data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the +volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached +Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the +Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick +mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer +ones between Melbourne and New York. + +It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows herself in her +sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the +island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the +threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an +emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself--sinister +even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from +virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing. + +It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial +ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought +against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down +the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was +something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he +looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then waved his +hand. + +And now I knew him. It was Dr. David Throckmartin--"Throck" he was to +me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first +water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration +as they were, I know, for scores other. + +Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise, +definitely--unpleasant. It was Throckmartin--but about him was +something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well and to +whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less than a month +before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had married only a few +weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William Frazier, +younger by at least a decade than he but at one with him in his ideals +and as much in love, if it were possible, as Throckmartin. By virtue +of her father's training a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own +sweet, sound heart a--I use the word in its olden sense--lover. With +his equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swedish +woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from +babyhood, they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary +group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in +the Carolines. + +I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year among these ruins, +not only of Ponape but of Lele--twin centres of a colossal riddle of +humanity, a weird flower of civilization that blossomed ages before +the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and +of whose science nothing. He had carried with him unusually complete +equipment for the work he had expected to do and which, he hoped, +would be his monument. + +What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby, and what was that +change I had sensed in him? + +Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser. As I +spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand--and then I saw what +was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my +silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given +me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated +--then hurried off to his stateroom. + +"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser. "Know 'im well, sir? +Seems to 'ave given you quite a start." + +I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair. There I sat, +composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken me +so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of his +venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling +expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what shall +I say--expectant search. His always questioning brain had stamped its +vigor upon his face. + +But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne some +scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul cataclysm that +in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his face, setting on it +seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had +come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing left +behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows! + +Yes--it was that which appalled. For how could rapture and horror, +Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss? + +Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's face! + +Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore line +sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I had +hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that I would +meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I was sensible +of deliverance within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged +about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--and within me was no +strength to summon him. Nor did he appear at dinner. + +Dusk and night fell swiftly. I was warm and went back to my +deck-chair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and +I had the place to myself. + +Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying +to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Fitfully +before the ship and at her sides arose those stranger little swirls of +mist that swirl up from the Southern Ocean like breath of sea +monsters, whirl for an instant and disappear. + +Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin. He +paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager, +intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him. + +"Throck," I called. "Come! It's Goodwin." + +He made his way to me. + +"Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. "What's wrong? +Can I help you?" + +I felt his body grow tense. + +"I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered. "I need a few +things--need them urgently. And more men--white men--" + +He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the +north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through +the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint +luminescence of it upon the smooth sea. The distant patch of light +quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The +ship raced on southward, swiftly. + +Throckmartin dropped into his chair. He lighted a cigarette with a +hand that trembled; then turned to me with abrupt resolution. + +"Goodwin," he said. "I do need help. If ever man needed it, I do. +Goodwin--can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar, +a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all; +you all alone there, a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I +need--" + +He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from his fingers. +The moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much +nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the +waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a +gigantic gleaming serpent racing over the edge of the world straight +and surely toward the ship. + +Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey. To +me from him pulsed a thrill of horror--but horror tinged with an +unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away--leaving me +trembling with its shock of bitter sweet. + +He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes. The moon path swept +closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it +the ship fled--almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and +straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream. + +"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer +and an invocation they were. + +And then, for the first time--I saw--_it_! + +The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness. +It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn +aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to +let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the +black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a +road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the +shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight. + +Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I +sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as +a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us--an +opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged +creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of +the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--the Akla bird +whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living +opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white +stars--but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of +unbelievers. + +Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent +tinklings--like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear; diamonds +melting into sounds! + +Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path; close up to the +barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of +the moon stream. Now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against +the bars of its cage. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls +of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd, +unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and +glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the +rays that bathed it. + +Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and ever +thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. Within +the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light--veined, +opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the +plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing +lights. + +Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of +the--_thing_--these lights held firm and steady. They were seven--like +seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate +nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in +the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly +amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish +leap beneath the moon. + +The tinkling music was louder still. It pierced the ears with a +shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly--and checked +it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and +gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow! + +Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes. It was +articulate--but as though from something utterly foreign to this +world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labour into +the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from +it irresistibly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with +irresistible eagerness. + +Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck, straight toward the +vision, now but a few yards away from the stern. His face had lost all +human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy--there they were side +by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending +into a look that none of God's creatures should wear--and deep, deep +as his soul! A devil and a God dwelling harmoniously side by side! So +must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and +contemplating hell, have appeared. + +And then--swiftly the moon path faded! The clouds swept over the sky +as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a +roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with +it--blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased +abruptly--leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt thunder +clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness! + +Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on the very verge +of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades says lurks the fisher of +the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance. + +Throckmartin passed an arm around me. + +"It is as I thought," he said. In his voice was a new note; the calm +certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. "Now I +know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have +seen I can tell you"--he hesitated--"what it was you saw," he ended. + +As we passed through the door we met the ship's first officer. +Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality. + +"Going to have much of a storm?" he asked. + +"Yes," said the mate. "Probably all the way to Melbourne." + +Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the +officer's sleeve eagerly. + +"You mean at least cloudy weather--for"--he hesitated--"for the next +three nights, say?" + +"And for three more," replied the mate. + +"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief +and hope as was in his voice. + +The sailor stood amazed. "Thank God?" he repeated. "Thank--what d'ye +mean?" + +But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin. I started to follow. +The first officer stopped me. + +"Your friend," he said, "is he ill?" + +"The sea!" I answered hurriedly. "He's not used to it. I am going to +look after him." + +Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but I hurried on. +For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed--but with a sickness +the ship's doctor nor any other could heal. + + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"Dead! All Dead!" + + +He was sitting, face in hands, on the side of his berth as I entered. +He had taken off his coat. + +"Throck," I cried. "What was it? What are you flying from, man? +Where is your wife--and Stanton?" + +"Dead!" he replied monotonously. "Dead! All dead!" Then as I +recoiled from him--"All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora--dead--or worse. +And Edith in the Moon Pool--with them--drawn by what you saw on the +moon path--that has put its brand upon me--and follows me!" + +He ripped open his shirt. + +"Look at this," he said. Around his chest, above his heart, the skin +was white as pearl. This whiteness was sharply defined against the +healthy tint of the body. It circled him with an even cincture about +two inches wide. + +"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette. I drew back. He +gestured--peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette +into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odour +of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the +whiteness. + +"Feel it!" he commanded again. I placed my fingers upon the band. It +was cold--like frozen marble. + +He drew his shirt around him. + +"Two things you have seen," he said. "_It_--and its mark. Seeing, +you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is +dead--or worse--I do not know; the prey of--what you saw; so, too, is +Stanton; so Thora. How--" + +Tears rolled down the seared face. + +"Why did God let it conquer us? Why did He let it take my Edith?" he +cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you +think, Walter?" + +I hesitated. + +"Are there? Are there?" His wild eyes searched me. + +"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my +astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working +through science--" + +He waved me aside impatiently. + +"Science," he said. "What is our science against--that? Or against +the science of whatever devils that made it--or made the way for it to +enter this world of ours?" + +With an effort he regained control. + +"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines; +the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of +Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there? +Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?" + +"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs," I said. "They +call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?" + +"Look at this map," said Throckmartin. "That," he went on, "is +Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-Matal. Do you see +the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?" + +"Yes," I said. + +"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool and the seven +gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the Pool, and the altar and +shrine of the Dweller. And there in the Moon Pool with it lie Edith +and Stanton and Thora." + +"The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-incredulously. + +"The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly. + +A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to +roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of +relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its +blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he +was entirely calm. + +"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he began almost +casually. "They take in some fifty islets and cover with their +intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built +them? None knows. When were they built? Ages before the memory of +present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred +thousand years ago--the last more likely. + +"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are frowning +seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands +of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of +those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals +that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are +time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense +courtyards strewn with ruins--and all so old that they seem to wither +the eyes of those who look on them. + +"There has been a great subsidence. You can stand out of Metalanim +harbour for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar +monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water. + +"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with +their enigmatic walls peering through the dense growths of +mangroves--dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who +live near. + +"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy +continent existed in the Pacific--a continent that was not rent +asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in +the Eastern Ocean.*1 My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones +had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are +believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me +steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were +the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to +the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the +rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the +rising waters of the Pacific. + + +*1 For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens, +Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erdkunde +Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage zur +Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade +Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).--W. T. G. + + + +"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence +that I sought. + +"My--my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this +our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition. +Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last +May for fulfilment of my dreams. + +"At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help +us--diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could +get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They +people their swamps, their forests, their mountains, and shores, with +malignant spirits--ani they call them. And they are afraid--bitterly +afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do +not wonder--now! + +"When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected +to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I +thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be +allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. Would to God +we had heeded them and gone too!" + +"We passed into Metalanim harbour. Off to our left--a mile away arose +a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and +hundreds of feet on each side. As we drew by, our natives grew very +silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that +are called Nan-Tauach, the 'place of frowning walls.' And at the +silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place; +of how he had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal +enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and +labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from +behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,' and of how, when he had +turned 'into its ghostly shadows, straight-way the merriment of guides +was hushed and conversation died down to whispers.'" + +He was silent for a little time. + +"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on again +quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were +panic-stricken--threatened to turn back. 'No,' they said, 'too great +ani there. We go to any other place--but not there.' + +"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau. It was +close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy +our men. There was an excellent camping-place and a spring of fresh +water. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in +full swing." + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Moon Rock + + +"I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "the +results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later--if I am +allowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that +at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of my +theories. + +"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with +any touch of morbidity--that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. But +Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood +ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland--some of them so +strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits +of mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. From +the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be +called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts +and warlocks. + +"I laughed at her then-- + +"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives +came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He +reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the +morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had +begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and +solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach +during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go. + +"No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend +the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the +group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on +the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the +breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in +readiness for the return of our men the next day. + +"We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots. +It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me. + +"'Listen!' she said. 'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!' + +"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up +from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died +down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence. + +"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said. 'We're probably +over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.' + +"'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully. We +listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another +sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and +Nan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music--of a sort; I won't +describe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it--" + +"You mean on the deck?" I asked. Throckmartin nodded. + +"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out. +As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight, +looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him. + +"'That's the queerest sound!' he said. He listened again. +'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells +of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he added +half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the +sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of +lights. Stanton laughed. + +"'The beggars!' he exclaimed. 'That's why they wanted to get away, is +it? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival--rites of some +kind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were so +eager to have us _keep_ away, too.' + +"The explanation seemed good. I felt a curious sense of relief, +although I had not been sensible of any oppression. + +"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not. + +"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said. 'If we break into one of +their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's +keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.' + +"'That's so,' agreed Stanton. + +"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell-- + +"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edith +at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They +frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as +though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.' + +"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton. + +"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the +moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall, +deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had +slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin. + +"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring. She thrust her +head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she +listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to +the moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it from +remote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice +she repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned to +us. + +"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances. 'Go +from here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointed +to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It +beckons--the--the--" + +"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the +tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph. + +"We watched beside her throughout the night. The sounds from +Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the +morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad +dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except that +they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout +the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly, +half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle. + +"That afternoon the natives returned. And that night on Nan-Tauach +the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life. + +"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related +would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of +course, any explanation admitting the supernatural. + +"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted +for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain +musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect +upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the +reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's +nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a +condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily +explain her part in the night's scene. + +"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between +Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them during +their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we +would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during +the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp, +leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing +from some safe hiding-place what might occur. + +"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward +the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany +them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was +that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least +that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was +thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant. + +"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we +took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty +sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its +gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged +pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a +vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre of +the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of +basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure. + +"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what +follows--and--and--" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to return +with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to my +description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles. +The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn and +squared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in the +sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach +and the islet named Tau. The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense +thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The steps +lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the +courtyard. + +"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular, +following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer +barricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originally +it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts. +The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and its +height varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual +sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall. + +"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure. Its terrace, of the +same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is +gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework. +This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great +central vault with which is associated the one name of living being +that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it +was the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long +'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for +sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.' +It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific +continent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the +name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh. + +"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides +the Moon Pool. + +"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock. We had been inspecting +the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch. +I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part +of the terrace studying it wonderingly. + +"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed to +the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen +feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite +nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I +realized that its colour was subtly different--tinged with grey and of +a smooth, peculiar--deadness. + +"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said. I touched it and +withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my arm +tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it. +It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force--the phrase I +have used--frozen electricity--describes it better than anything else. +Stanton looked at me oddly. + +"'So you felt it too,' he said. 'I was wondering whether I was +developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the +blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.' + +"We examined the slab eagerly. Its edges were cut as though by an +engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks in +almost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted as +closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And +then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line +of the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression running +from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rock +stood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering half. +Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it. +Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like all +the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn--this was as +smooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of the +polisher. + +"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton. 'It swings around in that little +cup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.' + +"'Maybe you're right,' I replied. 'But how the devil can we open it?' + +"We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges, thrusting +against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look +up--and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of the +grey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angle +at which my gaze struck it. + +"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went. The +bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the +stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back +sharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same +shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The +impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went +carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran +through my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curved +place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have +described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactly +the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots +singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to +the slab itself. + +"'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively. + +"'Why do you say that?' I asked. + +"'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly. 'But something tells me +so. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purely +scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The +scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either +down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do +nothing of the sort and get away while I can!' + +"He laughed again--shamefacedly. + +"'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his tone the +human side of him was ascendant. + +"'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,' I said. + +"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added +soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same +feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out +of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious +lip. We turned away--uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach +on the terrace. + +"'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped. Her eyes went +past me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiff +steps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon its +breast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream as +though her very soul were being drawn from her--and watched her fall +at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I +had observed when first we heard the crystal music of Nan-Tauach +--that unhuman mingling of opposites!" + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The First Vanishings + + +"We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her +what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as +we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes. + +"'I would like to see the stone,' she said. 'Charles, you stay here +with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently--and stood +before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had; thrust +it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be +listening. Then she turned to me. + +"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt +me--'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from +here--without trying to find out any more about it--would you?' + +"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to +learn what that rock concealed. Nevertheless, I tried to master my +desire, and I answered--'Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.' + +"She read my struggle in my eyes. She turned back toward the grey +rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and +pity! + +"'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!' + +"She looked at me again. 'Science is a jealous mistress,' she quoted. +'No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can't run away. +No! But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!' + +"And there was no changing her decision. As we neared the others she +laid a hand on my arm. + +"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something--well--inexplicable +tonight--something that seems--too dangerous--will you promise to go +back to our own islet tomorrow, if we can--and wait until the natives +return?' + +"I promised eagerly--the desire to stay and see what came with the +night was like a fire within me. + +"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading +into the outer court. + +"The spot we had selected was well hidden. We could not be seen, and +yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the gateway. We settled down +just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the +giant steps; next me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton. + +"Night fell. After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we +knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped +over the sea; swam into full sight. I glanced at Edith and then at +Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we +had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face. + +"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped down on me a +great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to seep from the rays and fall upon my +eyes, closing them--closing them inexorably. Edith's hand in mine +relaxed. Stanton's head fell upon his breast and his body swayed +drunkenly. I tried to rise--to fight against the profound desire for +slumber that pressed on me. + +"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listening; and +turned toward the gateway. There was infinite despair in her face--and +expectancy. I tried again to rise--and a surge of sleep rushed over +me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised +my lids once more with a supreme effort. + +"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the stairs. + +"Sleep took me for its very own--swept me into the heart of oblivion! + +"Dawn was breaking when I wakened. Recollection rushed back; I thrust +a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and my heart gave +a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes. +Stanton lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms. + +"Edith looked at me laughingly. 'Heavens! What sleep!' she said. +Memory came to her. + +"'What happened?' she whispered. 'What made us sleep like that?' + +"Stanton awoke. + +"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed. 'You look as though you've been +seeing ghosts.' + +"Edith caught my hands. + +"'Where's Thora?' she cried. Before I could answer she had run out +into the open, calling. + +"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'together we went +to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up +fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I +had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the +stairs, through the court and to the grey rock. + +"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there +trace of its having opened. No trace? Even as I thought this Edith +dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at +its foot. It was a little piece of gay silk. I knew it for part of the +kerchief Thora wore about her hair. She lifted the fragment. It had +been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; a few threads +ran from it--down toward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of +the grey rock and--under it! + +"The grey rock was a door! And it had opened and Thora had passed +through it! + +"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane. +We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks. At +last reason came back to us. + +"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to +force entrance through the slab. The rock resisted our drills. We +tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock. They made +not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of +course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings. + +"Afternoon found us hopeless. Night was coming on and we would have +to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But +Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached +there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us +that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two +choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return +try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach. But this would mean +the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it +would have been too cowardly. + +"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait +for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie +through it for Thora before it could close again. + +"Our path lay clear before us. We had to spend that night on +Nan-Tauach! + +"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully. If our +theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disappearance were linked with +secret religious rites of the natives, the logical inference was that +the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as +well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of +such things. Or the sleep might have been simply a coincidence and +produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes +which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other +manifestations. We made some rough and ready but effective +respirators. + +"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons. Edith was an excellent shot +with both rifle and pistol. We had decided that my wife was to remain +in the hiding-place. Stanton would take up a station on the far side +of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near +Edith. The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her, +and I could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked +down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. From our respective +stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance. His +position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard. + +"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon. Stanton and I took our +places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a +moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea. + +"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner +terrace. Stanton straightened up and stared intently through the +gateway, rifle ready. + +"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously. He waved a +silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through +me. She lay upon her side. Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth +covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon. She was +again in deepest sleep! + +"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the +steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened. It +seemed to be--curdled--there; and through it ran little gleams and +veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was +not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping +of all will to move. I tried to cry out to Stanton. I had not even the +will to move my lips. Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes! + +"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision. I watched him leap up +the steps and move toward the gateway. The curdled radiance seemed to +await him. He stepped into it--and was lost to my sight. + +"For a dozen heart beats there was silence. Then a rain of tinklings +that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny +fingers of ice--and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the +courtyard--a great cry--a scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable +and horror unimaginable! And once more there was silence. I strove to +burst the bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed. +Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned. + +"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable! The crystalline music +swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt +portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet +above, shattered, ruined portals--unclimbable. From this gateway an +intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked +Stanton. + +"Stanton! But--God! What a vision!" + +A deep tremor shook him. I waited--waited. + + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Into the Moon Pool + + +"Goodwin," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a +thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light; +overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in +radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating +spirals. + +"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living man, +and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though it had been +remoulded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together +and in harmony. You have seen that seal upon my own. But you have +never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide +open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven! + +"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a +core--something shiftingly human shaped--that dissolved and changed, +gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as +its shining nucleus passed through him Stanton's whole body pulsed +radiance. As the luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and +serene always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little +moons. + +"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted--levitated--up the unscalable wall +and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music +grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now +from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes. + +"I have said my gaze was fixed. It was. But from the side, +peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer +enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon +drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was--on +the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling +jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced +face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had +passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light, +the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the +moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them. + +"At last the moon neared the horizon. There came a louder burst of +sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his +first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then--utter +silence! + +"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power +to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them, +through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed--as I +knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it +as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting? + +"I ran back to Edith. At my touch she wakened; looked at me +wanderingly; raised herself on a hand. + +"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair on my +face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's +Charles?' + +"I lighted a fire before I spoke. Then I told her. And for the +balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each +other--like two frightened children." + +Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly. + +"Walter, old friend!" he cried. "Don't look at me as though I were +mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait--" I comforted him as well as I +could. After a little time he took up his story. + +"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning. A +soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon +I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they +had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its +base was--nothing. Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet +of Stanton--not a trace. + +"What were we to do? Precisely the same arguments that had kept us +there the night before held good now--and doubly good. We could not +abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope +of finding them--and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I +loved my wife,--how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me +as deeply. + +"'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded. 'Beloved, let it take +me.' + +"I wept, Walter. We both wept. + +"'We will meet it together,' she said. And it was thus at last that +we arranged it." + +"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I interrupted. He +looked at me eagerly. + +"You do believe then?" he exclaimed. + +"I believe," I said. He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly +crushed it. + +"Now," he told me. "I do not fear. If I--fail, you will follow with +help?" + +I promised. + +"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to bear all our +power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered +minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting +began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed +between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner +terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night +before. At least ten minutes had intervened between the first +heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the +courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the +first burst of the crystal notes. Indeed, more than half an hour must +have elapsed, I calculated, between the moment the moon showed above +the horizon and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings. + +"'Edith!' I cried. 'I think I have it! The grey rock opens five +minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that +comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it +must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but +to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the +inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide +yourself where you can command the opening--if the slab does open. The +instant it opens I will enter. It's our best chance, Edith. I think +it's our only one.' + +"My wife demurred strongly. She wanted to go with me. But I convinced +her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to +help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the +rock. + +"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court. I +took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a +broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so +that it would cover the opening. + +"The minutes crept by. The darkness lessened and through the breaches +of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first +pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became +unbearably--expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half, +then swam up into full sight like a great bubble. + +"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the +convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out. +They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone. The gigantic slab +before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed +over its surface and then--it turned as though on a pivot, sighing +softly as it moved! + +"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel +stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance. +Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the +walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward. + +"The passage ended. Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to +open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating, +many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed +through the arch and stopped in sheer awe! + +"In front of me was a pool. It was circular, perhaps twenty feet +wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery +stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was +like a great blue eye staring upward. + +"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance. They poured down upon the +blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of +light rising from a sapphire floor. + +"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's green; a +third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a +shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten +silver. Such are the colours of the seven lights that stream upon the +Moon Pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the +depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to +melt into it. The Pool drank them? + +"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart, +sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I +sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of a radiant body slowly rising. + +"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source. Far +above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays +poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven +moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour +increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from +them. + +"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool. It had grown milky, +opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was +alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the +luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer! + +"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface. It drifted within the +embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed +to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy +spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them, +gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and +fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now +other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung +poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into +each other. + +"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the +Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing +stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it; +drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool. +Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far +depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing +swirls and tendrils-- + +"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which +had taken Thora--the thing I had come to find! + +"My brain sprang into action. My hand threw up the pistol and I fired +shot after shot into the shining core. + +"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again. I slipped a second +clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim +at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force +that shaped this Dweller in the Pool--from the pouring rays came its +strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired +again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes +in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was +all. + +"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of +glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pitch higher, all their +sweetness lost, angry. + +"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral. + +"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed +through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered +with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in +it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of +good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand. + +"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light +grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and +strengthened. Its shining core had shape--but a shape that my eyes and +brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere +should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to +conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither +man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its +human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror +held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something +untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the +soul? I have never believed--and yet-- + +"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven +little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it +rested. I knew now that the Dweller was--complete! + +"I heard a scream. It was Edith's voice. It came to me that she had +heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into +a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and +it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell. + +"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and straight into it +raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God! + +"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered. "It +wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth +jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had +with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face--the look! + +"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool. She +tottered; she fell--with the radiance still holding her, still +swirling and winding around and through her--into the Moon Pool! She +sank, and with her went--the Dweller! + +"I dragged myself to the brink. Far down was a shining, many-coloured +nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face, +disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and she vanished! + +"'Edith!' I cried again. 'Edith, come back to me!' + +"And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through +the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left +me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged +from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in +which I came to Port Moresby. + +"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his +berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story +had been too much for him. He slept like the dead. + +All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room +to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted. + +The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at +lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness. + +"Come to my cabin," he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him. +"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he +said. + +"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne +safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all +sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are. +There is something outside experience there--some great mystery." + +And all that day he talked to me of his plans. + +"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said. "My theory is +that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of +moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little +circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When +the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab, +just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious +arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the +full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We +will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon +these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we +will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption +from--from--what emanates. + +"Look, here on the chart are their locations. I have made this in +duplicate for you in the event--of something happening--to me. And if +I lose--you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help--won't you?" + +And again I promised. + +A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness. + +"But it's just weariness," he said. "Not at all like that other +drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at last. +"Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before." + +He lay upon the berth. I sat thinking. I came to myself with a +guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation. +What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It +was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I +strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder. + +"Up, quick, man!" I cried. He rose sleepily. His shirt fell open at +the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his +chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little +flecks of light were in it. + +Throckmartin seemed only half-awake. He looked down at his breast, +saw the glowing cincture, and smiled. + +"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming--to take me back to Edith! +Well, I'm glad." + +"Throckmartin!" I cried. "Wake up! Fight!" + +"Fight!" he said. "No use; come after us!" + +He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon +traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the +band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little +rays; seemed to writhe. + +The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship, +for I heard shoutings above. + +Throckmartin still stood at the open port. Over his shoulder I saw a +gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the +window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it, +clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and +from him. The cabin filled with murmurings-- + +A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness. When +consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly. + +But of Throckmartin there was no trace! + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"The Shining Devil Took Them!" + + +My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my +narrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I +must offer here, briefly as I can, an explanation; a defense--if you +will. + +My first act was to spring to the open port. The coma had lasted +hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to +sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open. +Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered +then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With +memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he +had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on the ship. + +And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the key, a thought +came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me rigid. I +could sound no alarm on the Southern Queen for Throckmartin! + +Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete. The ensemble of +the vessel from captain to cabin boy was, to put it conservatively, +average. None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first +apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not +know, nor could I risk speaking, not knowing. And not seeing, how +could they believe? They would have thought me insane--or worse; +even, it might be, his murderer. + +I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the door with +infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own stateroom. The hours +until the dawn were eternities of waking nightmare. Reason, resuming +sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where +in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin? +Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby. And even if +he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-Matal without the +equipment which Throckmartin himself had decided was necessary if one +hoped to cope with the mystery that lurked there? + +There was but one thing to do--follow his instructions; get the +paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail +to America as swiftly as might be, secure it there and as swiftly +return to Ponape. And this I determined to do. + +Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision. And when I +went up on deck I knew that I had been right. They had not seen the +Dweller. They were still discussing the darkening of the ship, talking +of dynamos burned out, wires short circuited, a half dozen +explanations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's +absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in +the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It +occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should +it have? His strangeness had been noted, commented upon; all who had +met him had thought him half mad. I did little to discourage the +impression. And so it came naturally that on the log it was entered +that he had fallen or leaped from the vessel some time during the +night. + +A report to this effect was made when we entered Melbourne. I slipped +quietly ashore and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's +supposed fate won only a few lines in the newspapers; my own presence +on the ship and in the city passed unnoticed. + +I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I needed except a +set of Becquerel ray condensers--but these were the very keystone of +my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in +finding a firm who were expecting these very articles in a consignment +due them from the States within a fortnight. I settled down in +strictest seclusion to await their arrival. + +And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable, during this +period of waiting, to the Association; demand aid from it. Or why I +did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne +or Sydney for assistance. At the least, why I did not gather, as +Throckmartin had hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with +me to the Nan-Matal. + +To the first two questions I answer frankly--I did not dare. And this +reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his scientific +reputation will understand. The story of Throckmartin, the happenings +I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts +of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps +ridicule--nay, perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to +seal my lips while on the ship. Why I myself could only half believe! +How then could I hope to convince others? + +And as for the third question--I could not take men into the range of +such a peril without first warning them of what they might encounter; +and if I did warn them-- + +It was checkmate! If it also was cowardice--well, I have atoned for +it. But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear. + +That fortnight and the greater part of another passed before the ship +I awaited steamed into port. By that time, between my straining +anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every +moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager +desire to know whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path +did exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the edge of +madness. + +At last the condensers were in my hands. It was more than a week +later, however, before I could secure passage back to Port Moresby and +it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a +swift little sloop with a fifty-horsepower auxiliary, heading straight +for Ponape and the Nan-Matal. + +We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south of the +Carolines. The wind had fallen soon after Papua had dropped astern. +The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve knots an hour without it had +made me very fully forgive her for not being as fragrant as the Javan +flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a +garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of +long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a +half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowledge of power +plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had reason to believe, had +transferred all his religious impulses to the American built deity of +mechanism he so faithfully served. The crew was made up of six huge, +chattering Tonga boys. + +The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to the protection of +the Bismarcks. She had threaded the maze of the archipelago +tranquilly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of +open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed +straight toward Nukuor of the Monte Verdes. After we had rounded +Nukuor we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than +sixty hours. + +It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched +behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The +slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands +and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next +broad, upward slope. There was a spell of peace over the ocean, +stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel, +slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop. + +There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily +over the bow. + +"Sail he b'long port side!" + +Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel +was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the +sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the +Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she +carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read +her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man +at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with equal +abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on +it I read Brunhilda. + +I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel. He was crouching down over +the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked +the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman +straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk. + +He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious +of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to +me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a +weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no +other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently +and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant +half mile. + +"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious +English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the +Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say--Norwegian. He +is eithair veree sick or veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where +is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone--" + +He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze +failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now +nearly abreast and a scant hundred yards away. The engine of the +Suwarna died and the Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats. + +"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa. "What's a matter wit' +you?" + +The man at the wheel turned toward us. He was a giant; his shoulders +enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered +like a viking of old at the rudder bar of his shark ship. + +I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have +I seen a visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping +misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson! + +The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars. +The little captain was dropping into it. + +"Wait!" I cried. I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical +kit and climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars. +We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling +from the stays and swung ourselves on board. Da Costa approached +Huldricksson softly. + +"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began--and then was silent, looking down +at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes +by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the +thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the +outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop, +at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters +to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson aimed a vicious +kick at me and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese +tumbling into the scuppers. + +"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as +though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and +his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!" + +The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife +in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped. +Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into +his belt they softened with pity. + +"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he +crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not +speak--he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And +all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and +rigid on the wheel, dropped blood. + +"I go below," said Da Costa nervously. "His wife, his daughter--" he +darted down the companionway and was gone. + +Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel. + +Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps. + +"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody--nowhere!" His +hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not +understan'." + +Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran +through me, checking my heart. + +"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the +sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The +sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!" + +He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks. Da Costa moved toward him +again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his +bloodshot eyes. + +I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine. I drew +Da Costa to me. + +"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over +toward the wheel. + +"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said. + +Huldricksson turned his head toward him. "The shining devil took +them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark--" + +A yell broke from him. I had thrust the needle into his arm just +above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He +struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The +morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his +face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once, +twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and +still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck. + +With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done. +We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body +over the side into the dory. Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da +Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese. +They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and +then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a +long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we resumed the way so +enigmatically interrupted. + +I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged +the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic. + +Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned. His unease was +manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety. + +"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked. I shrugged my shoulders. +"You think he killed his woman and his babee?" He went on. "You think +he crazee and killed all?" + +"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered. "You saw the boat was gone. Most +probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you +saw. They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll +remember." + +"No," he said. "No. The crew did not. Nobody there on board when +Olaf was tied." + +"What!" I cried, startled. "What do you mean?" + +"I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!" + +"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent. "Wait, I show +you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw +that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson. They +were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully +spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather +ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched +one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the +bunk. Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the +jaws shut on it. It was true. Those marks were where Olaf +Huldricksson's jaws had gripped. + +"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and +rested his hands on the supports of a chair back. Rapidly he twisted +one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the +cord up toward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with +them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar +knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had +been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da +Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with +a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he +drew tight the second. + +He strained at his fetters. There before my eyes he had pinioned +himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was +exactly as Huldricksson had been! + +"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said. "I cannot move them. +It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man +stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that +if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair." + +I looked from him to the man on the bed. + +"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his +hands?" + +I looked at him, uneasily. + +"I don't know," I answered. "Do you?" + +He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously +crossed himself. + +"No," he replied. "I know nothing. Some things I have heard--but +they tell many tales on these seas." + +He started for the door. Before he reached it he turned. "But this I +do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon +tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement. +What did the Portuguese know? + +I bent over the sleeper. On his face was no trace of that unholy +mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims. + +And yet--what was it the Norseman had said? + +"The sparkling devil took them!" Nay, he had been even more +explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!" + +Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing +down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had +drawn Throckmartin? + +As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a +shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt, +violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed +Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck. + +The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from +the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes. + +A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen. The +sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge +of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly +until it touched the sea rim. + +I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again. For over its +flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic +beckoning finger! + +Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna straight toward +the descending orb and its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it +was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing +of canvas, sticking up and swaying with the motion of the waves. On +the highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a +cigarette. + +We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with myself as coxswain +pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane. Its occupant took a long puff +at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just +as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took the +wreckage, tossed it high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When we +had steadied our boat, where wreck and man had been was--nothing. + +There came a tug at the side--, two muscular brown hands gripped it +close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head showed its top between +them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing +deviltry looked into mine, and a long, lithe body drew itself gently +over the thwart and seated its dripping self at my feet. + +"Much obliged," said this man from the sea. "I knew somebody was sure +to come along when the O'Keefe banshee didn't show up." + +"The what?" I asked in amazement. + +"The O'Keefe banshee--I'm Larry O'Keefe. It's a far way from Ireland, +but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee to travel if the O'Keefe was +going to click in." + +I looked again at my astonishing rescue. He seemed perfectly serious. + +"Have you a cigarette? Mine went out," he said with a grin, as he +reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder, took it, lighted it. + +I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was softened by the +wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty that lay side by +side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a +thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender +figure that I knew must have all the strength of fine steel; the +uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy. + +He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine. + +"Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said. + +I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning--but I did not dream as the +Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be +forged into man's strong love for man by fires which souls such as his +and mine--and yours who read this--could never dream. + +Larry! Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and +banshee, your heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your +fearless soul? Shall I ever see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me +as some best beloved younger brother? Larry! + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Larry O'Keefe + + +Pressing back the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself. +Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had +bought, it appeared, my volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose +habitat is disintegrating lava rock and volcanic ash, that I had +entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the +Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up, thinking +it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in fact--something +like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly. + +He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of +the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached +the deck. + +"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the +bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of +his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it +off as excess baggage. And by the way, about where are we?" + +Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning. + +O'Keefe whistled. "A good three hundred miles from where I left the +H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in +on was some whizzer! + +"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked +uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy +ride and went up for an alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out +of nowhere, picked me up, and insisted that I go with it. + +"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it, +I turned, and _blick_ went my right wing, and down I dropped." + +"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I +said. "We have no wireless." + +"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course, +sair--perhaps--" + +"Thanks--but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe. "Lord alone knows +where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for +me. Anyway, she's just as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe +we'll strike something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me +aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked. + +"For Ponape," I answered. + +"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe. "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago +for fruit. Natives seemed scared to death at us--or something. What +are you going there for?" + +Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me. It troubled me. + +O'Keefe noted my hesitation. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said. "Maybe I oughn't to have asked +that?" + +"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied. "I'm about to undertake some +exploration work--a little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal." + +I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor +crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the +cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the north. I made up my mind +then to question him when opportunity came. He turned from his quick +scrutiny of the sea and addressed O'Keefe. + +"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant." + +"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain," said O'Keefe +and followed him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two disappeared into +Da Costa's cabin I softly opened the door of my own and listened. +Huldricksson was breathing deeply and regularly. + +I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my face, looked +at him. His sleep was changing from the heavy stupor of the drug into +one that was at least on the borderland of the normal. The tongue had +lost its arid blackness and the mouth secretions had resumed action. +Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck. + +O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton sheet he had +wrapped about him. A deck table had been cleated down and one of the +Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very creditable +larder of the Suwarna dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I +attacked it. The night had grown close and oppressive. Behind us the +forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp threw up a +faint glow in which her black helmsman's face stood out mistily. +O'Keefe had looked curiously a number of times at our tow, but had +asked no questions. + +"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I told him. "We +found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his wheel, nearly dead with +exhaustion, and his boat deserted by everyone except himself." + +"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment. + +"We don't know," I answered. "He fought us, and I had to drug him +before we could get him loose from his lashings. He's sleeping down in +my berth now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board, +the captain here says, but--they weren't." + +"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe. + +"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel +and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I +replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a +time--it's hopeless." + +"That's true," said O'Keefe. "But his wife and baby! Poor, poor +devil!" + +He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell +us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had +won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at +Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the +war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and +restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it +ever since. + +"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land +with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their +Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love, +love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if +it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if +you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he. + +I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily +increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path +of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We +sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so +well. + +Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I +drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through +a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves +and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna +tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The +glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now +black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night. + +"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly. + +"Why?" he laughed. + +"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would +suppose you Irish--but your command of pure Americanese makes me +doubtful." + +He grinned amiably. + +"I'll tell you how that is," he said. "My mother was an American--a +Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these +two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish +and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to +the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But +after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And +there you are--I'm as much American as I am Irish. + +"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue. +But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk, +and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as +well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at +Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of +times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and +never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and +earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me--Larry +O'Keefe." + +"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the +banshee," I laughed. + +"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his +voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an +O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning. +An' twice have I heard the banshee calling--once it was when my +younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried +out on the ebb tide." + +He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a +girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through +Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the +Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh +the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping +of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings--" + +He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high +voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang: + + Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh; + Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan, + Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft, + Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Olaf's Story + + +There was a little silence. I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he +was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious +one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and +beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and +touched. + +Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities +open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of +service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of +most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to +his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom +harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller +and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him +an easy prey. + +He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes; +turned to me and grinned: + +"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said. "I'm not. But it takes +me that way now and then. It's the Irish in me. And, believe it or +not, I'm telling you the truth." + +I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was +mounting. + +"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed. "But +you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a +disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any +other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?" + +O'Keefe looked at me seriously. + +"All right," he said. "I'll show you." From deep down in his throat +came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening +whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and +gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair--for from +behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail +that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of +centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and +died away! O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet. + +"It's all right, Professor," he said. "It's for me. It found me--all +this way from Ireland." + +Again the silence was rent by the cry. But now I had located it. It +came from my room, and it could mean only one thing--Huldricksson had +wakened. + +"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin. + +Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief +flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted +an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his +hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on +the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were +within--what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its +power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought +essential to draw it from the blue pool! + +From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed +me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an +automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to +side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he +straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with +wondering pity. + +Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon +Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and +rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden +wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the +lights. + +The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut. His +gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I +had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair +almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him. +Da Costa shrunk behind me. O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step +that brought him in front of me. + +"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the +growl of a beast. "Where is my boat?" + +I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant. + +"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said. "We take you to where the +sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the +sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke +slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled +around the strained brain. And the words did pierce. + +He thrust out a shaking hand. + +"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly. "You know where to +follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?" + +"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered. "Just that! I pledge you +my life that I know." + +Da Costa stepped forward. "He speaks true, Olaf. You go faster on +the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes." + +The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him. "I know +you, Da Costa," he muttered. "You are all right. Ja! You are a fair +man. Where is the Brunhilda?" + +"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Portuguese. +"Soon you see her. But now lie down an' tell us, if you can, why you +tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is that happen, Olaf." + +"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all +when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said. + +On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt +and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his +own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in +his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said. +"Ja--strong, and with a strong heart. A man--ja! He comes too--we +shall need him--ja!" + +"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk. +"It was four nights ago. My Freda"--his voice shook--"Mine Yndling! +She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma +they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like +a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja. + +"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the track of the +moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her +Yndling dreams. I was happy--that night--with my Helma and my Freda, +and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say, +'The nisse comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a +great scream--like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun +around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw--" He +covered his eyes with his hands. + +The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a +frightened dog. + +"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf +Huldricksson. "It whirled round and round, and it shone like--like +stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded +like bells--little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run +your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy--the hell noise. + +"My Helma was--indeholde--what you say--in the middle of the white +fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my +Helma's face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it +was full of happiness--of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my +Helma's face made me ice here"--he beat his breast with clenched +hand--"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire. And I could +not move--I could not move. + +"I said in here"--he touched his head--"I said, 'It is Loki come out +of Helvede. But he cannot take my Helma, for Christ lives and Loki has +no power to hurt my Helma or my Freda! Christ lives! Christ lives!' I +said. But the sparkling devil did not let my Helma go. It drew her to +the rail; half over it. I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she +broke away and reached to it. And my Freda jumped into her arms. And +the fire wrapped them both and they were gone! A little I saw them +whirling on the moon track behind the Brunhilda--and they were gone! + +"The sparkling devil took them! Loki was loosed, and he had power. I +turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where my Helma and mine Yndling +had gone. My boys crept up and asked me to turn again. But I would +not. They dropped a boat and left me. I steered straight on the path. +I lashed my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them. I +steered on and on and on-- + +"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child were taken?" cried +Olaf Huldricksson--and it was as though I heard Throckmartin asking +that same bitter question. "I have left Him as He left me, ja! I pray +now to Thor and to Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering +again his eyes. + +"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken +ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall +go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your +wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be +strong for what is before us, you must sleep again." + +Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something +which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the +Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. + +"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly. "I will do what you say!" + +He stretched out an arm at my bidding. I gave him a second injection. +He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His +face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe +stirred. + +"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said. "So well that I +almost believed you myself." + +"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked. + +His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial. + +"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy, +Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I +think?" + +I turned to the little Portuguese without answering. + +"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my +word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping +draft?" + +"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully. +"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a talk with you." + +I nodded. He did know something then! I mixed him an opiate of +considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin. + +I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping +Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few +questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me +rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each +appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the +same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool. + +"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked. + +He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson. + +"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last, +gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain--you +and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw--something. But--" +he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found +vaguely irritating--"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets +superstitious it--er--takes very hard! + +"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I +struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the +Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr. +Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller. + +"And another thing," said O'Keefe. "After this--cut out the +trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're +crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and +I'm for _you_. + +"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he +had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the captain's +importunities to use his own cabin. + +And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I +watched him go. Superstitious. I, whose pride was my scientific +devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious--and this from a man +who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and +no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe! + +Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part +promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my venture, I arranged a +couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my +vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson. + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A Lost Page of Earth + + +When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole. +Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The +song was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowing +stiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins: + + The little red lark is shaking his wings, + Straight from the breast of his love he springs + +Larry's voice soared. + + His wings and his feathers are sunrise red, + He hails the sun and his golden head, + Good morning, Doc, you are long abed. + +This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened +my door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines +silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping +in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up. + +The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind. Blue and white was +the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery +green flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us; +flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and +dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this +wide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that +somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I +was consciously free of its oppression. + +"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe. + +He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I +left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and, +giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us +looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In +his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone. + +He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?" + +I nodded. + +"It is where?" he asked again. + +"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour--to the +Nan-Matal. You know the place?" + +Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes. + +"It is there?" he asked. + +"It is there that we must first search," I answered. + +"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson. "It is good!" + +He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following +his thought, answered his unspoken question. + +"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf." + +"Good!" repeated the Norseman. He looked away, his eyes tear-filled. + +A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience when +they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they +quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at +breakfast only the most casual topics. + +When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard +the Brunhilda. + +The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat. +When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and +the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched +ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted +a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me +expectantly. + +"Well?" I asked. + +"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then +I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled +mischievously. + +"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a +scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is +an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose +serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Let +me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer, +analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my +tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or +spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers." + +O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter. + +"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped. "But if you could have seen +yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in +his eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open +world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything +such as you and Huldricksson have described." + +"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered. "And don't think I have +any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense +spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is +supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but that +doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science." + +"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said. I hesitated--for not yet +had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of +the Dweller. + +"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of +that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in +the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are +honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally +underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean +floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race +sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the +islet where Throckmartin's party met its end. + +"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed a +high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain +universal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They may +have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than +ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this +science. Larry--it may well be that this lost race is planning to +emerge again upon earth's surface!" + +"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dove +from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question. + +"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him. He shook his head. + +"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably old +tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants who +once ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before the +moon god drew the waters over it'--I quote from the legend. Not only +in Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so the +tradition runs, these people--the Chamats--will one day break through +the hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal +translation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer +who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legend +of man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing form +Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend. *1 + + +*1 William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist, +recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention +to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the +Atlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted a +persistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was +close.--W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S. + + + +"This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly operated by the +action of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and the +crystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool their +prismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they are +humanly made, and so long as it _is_ this flood of moonlight from which +the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if +not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the +product of the human mind for its appearance." + +"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe. "Do you mean to say +you think that this thing is made of--well--of moonshine?" + +"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the +rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface +are profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they lose +practically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, while +the extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are +accelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknown +element in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminous +trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar crater +Tycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays. + +"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by +the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes +something entirely different from mere modified sunlight--just as the +addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several +makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and +potentialities. + +"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysterious +activity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed in +the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor in +the formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically +improbable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist, +produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vital +by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action of +highly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light and +nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to know +how to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of the +ether we call light." + +"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you say +about this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, and +their caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll +never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle +a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted +man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--and +I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too--you'll +never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could +handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to +wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine +couldn't do that--nix!" + +"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed. +"What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?" + +"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and when +it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost, +strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesick +for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quick +before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me--an' that's the truth. + +"Now don't get me wrong. I believe you all saw something all right. +But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is +volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea. +It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that +drives you crazy--lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the +Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or +less delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over +and--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons and other +miracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something +else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he. +'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are--collective +hallucination. + +"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one by +one. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife. +She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make it +luminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like a +thousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil's +faces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you +think you hadn't seen real devils." + +For a time I was silent. + +"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I must +go to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?" + +"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will. I'm as interested as you are. +If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word at +Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report +me dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only +old man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're going +bug, honestly you are." + +And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was +so great that I forgot to be angry. + + + + + +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? + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The End of the Journey + + +"Say Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me. "I was thinking +about that frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any +difference between a frog and a snake, and one of the nicest women I +ever knew had two pet pythons that followed her around like kittens. +Not such a devilish lot of choice between a frog and a snake--except +on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that girl wants is +hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a +whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?" + +By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman were still +bothering O'Keefe. + +"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted +Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words. "What are their women +to--this?" He swept out a hand and as though at a signal the car +poised itself for an instant, then dipped, literally dipped down into +sheer space; skimmed forward in what was clearly curved flight, rose +as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly to slacken its +fearful speed. + +Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were within +it--and softly all movement ceased. How acute had been the strain of +our journey I did not realize until I tried to stand--and sank back, +leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The car rested in a slit in +the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The +wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could see +a flight of steps leading downward. + +The light streamed through a small opening, the base of which was +twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad, +low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that +there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about +this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and +flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from +that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal +differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points +like the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of +diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though +they were alive. The light cast no shadows! + +A little breeze came through the oval and played about us. It was +laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice flowers and pines. +It was curiously vivifying, and in it the diamonded atoms of light +shook and danced. + +I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend +the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and +Olaf already stood. As they looked out I saw both their faces +change--Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous amaze. I hurried +to their side. + +At first all that I could see was space--a space filled with the same +coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying +that instinctive impulse of earth folk that bids them seek within the +sky for sources of light. There was no sky--at least no sky such as we +know--all was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as +the azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens--through +it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that were like shining +shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those brilliant +arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath +its splendour; I stared outward. + +Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a +lake whose waters were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs +that the spangled radiance came, shimmering out from all their +lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as far as the eye could see, +they stretched--and they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high! + +"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry. I followed his pointing finger. On +the face of the shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns, +hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of +the spectrum. It was like a web of rainbows woven by the fingers of +the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and a little at each side +was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be +glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle +clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them +surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles. + +We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and back again +through the opening. We were standing, as I have said, at its base. +The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of +course, all that we could see of that which was without were the +distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval. + +"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry. + +He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following. +A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like +those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built +for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab +legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all +hope of finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his in +paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees, +pillared pavilions nestled. + +The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of +azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone +like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted delicately. I noted that +the pavilions were double--in a way, two-storied--and that they were +oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs +of--opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a +roof; yet it did not seem material; rather was it--impenetrable +shadow! + +Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining green +thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at regular intervals +with graceful, arched bridges. The road flashed to a wide square, +where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone that formed the lip +of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces; and along it +flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of the +Nautilus. Within them were--human figures! And upon tree-bordered +promenades on each side walked others! + +Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road. + +And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side +of that opalescent water across which were the radiant cliffs and the +curtain of mystery. + +Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and +accursed as no place on earth, or under or above earth has ever +been--or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be! + +"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff. "Incredible!" + +"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson. "It is Trolldom!" + +"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry. "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no +Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't +Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see +down there are people--_just plain people_. And wherever there's people +is where I live. Get me? + +"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said O'Keefe. +"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're +cooked--and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what +dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!" + +With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One + + +"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the +stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from +Marakinoff. + +"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter. + +"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe. "I'll tell you +frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust +you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover." + +The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold +consideration. + +"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he +mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd +observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed. + +In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we +passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into +which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in +its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The +stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The +rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one +of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers +upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber. + +A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened, +and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes, +we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The +stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set +within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet +and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the +polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its +roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light +streamed. + +"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry. "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is +waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed, +slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a +lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous +mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the +narrow triangle that was its exit. + +We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss. I +looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we +had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on +whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base +our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like +the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us. + +"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!" +laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly. + +We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced +the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the +oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed, +like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers +sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with +cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From +the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into +the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out +of them flashed the fairy shells. + +There came a shout from one. Its occupants had glimpsed us. They +pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a +runway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of +men. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high, +prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful. + +"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free +in his hand. + +But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his +men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial, +universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest +wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was +as white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us; +the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes +of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head +like that on some old Greek statue. + +Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him. +The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that +looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad +girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a +long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were +swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were +sandalled. + +My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly +disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the +wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry +that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of +the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting. + +He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to +enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were +Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient +form, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know that +the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does +_not_ that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English. +Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the +certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang. + +"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?" +said the green dwarf. + +I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us. His eyes narrowed +incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat +could not have made its way, and laughed. + +"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in +peace," I added. + +"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if the +Shining One wills it!" + +He considered us again. + +"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded. +We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway. + +"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff. + +"But I see no opening," he said suavely. + +"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time, +realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam +passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely +sounded the rock. + +"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said. "It sounds +strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us +quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can +explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a +wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly. + +"In peace?" I asked. + +"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least." + +"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry. "As long as we're here let's see the +sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The +latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe +with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and +scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the +immense biceps. + +"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself. +He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We +crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting. + +Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us +in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions +and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly, +the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at +a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the +seven-terraced tower. + +As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I +could not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell +responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a +small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our +direction. + +We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens, +and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these +were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had +been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its +slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like +the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji. + +The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great +carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked +stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside, +revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which +lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he. + +They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their +faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be +characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen. + +"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one. + +The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great +hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the +opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined +the--blackness--with lively interest. + +It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it +suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of +light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched, +involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back. + +"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador. "But I forget--you +do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever. +It--" + +He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging +out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen. +Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising +from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning +over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers +and unfamiliar fruits. + +About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a +few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery +tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose +glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose +roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue. + +"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called. + +Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass. We entered, +the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the +doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow +fill its place. + +"Come closer, strangers. Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned +voice. + +We approached. + +The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my +throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the +Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the +colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown +above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could +change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or +blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm +of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken webs +that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness +of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all +her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the +curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty, +but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself. + +The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes! But her beauty was +human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her +arms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness +hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was +Yolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil! + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Justice of Lora + + +As I looked at her the man arose and made his way round the table +toward us. For the first time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches +taller than the green dwarf, he was far broader, more filled with the +suggestion of appalling strength. + +The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down +to mighty thewed thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath +his tunic of red. Around his forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue +stones, sparkling among the thick curls of his silver-ash hair. + +Upon his face pride and ambition were written large--and power still +larger. All the mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference +that I had noted in the other dwarfish men were there, too--but +intensified, touched with the satanic. + +The woman spoke again. + +"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?" She turned to Rador. +"Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?" + +"One understands and speaks it--but very badly, O Yolara," answered +the green dwarf. + +"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded. + +But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at +the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke. + +"We came for different purposes. I to seek knowledge of a kind; +he"--pointing to me "of another. This man"--he looked at Olaf--"to +find a wife and child." + +The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with +plainly increasing interest. + +"And why did _you_ come?" she asked him. "Nay--I would have him speak +for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily. + +When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to +him, searching for the proper words. + +"I came to help these men--and because something I could not then +understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at +dawn," he answered; and even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch +of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry +had so apostrophized. + +"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she +said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone +upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya. *1 But I sense what you +mean!" + + +*1 Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the +extraordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full +moon on earth--this action, to my mind, being linked either with the +effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source +was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of +their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth--the +latter, most probably, because even when the moon must have been +clouded above, it made no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of +these shinings forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat. Ten was +sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand +was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally ten thousand years. What +we would call an hour was by them called a va. The whole time system +was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to their +remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining +factors in the vast cavern. + + + +The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him. She smiled. + +"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked +softly. "Well, we soon shall--" + +Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering. + +"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled. + +She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in +her wondrous eyes. + + + +Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know it +and time in this subterranean land--its progress there being slower. +This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of +relativity, which predicates both space and time as necessary +inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under +which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this difference, but +could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can come to +it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and +five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of +relativity the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the +subject.--W. T. G. + +"Yes, that is true," she said. "How came you here?" + +Again it was Marakinoff who answered--slowly, considering every word. + +"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities not built by +any of those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we +sought for knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a +passageway. The way led us downward to a door in yonder cliff, and +through it we came here." + +"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she. "For we are of +those who built the cities. But this gateway in the rock--where is +it?" + +"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of +it," answered Marakinoff. + +The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell +upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious anger. + +He turned to Rador. + +"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly. + +And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back +upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily down toward his pistol. + +"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One, +and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly. + +"It is the truth," I interposed. "We came down the passage. At its +end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"--the fire died from the +red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. "I rested +a hand upon these flowers, and a door opened. But when we had gone +through it and turned, behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff. The +door had vanished." + +I had taken my cue from Marakinoff. If he had eliminated the episode +of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would +be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say +nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin--something +that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from +Throckmartin himself! + +"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf. "Was it like +this, say?" + +He thrust forward a long arm. Upon the thumb of the hand was an +immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the +jewel was the symbol of the rosy walls of the Moon Chamber that had +opened to us their two portals. But cut over the vine were seven +circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones covering, +intersecting them. + +"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"--I indicated +the circles. + +The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes. + +"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered. + +It was the woman who first recovered herself. + +"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said. "When they are rested +they shall show where the rocks opened." + +I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new +intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension. What was it they +feared? Why had the symbol of the vine wrought the change? And who or +what were the Silent Ones? + +Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey. +Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the Norseman had been +absorbed in his regard of the pair; had, indeed, never taken his gaze +from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart swift glances toward +him. + +He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear +eyes--like a child watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose +danger be well knew. + +Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its +meaning. + +"Why do you look at me so?" she cried. + +An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face. + +"I do not understand," he said in English. + +I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes. He knew, as I +knew, that Olaf must have understood. But did Marakinoff? + +Apparently he did not. But why was Olaf feigning ignorance? + +"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry +haltingly. "He is crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a +something of cold fire that took his wife and babe. We found him +wandering where we were. And because he is strong we brought him with +us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than the honey of the +wild bees!" + +"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated. + +"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of +little bells," answered Larry, watching her intently. + +She looked at Lugur and laughed. + +"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said. "For he has come to the place +of his something of cold fire--and tell him that he shall join his +wife and child, in time; that I promise him." + +Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at +that moment I formed an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence; +for certainly it must have been a prodigious effort of the will, +indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to control himself. + +"What does she say?" he asked. + +Larry repeated. + +"Good!" said Olaf. "Good!" + +He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude. Lugur, who had been +scanning his bulk, drew close. He felt the giant muscles which +Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for him. + +"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his," +he laughed mockingly. "And if he bests them--for reward--his wife and +babe!" + +A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent +her supremely beautiful head. + +"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, "seem to be +men of learning. They may be useful. As for this man,"--she smiled at +Larry--"I would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated. +"What 'hon-ey of 'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in +English, and she was trying to repeat them. "As for this man, the +sailor, do as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I +have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of his!" She +laughed sweetly, sinisterly. "And now--take them, Rador--give them +food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them again." + +She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe. The Irishman bowed low over +it, raised it softly to his lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur; +but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes now all tender blue. + +"You please me," she whispered. + +And the face of Lugur grew darker. + +We turned to go. The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly +dulled. From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes far away. She +bent over it. It vibrated, and then its surface ran with little waves +of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low that I could not +distinguish the words--if words they were. + +She spoke to the red dwarf. + +"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said +slowly. "Now it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of +Lora. What say you, Lugur?" + +The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious +anticipation. + +The woman spoke again to the globe. "Bring them here!" + +And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone +rosy once more. From without there came a rustle of many feet upon the +rugs. Yolara pressed a slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of +the globe beside her. Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the +same instant the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two +sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of +pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond; before us, +flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had +entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall. + +The dwarfs advanced. Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black +hair of Rador. They separated, and from them stepped three figures--a +youth of not more than twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of +all the males we had seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged, +white-faced, a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair +dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head +was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white beard fell +like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes were +a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of +the priestess; the youth regarded her curiously. + +"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost +caressingly. "And this is your daughter and her lover?" + +The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher. + +"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining +One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. "Also +that you have called out to the three Silent Ones. Is it true?" + +"Your spies have spoken--and have you not already judged us?" The +voice of the old dwarf was bitter. + +A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl +reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the priestess's veils. + +"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said. "Why you did +them, knowing full well what your--reward--would be." + +The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed. + +"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried. +"Yours and your lover's, there"--he levelled a finger at Lugur. +"Because of the Shining One you have made evil, too, and the greater +wickedness you contemplate--you and he with the Shining One. But I +tell you that your measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin +near ended! Yea--the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will +speak." He pointed at us. "A sign are _they_--a warning--harlot!" He +spat the word. + +In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained. + +"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed. "Now ask the Silent Ones +to help you! They sit afar--but surely they will hear you." The sweet +voice was mocking. "As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining +One for forgiveness--and surely the Shining One will take them to its +bosom! As for you--you have lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the +Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness--you!" + +She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled +a small cone of tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked +from its base, and out of it darted a slender ray of intense green +light. + +It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as +light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched +her hand upon the cone, and the ray disappeared. She thrust the cone +back into her breast and leaned forward expectantly; so Lugur and so +the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy +dropped upon his knees, covering his face. + +For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had +covered him seemed to melt away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous +body. And in that body a vibration began, increasing to incredible +rapidity. It wavered before us like a reflection in a still pond +stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew--to a rhythm whose rapidity +was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes. + +The figure grew indistinct, misty. Tiny sparks in infinite numbers +leaped from it--like, I thought, the radiant shower of particles +hurled out by radium when seen under the microscope. Mistier still it +grew--there trembled before us for a moment a faintly luminous shadow +which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that +pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the +sparkling atoms were still for a moment--and shot away, joining those +dancing others. + +Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before--there was +nothing! + +O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my +scalp. + +Yolara leaned toward us. + +"You have seen," she said. Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's +pallid face. "Heed!" she whispered. She turned to the men in green, +who were laughing softly among themselves. + +"Take these two, and go!" she commanded. + +"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf. "The justice of Lora and +the Shining One under Thanaroa!" + +Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently. +The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting +that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and +there was amazement upon his face. + +Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it. + +"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of +wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too." + +The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded. + +"As you will, Lugur," she said. + +And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden into the +full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny sparkling +diamond points that shook about us had once been men like Songar of +the Lower Waters--and felt my very soul grow sick! + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +The Angry, Whispering Globe + + +Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly +radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred +with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from +the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their +threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously +flamboyant. + +The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens and pinks upon +a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of +the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents. A smaller +pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open. + +Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within. +The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of +grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains. The low table of blue +stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked +by the cushioned divans. + +At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had +seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe +similar to the whispering one. Rador pressed upon its base, and two +other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the +room. + +He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through +them. Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in +ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of +forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and +purity--they were singularly attractive. Each was clad in an extremely +scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled above a kirtle that came barely +to their very pretty knees. + +"Food and drink," ordered Rador. + +They dropped back through the curtains. + +"Do you like them?" he asked us. + +"Some chickens!" said Larry. "They delight the heart," he translated +for Rador. + +The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp. + +"They are yours," he said. + +Before I could question him further upon this extraordinary statement +the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on which were small +loaves, strange fruits, and three immense flagons of rock crystal--two +filled with a slightly sparkling yellow liquid and the third with a +purplish drink. I became acutely sensible that it had been hours since +I had either eaten or drunk. The yellow flagons were set before Larry +and me, the purple at Rador's hand. + +The girls, at his signal, again withdrew. I raised my glass to my +lips and took a deep draft. The taste was unfamiliar but delightful. + +Almost at once my fatigue disappeared. I realized a clarity of mind, +an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsibility, of freedom +from care, that were oddly enjoyable. Larry became immediately his old +gay self. + +The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from his great flagon +of rock crystal. + +"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from," he said at +last--"through the rocks," he added, slyly. + +"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours, O Rador," I +answered. + +Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to Throckmartin? +Again, clearly as a spoken command, came the warning to forbear, to +wait. And once more I obeyed. + +"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was laughing. "And +first--are all above like you--drawn out"--he made an expressive +gesture--"and are there many of you?" + +"There are--" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian that means +tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely--"there are as many as the +drops of water in the lake we saw from the ledge where you found us," +I continued; "many as the leaves on the trees without. And they are +all like us--varyingly." + +He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon our numbers. + +"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like Lugur. Our +women are as you see them--like Yolara or those two who served you." +He hesitated. "And there is a third; but only one." + +Larry leaned forward eagerly. + +"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed, and lovely as +a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?" he cried. + +"Where saw you _her_?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to his feet. + +"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself. "Nay, Rador, perhaps, I only +dreamed that there was such a woman." + +"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara," said the +dwarf grimly. "For her I meant and her you have pictured is Lakla, the +hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor +the Shining One, love her overmuch, stranger." + +"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight. + +The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously. + +"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was silent for a +space. "And what do you who are as leaves or drops of water do in that +world of yours?" he said, plainly bent on turning the subject. + +"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected. "Wait till we +find out why she's tabu." + +"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and die," +answered Larry--to Rador--giving me a quick nod of acquiescence to my +warning in English. + +"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the dwarf. + +"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke. + +He considered me gravely. + +"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last. "The land +where we dwell with the Shining One stretches along the white waters +for--" He used a phrase of which I could make nothing. "Beyond this +city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters +dwell the mayia ladala--the common ones." He took a deep draft from +his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of +the ancient rulers," he continued. "There are, second, we the +soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and +toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the +Shining One!" he added. + +"Who rules?" I asked. + +"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the +Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath +the Shining One!" There was a ring of bitter satire in the last. + +"And those three who were judged?"--this from Larry. + +"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave +you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the +Shining One--the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great +shout of mocking laughter. + +In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race--an ancient, +luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some mysterious deity; +a soldier class that supported them; and underneath all the toiling, +oppressed hordes. + +"And is that all?" asked Larry. + +"No," he answered. "There is the Sea of Crimson where--" + +Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious note, Rador +turned toward it, his face paling. Its surface crawled with +whisperings--angry, peremptory! + +"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table. "I obey!" + +He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice. + +"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said. "And now, if you are +done, I will show you where you may sleep and bathe." + +He arose abruptly. We followed him through the hangings, passed +through a corridor and into another smaller chamber, roofless, the +sides walled with screens of dark grey. Two cushioned couches were +there and a curtained door leading into an open, outer enclosure in +which a fountain played within a wide pool. + +"Your bath," said Rador. He dropped the curtain and came back into +the room. He touched a carved flower at one side. There was a tiny +sighing from overhead and instantly across the top spread a veil of +blackness, impenetrable to light but certainly not to air, for through +it pulsed little breaths of the garden fragrances. The room filled +with a cool twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing. The green dwarf +pointed to the couches. + +"Sleep!" he said. "Sleep and fear nothing. My men are on guard +outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking gaiety sparkling in +his eyes. + +"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered. "Whether it is because the +Afyo Maie fears their tongues--or--" he laughed at Larry. "The maids +are _not_ yours!" Still laughing he vanished through the curtains of the +room of the fountain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious +gift, its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks. + +"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry breaking into my +thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was Cairill mac +Cairill--Cairill Swiftspear. An' Cairill wronged Keevan of Emhain +Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the great people when he was +sleeping in the likeness of a pale reed. Then Keevan put this penance +on Cairill--that for a year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain +Abhlach, which is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should +wear the body of Cairill. And it was done. + +"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one white, one +red, and one black--and they loved, and from that love sprang Ailill +their son. And when Ailill was born he took a reed flute and first he +played slumber on Cairill, and then he played old age so that Cairill +grew white and withered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a +shadow--then a shadow of a shadow--then a breath; and the breath went +out upon the wind!" He shivered. "Like the old gnome," he whispered, +"that they called Songar of the Lower Waters!" + +He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him. Then, all +alert-- + +"But that was in Iceland ages agone. And there's nothing like that +here, Doc!" He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy. +The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal +standing beside you one moment--full of life, and joy, and power, and +potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum +when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep +of life, Doc--and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh--a +piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and +power and all the rest of it"--his face twitched--"well, old man, in +the face of _that_ mystery a disappearing act such as the devil lady +treated us to doesn't make much of a dent. Not on me. But by the +brogans of Brian Boru--if we could have had some of that stuff to turn +on during the war--oh, boy!" + +He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast pleasure. +And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of Larry O'Keefe vanished, +I saw that he did believe, really believed, in his banshees, his +leprechauns and all the old dreams of the Gael--but only within the +limits of Ireland. + +In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition, his +mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry. But face him with any +peril or problem and the drawer closed instantaneously leaving a mind +that was utterly fearless, incredulous, and ingenious; swept clean of +all cobwebs by as fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain. + +"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice. "If we'd only had +it when the war was on--imagine half a dozen of us scooting over the +enemy batteries and the gunners underneath all at once beginning to +shake themselves to pieces! Wow!" His tone was rapturous. + +"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said. "The effect, that +is--for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of course. But +what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibration to such a pitch +that the cohesion between the particles of matter is broken and the +body flies to bits--just as a fly-wheel does when its speed gets so +great that the particles of which _it_ is made can't hold together." + +"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed. + +"Absolutely right," I nodded. "Everything in Nature vibrates. And +all matter--whether man or beast or stone or metal or vegetable--is +made up of vibrating molecules, which are made up of vibrating atoms +which are made up of truly infinitely small particles of electricity +called electrons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are +themselves perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether. + +"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could be placed +over us we could see ourselves as sieves--our space lattice, as it is +called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake +us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating +at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords and fly off. + +"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent. It set up in the dwarf +that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and--shook him not to +atoms--but to electrons!" + +"They had a gun on the West Front--a seventy-five," said O'Keefe, +"that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired it, no matter what +protection they used. It looked like all the other seventy-fives--but +there was something about its sound that did it. They had to recast +it." + +"It's practically the same thing," I replied. "By some freak its +vibratory qualities had that effect. The deep whistle of the sunken +Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer Building shake to its +foundations; while the Olympic did not affect the Singer at all but +made the Woolworth shiver all through. In each case they stimulated +the atomic vibration of the particular building--" + +I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness. O'Keefe, +yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees. + +"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed. "Can't understand it--what you +say--most--interesting--Lord!" he yawned again; straightened. "What +made Reddy take such a shine to the Russian?" he asked. + +"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open. + +"What?" + +"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal him. Thanaroa is, +I suspect, the original form of the name of Tangaroa, the greatest god +of the Polynesians. There's a secret cult to him in the islands. +Marakinoff may belong to it--he knows it anyway. Lugur recognized the +signal and despite his surprise answered it." + +"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry. "How could they both +know it?" + +"The cult is a very ancient one. Undoubtedly it had its origin in the +dim beginnings before these people migrated here," I replied. "It's a +link--one--of the few links between up there and the lost past--" + +"Trouble then," mumbled Larry. "Hell brewing! I smell it--Say, Doc, +is this sleepiness natural? Wonder where my--gas mask--is--" he +added, half incoherently. + +But I myself was struggling desperately against the drugged slumber +pressing down upon me. + +"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur. "Lakla of the golden eyes--no +Eilidh--the Fair!" He made an immense effort, half raised himself, +grinned faintly. + +"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he sighed. "But +I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the greatest place on earth +for a honeymoon. They--they've got us, Doc--" He sank back. "Good +luck, old boy, wherever you're going." His hand waved feebly. +"Glad--knew--you. Hope--see--you--'gain--" + +His voice trailed into silence. Fighting, fighting with every fibre +of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being steadily +overcome. Yet before oblivion rushed down upon me I seemed to see upon +the grey-screened wall nearest the Irishman an oval of rosy light +begin to glow; watched, as my falling lids inexorably fell, a +flame-tipped shadow waver on it; thicken; condense--and there looking +down upon Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest +curiosity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling, was +the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the green dwarf had +named--Lakla: the vision Larry had invoked before that sleep which I +could no longer deny had claimed him-- + +Closer she came--closer---the eyes were over us. + +Then oblivion indeed! + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe + + +I awakened with all the familiar, homely sensation of a shade having +been pulled up in a darkened room. I thrilled with a wonderful sense +of deep rest and restored resiliency. The ebon shadow had vanished +from above and down into the room was pouring the silvery light. From +the fountain pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter. I +jumped and drew the curtain. O'Keefe and Rador were swimming a wild +race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and playing around the +Irishman at will. + +Had that overpowering sleep--and now I confess that my struggle +against it had been largely inspired by fear that it was the abnormal +slumber which Throckmartin had described as having heralded the +approach of the Dweller before it had carried away Thora and +Stanton--had that sleep been after all nothing but natural reaction of +tired nerves and brains? + +And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over Larry? Had +that also been a delusion of an overstressed mind? Well, it might have +been, I could not tell. At any rate, I decided, I would speak about it +to O'Keefe once we were alone again--and then giving myself up to the +urge of buoyant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined +the two in the pool. The water was warm and I felt the unwonted +tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it seemed to +pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous vitality that toned +every fibre. Tiring at last, we swam to the edge and drew ourselves +out. The green dwarf quickly clothed himself and Larry rather +carefully donned his uniform. + +"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said. "We're to--well--I +suppose you'd call it breakfast with her. After that, Rador tells me, +we're to have a session with the Council of Nine. I suppose Yolara is +as curious as any lady of--the upper world, as you might put it--and +just naturally can't wait," he added. + +He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden under his +left arm, whistled cheerfully, + +"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a low bow. The +dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of Larry's mocking courtesy +and started ahead of us to the house of the priestess. When he had +gone a little way on the orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe: + +"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep--did you think you saw +anything?" + +"See anything!" he grinned. "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun shell. I +thought they were pulling the gas on us. I--I had some intention of +bidding you tender farewells," he continued, half sheepishly. "I think +I did start 'em, didn't I?" + +I nodded. + +"But wait a minute--" he hesitated. "I had a queer sort of dream--" + +"'What was it?" I asked eagerly, + +"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd been +thinking of--Golden Eyes. Anyway, I thought she came through the wall +and leaned over me--yes, and put one of those long white hands of hers +on my head--I couldn't raise my lids--but in some queer way I could +see her. Then it got real dreamish. Why do you ask?" + +Rador turned back toward us, + +"Later," I answered, "Not now. When we're alone." + +But through me went a little glow of reassurance. Whatever the maze +through which we were moving; whatever of menacing evil lurking +there--the Golden Girl was clearly watching over us; watching with +whatever unknown powers she could muster. + +We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long bowered corridor +and stopped before a door that seemed to be sliced from a monolith of +pale jade--high, narrow, set in a wall of opal. + +Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver bell tones +of--yesterday, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day +the term is meaningless--bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The +chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the +black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a +delicious little walled garden--a mass of the fragrant, luminous +blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of +reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose +to greet us--Yolara. + +Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and +bowed low. My own admiration was as frank--and the priestess was well +pleased with our homage. + +She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue. +The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which +sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own +azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their +clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's +lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched, +slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the +exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee. + +"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand +over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway. +Take the cue from me, Doc." + +He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled. + +"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our +world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little +woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends +itself so well. + +A flush stole up through the translucent skin. The blue eyes softened +and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in, +placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink +somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of +outrageous hunger. + +"What are you named, strangers?" she asked. + +"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe. "As for me, call me +Larry." + +"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--but kept his +eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And +so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured. + +"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your +loveliness," he answered. + +"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me. "Essential occupation +out of which we can't be drafted to make these fun-loving folk any +Roman holiday. Get me!" + +"Larree," mused Yolara. "I like the sound. It is sweet--" and indeed +it was as she spoke it. + +"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued. "And Goodwin's?" +She caught the sound perfectly. + +"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two--Ireland and America; his but +one--America." + +She repeated the two names--slowly, over and over. We seized the +opportunity to attack the food; halting half guiltily as she spoke +again. + +"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried. "Eat then." She leaned her chin +upon her hands and regarded us, whole fountains of questions brimming +up in her eyes. + +"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Goodwin but one?" +she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer. + +"I was born in Ireland; he in America. But I have dwelt long in his +land and my heart loves each," he said. + +She nodded, understandingly. + +"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree? As all the men here are +like Lugur or Rador? I like to look at you," she went on, with naive +frankness. "I am tired of men like Lugur and Rador. But they are +strong," she added, swiftly. "Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms +and raise six with but one hand." + +We could not understand her numerals and she raised white fingers to +illustrate. + +"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied O'Keefe. +"Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times ten of our--what +call you that swift thing in which Rador brought us here?" + +"Corial," said she. + +"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers--and +these corials of ours--" + +"Coria," said she. + +"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours. +Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell! + +"And so I have," he murmured to me. "And both at Forty-second and +Fifth Avenue, N. Y.--U. S. A." + +Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt. + +"Hell?" she inquired at last. "I know not the word." + +"Well," answered O'Keefe. "Say Muria then. In many ways they are, I +gather, O heart's delight, one and the same." + +Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed. She shook her head. + +"None of our men can do _that_!" she answered, at length. "Nor do I +think you could, Larree." + +"Oh, no," said Larry easily. "I never tried to be that strong. I +fly," he added, casually. + +The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes. + +"Fly!" she repeated incredulously. "Like a _Zitia_? A bird?" + +Larry nodded--and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on +hastily. + +"Not with my own wings, Yolara. In a--a corial that moves +through--what's the word for air, Doc--well, through this--" He made a +wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil +and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. "In a--a +corial like this--" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand +down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut +Larry's markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside. + +"That I can understand," she said. + +"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered O'Keefe. "Hope I'm not +giving anything away--but she had me." + +"But what are your women like, Larree? Are they like me? And how +many have loved you?" she whispered. + +"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara," he +answered. "And take that any way you please," he muttered in English. +She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her. + +"Do you have goddesses?" she asked. + +"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess"; thus Larry. + +"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and mockery in her +eyes. "I know women, Larree--and if that were so there would be no +peace for men." + +"There isn't!" replied he. The anger died out and she laughed, +sweetly, understandingly. + +"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?" + +"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly. + +"Larry! Larry!" I whispered. "Be careful. It's high explosive." + +But the priestess was laughing--little trills of sweet bell notes; and +pleasure was in each note. + +"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your worship. +Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still--Lugur is strong; and you are +not of those who--what did you say--have tried. And your wings are +not here--Larree!" + +Again her laughter rang out. The Irishman flushed; it was _touché_ +for Yolara! + +"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly. "Rather fear for him!" + +The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic +smile about her mouth--so sweet and so cruel. + +"Well--we shall see," she murmured. "You say you battle in your +world. With what?" + +"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily. "We manage--" + +"Have you the Keth--I mean that with which I sent Songar into the +nothingness?" she asked swiftly. + +"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. "Well I do! +But here's where the O'Keefe lands. + +"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit +is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's souls as does your +loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is +truth"--into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish +softness--"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length +agone--see"--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them +times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could +send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And +this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken--words of power, +O Yolara, that have their power still--and by pipings and by slaying +sounds. + +"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying +flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of +Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living +things their shadows--and at last played them to shadows too, so that +wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed +like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who +could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes +and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to +the sod--" + +His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him, +faint pallor under the perfect skin. + +"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--in Ireland." +His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are +in your great chamber this many times over"--he clenched his hands +once more, perhaps a dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before +your Keth could even have touched them. Yea--and rocks as mighty as +those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids +could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara--all truth! +Stay--have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed +Songar?" + +She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending. + +"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on +the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this--and I will +show you." + +"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly. + +The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the +eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it. + +"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly. She drew the shining +cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped +forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be +begun, a flash of light shot from O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat +and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn +it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed, +looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of +feet. + +Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice was unshaken +as she called to the clamouring guards: + +"It is nothing--go to your places!" + +But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at +the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered vase. + +"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!" + +I followed her pointing finger. Each broken bit of the crystal was +vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet +of Larry's had--but not released it from the grip of the +disintegrating force. The priestess's face was triumphant. + +"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what matters it to the +vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?" asked Larry, +gravely--and pointedly. + +The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent; +brooding. + +"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me. "Lots of surprises in the little +box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out." + +We had not long to wait. There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara, +something too of injured pride. She clapped her hands; whispered to +the maid who answered her summons, and then sat back regarding us, +maliciously. + +"You have answered me as to your strength--but you have not proved it; +but the Keth you have answered. Now answer this!" she said. + +She pointed out into the garden. I saw a flowering branch bend and +snap as though a hand had broken it--but no hand was there! Saw then +another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall--and +closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down +into the garden poured the silvery light revealing--nothing! Now a +great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself +crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in +the vortex of a whirlwind. + +And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast to my sides, +another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-sharp poniard point +pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over my heart! + +"Larry!" I cried, despairingly. I twisted my head; saw that he too +was caught in this grip of the invisible. But his face was calm, even +amused. + +"Keep cool, Doc!" he said. "Remember--she wants to learn the +language!" + +Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking laughter. She gave +a command--the hands loosened, the poniard withdrew from my heart; +suddenly as I had been caught I was free--and unpleasantly weak and +shaky. + +"Have you _that_ in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess--and once +more trembled with laughter. + +"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face. "But they +did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away his first man's +shadow. And in Goodwin's land they make ships--coria that go on +water--so you can pass by them and see only sea and sky; and those +water coria are each of them many times greater than this whole palace +of yours." + +But the priestess laughed on. + +"It did get me a little," whispered Larry. "That wasn't quite up to +my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back +with us!" + +"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter. "Not so! +Goodwin's cry betrayed you!" + +Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous +child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she +cried--"I'll show you!"--signalled again; whispered to the maid who, +quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from +her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and +shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash, +upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval +crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O'Keefe and one to me. + +"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes. I +peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of +thin air--six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to +soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were +plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate--its strands to run together +like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and--the +chamber was empty! Put it back--and there were the grinning six! + +Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals. + +"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, graciously. "It is +something that came to us from--the Ancient Ones. But we have so +few"--she sighed. + +"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara," commented O'Keefe. +"For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand +eager to strike?" + +"There is no danger," she said indifferently. "I am the keeper of +them." + +She mused for a space, then abruptly: + +"And now no more. You two are to appear before the Council at a +certain time--but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our +city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my +garden--" she smiled at him, provocatively--maliciously, too. "For +shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all +chance to worship when at last he finds his own?" + +She laughed--whole-heartedly and was gone. And at that moment I liked +Yolara better than ever I had before and--alas--better than ever I +was to in the future. + +I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go, +but O'Keefe caught me by the arm. + +"Wait a minute," he urged. "About Golden Eyes--you were going to tell +me something--it's been on my mind all through that little sparring +match." + +I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids. He +listened gravely and then laughed. + +"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned. "Ladies who can +walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let 'em +flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don't let it get on your nerves, +Doc. Remember--everything's natural! That robe stuff is just +camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!" + +"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves +them, just as the opacities cut them off," I answered. "A man under +the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn't +register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say." + +"Camouflage," repeated Larry. "And as for the Shining One--Say!" he +snorted. "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee up against it. I'll bet +that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites +and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had 'em. Oh! Wow! +Boy Howdy!" + +I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed +along the opal wall with the green dwarf. + +A shell was awaiting us. I paused before entering it to examine the +polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian--volcanic +glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or +juncture. I examined the shell. + +"What makes it go?" I asked Rador. At a word from him the driver +touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the +control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within +was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a +rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter. +Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down +into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl. + +"Watch!" said Rador. He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place +beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew +from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and +as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed. + +"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador. "It is lifted +so far"--he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an +inch apart--"above it." + +And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the +shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from +the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of +a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like +skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation +of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating +a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward, +forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this +energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows: + + +[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this +extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of +the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive +to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so +recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his +observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who +are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the +scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the +lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the +formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal. +Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these +difficulties will ultimately be overcome.--J. B. K., President, I. A. +of S.] + + + +The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria. They darted in and +out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily +beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland, +caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers. +In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type; +sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed +girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of +the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs. + +We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an +enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through +which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march +forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic +abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this +salient's invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the +precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance. + +The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings +in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of +soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian +river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land +of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk +could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass. + +We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald +ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining +cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the +bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a +spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison +was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive +structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something +about it aroused in me an intense curiosity. + +"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked. + +"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you, Goodwin," he +answered. And again I wondered. + +We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier. Far to the left was the +prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white +waters graceful shells--lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots--swam, +but none was near that distant web of wonder. + +"Rador--what is that?" I asked. + +"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly. + +Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller? + +"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly. Again he was silent. +Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way. + +And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were--I was +conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously +beautiful this place was--and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of +menace, of unease--of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret +garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking +spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary +and only bided its time to spring. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Leprechaun + + +The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was +awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we +had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the +portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness. + +But now the scene was changed. Around the jet table were grouped a +number of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others--all of them +fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the +priestess--an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face +bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara's +own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the +fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within +a corpse! + +Began then our examination, for such it was. And as it progressed I +was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy +was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his +answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying +his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some +far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always +he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their +solidarity. + +Their questions were myriad. What were our occupations? Our system of +government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested +were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its +effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were +exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which +had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and if +others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their +entrance! + +At this I shot a glance at Lugur. He did not seem unduly interested. +I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy +wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search. +Then I answered as briefly as possible--omitting all reference to +these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable +amusement--and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had +kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken +to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered the +Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment--of +helpless search for clue to all the tangle. + +For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador +and let us go. + +Larry was sombre as we returned. He walked about the room uneasily. + +"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me. +"I can't make out just the particular brand--that's all that bothers +me. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to do +quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the wall +lately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic. + +"Laugh if you want to," he went on. "But she's our best bet. It's +going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee--but I put my +money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden, +after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see a +leprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a little +man in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one +once--in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in +Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those +bushes, twirling a little shillalah. + +"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don't +ye be downhearted, lad.' + +"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' I +said, or thought I did. + +"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered. 'An' where the heart +rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to +live here, Larry,' said he. + +"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him. 'It rests on a girl with +golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair--but +me feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said." + +The brogue thickened. + +"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his +shillalah. + +"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he. 'Don't ye fall for the +Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughter +of Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleen +ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an' +his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is +to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world. +A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an' +I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place all +cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' other +things pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed +wan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he. + +"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer. + +"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says. 'Ye've got some rough +knocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But, +remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys are +all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.' + +"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way here +in time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.' + +"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he. 'Not that she's keen on +leavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o' +mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she's +mobilizing all the clan an' if she _has_ to come for ye, avick, they'll +be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What +they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on +Lough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the +Green Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I +say it again--all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein' +proud o' ye, lad!' + +"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving." + +There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was a very tender +one. + +"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly. "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!" + +Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of +each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called +before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours +and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of +Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the +dwelling-place of the ladala. + +They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere +was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was +spiritual rather than material--as tangible as the latter and far, far +more menacing! + +"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constant +and only reply to my efforts to find the cause. + +Once I had concrete evidence of the mood. Glancing behind me, I saw a +white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a +shining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. Instinctively +I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the +little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my +hand. + +"That, some day I will repay!" he said. I looked again at the thing. +At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous +substance. + +Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple. + +"Look!" he said. He dropped it upon the dart--and at once, before my +eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away! + +"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" he +said. + +Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama +whose history this narrative is--only scattering and necessarily +fragmentary observations. + +First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces +between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These +were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of +radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as +impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel. + +They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was. +But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were +extremely simple in their inception--no more miraculous than is glass, +which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those +coarser ones we call air--and, partly, those others which produce upon +our auditory nerves the effects we call sound. + +Briefly their mechanism was this: + + +[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanism +of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the +light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive +Council.--J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.] + + + +There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the soldiers and the +dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social +phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment +the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had +perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination. + +They were, too, intensely musical. Their favourite instruments were +double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small. +They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave of +small drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the +emotional centres. + +It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few truly +humorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me--it was just +after our fourth sleep, I remember. + +"Come on to a concert," he said. + +We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons. Rador called the +two-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, the +whole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Save +the King." They sang--in a closer approach to the English than might +have been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send him +victorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed. + +He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise. + +"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till that +Red hears it. He'll blow up. + +"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taught +her," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There was +an impish twinkle in his eyes. + +And I did hear. For it was not many minutes later that the priestess +condescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe. + +"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of the +lips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry. + +She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out of +the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of little +silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed: + + "She's only a bird in a gilded cage, + A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--" + +And so on to the bitter end. + +"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's only +part of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the only +way I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly. +"She's a devil-ess from hell--but a wonder. Whenever I find myself +going I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some other +ancient lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective! +POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'" + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +The Amphitheatre of Jet + + +For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges, +flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting down +toward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had never +as yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always +been kept far enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively +--to prevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated, +nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above its +silvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was about +the same. + +I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and where they +were vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous, +lovely blooms--old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed +youths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured, +silent for the most part and sullen--a sullenness that held acid +bitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed +tempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant. + +There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and the +garrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly been +doubled. + +Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my way +back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara for +the past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Rador +came hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what +in anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness. + +"Come!" he commanded before I could speak. "The Council has made +decision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you." + +"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic path +that led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?" + +And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through me +race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness. + +"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you are +to worship!" + +What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he had +spoken? + +Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none. + +"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber now +empty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing--have to be +something damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen of +shows at the front," he added. + +And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had no +knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it--for there +are no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwoven +glory and horror was--I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do +when he did behold it! + +Rador began to show impatience. + +"Come!" he urged. "There is much to be done--and the time grows +short!" + +He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the white +waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circling +rim. + +"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself and +plunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us, +and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing. + +Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of the +black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue. +At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took the +garments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, still +laughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedly +metallic--like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider's +thread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the +waist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being +held together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hood +resembling a monk's cowl. + +Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but was +of so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily, +through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of the +same material and high stockings, the feet of which were +gloved--five-toed. + +And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise. + +"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust the +Shining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard against +any sudden--errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Not +for the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_ +here--nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on the +great white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well." + +"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly. + +"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly. + +Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic. He +popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol he +slung high up beneath his arm-pit. + +The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously. O'Keefe tapped it. + +"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take it so no +harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I should +raise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly. + +The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling. He thrust a hand out to +both of us. + +"A change comes," he said. "What it is I know not, nor how it will +fall. But this remember--Rador is more friend to you than you yet can +know. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly. + +He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage ending +in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened, +precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, just +as there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facing +a shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, but +faintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clicked +and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped into +place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the wind +whistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. It +stopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself. + +Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt. +Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint, +misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four of +the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white, +each pointing toward us a short silver rod. + +Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf. +He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each +had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons; +containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought; +and later was to know that I had been right. + +We stepped out; the doors closed behind us. The place was weird +enough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. On +each side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the same +material. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I +could not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat upon +our ears; filled the whole cavern. + +"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly. + +The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a +rift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and +vanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by one +solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neither +railing nor other protection. + +The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we +followed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath us +was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between +polished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as it +sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it +disappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue +steel, and from it came the blessed, _our worldly_, familiar ocean +breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how +earth-sick I was. + +Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we +passed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth than +I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an +opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us, +losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far +this was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to +man in more dreadful guise! + +The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened. In front of us +stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into +the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it; +it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening. +Side by side Larry and I passed out of it. + +We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be +glistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more +and then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite--not a mile +away--was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the +Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur, +on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should +stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral +glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with +its clustered, gleaming temples. + +Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my +soul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual +oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me, +I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled. + +"Steady! Steady, old man!" he whispered. + +At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an +immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same +throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great +height--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds +upon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre +of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory +platform on which I stood. + +It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the +sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon +bulwarks--like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer +greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping +slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces +against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those of +myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze +focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a +torrent--tangible, appalling! + +Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the +amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats, +and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet +upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in +which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it +and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones. + +On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small +pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate, +fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening +stared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient +Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and +people of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoves +were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men +of the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the opening +through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted +stalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a +dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and +dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it +kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay +like a fairy carpet. + +On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or +curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood +Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue +stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur! + +O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I +let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran +behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf +paused, opened a door, and motioned us within. + +Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up +to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She +glanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with little +dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded +delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful +little eager waves! + +Larry whistled softly. + +"There's Marakinoff!" he said. + +I looked where he pointed. Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we +were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he +saw us he gave no sign. + +"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe. + +Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and +within it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills, +opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of +flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess +guarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him. + +O'Keefe's face softened. + +"Bring him here," he said to Rador. + +The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon +his mocking face. He shook his head. + +"Wait!" he said. "You can do nothing now--and it may be there will be +no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was +little of conviction in his words. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +The Madness of Olaf + + +Yolara threw her white arms high. From the mountainous tiers came a +mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them. And upon the moment, before +Yolara's arms fell, there issued, apparently from the air around us, a +peal of sound that might have been the shouting of some playful god +hurling great suns through the net of stars. It was like the deepest +notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; summoning, +majestic, cosmic! + +It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through the +infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the womb of space; +echoes of creation's supernal chord! It shook the body like a pulse +from the heart of the universe--pulsed--and died away. + +On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts +since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--triumphal, compelling! +Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's +legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde, +clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's armies +--war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died! + +Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses +of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of +flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting, carrying with them the calling of +waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest +winds--calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain +like the very honeyed essence of sound. + +And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to +beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve. + +From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled. In their place was +nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the +shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything +matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his +fate--nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor +endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned +suddenly to a troubled dream. + +Once more the first great note pealed out! Once more it died and from +the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze shot as though drawn from +the majestic sound itself. The many-coloured rays darted across the +white waters and sought the face of the irised Veil. As they touched, +it sparkled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic +colour. + +The light increased--and in its intensity the silver air darkened. +Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-crowned faces set in the +amphitheatre of jet, and vast shadows dropped upon the high-flung +tiers and shrouded them. But on the skirts of the rays the fretted +stalls in which we sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out, +iridescent, like jewels. + +I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild stimulation +of every nerve. I felt myself being lifted above the world--close to +the threshold of the high gods--soon their essence and their power +would stream out into me! I glanced at Larry. His eyes were--wild-- +with life! + +I looked at Olaf--and in his face was none of this--only hate, and +hate, and hate. + +The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving the seeming +darkness, a rainbow path of glory. And the Veil flashed as though all +the rainbows that had ever shone were burning within it. Again the +mighty sound pealed. + +Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into an +intolerable brightness--and with a storm of tinklings, a tempest of +crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings, through it sped--the +Shining One! + +Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of feathery +flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling, its seven globes +of seven colours shining above its glowing core, it raced toward us. +The hurricane of bells of diamond glass were jubilant, joyous. I felt +O'Keefe grip my arm; Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming +gesture; I heard from the tier a sigh of rapture--and in it a +poignant, wailing under-tone of agony! + +Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the ivory pier, +flew the Shining One. Through its crystal _pizzicati_ drifted +inarticulate murmurings--deadly sweet, stilling the heart and setting +it leaping madly. + +For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came whirling down the +flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever more slowly. It hovered for +a moment between the woman and the dwarf, as though contemplating +them; turned to her with its storm of tinklings softened, its +murmurings infinitely caressing. Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to +gather within herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying; +gloriously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly heavenly! +Aphrodite and the Virgin! Tanith of the Carthaginians and St. Bride of +the Isles! A queen of hell and a princess of heaven--in one! + +Only for a moment did that which we had called the Dweller and which +these named the Shining One, pause. It swept up the ramp to the dais, +rested there, slowly turning, plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing, +throbbing, pulsing. Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger--human in a +fashion, and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor +devil; subtly partaking of all. Nor could I doubt that whatever it +was, within that shining nucleus was something sentient; something +that had will and energy, and in some awful, supernormal +fashion--intelligence! + +Another trumpeting--a sound of stones opening--a long, low wail of +utter anguish--something moved shadowy in the river of light, and +slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, shapes swam through it. There +were half a score of them--girls and youths, women and men. The +Shining One poised itself, regarded them. They drew closer, and in the +eyes of each and in their faces was the bud of that awful +intermingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror, that +I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's. + +The Thing began again its murmurings--now infinitely caressing, +coaxing--like the song of a siren from some witched star! And the +bell-sounds rang out--compellingly, calling--calling--calling-- + +I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously, at +Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take places, +unnoticed, behind him. + +Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais--and paused. It was +the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named +Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of +light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and encircled her. + +At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking and, it +seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its radiance. As it +wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her--the crystal chorus +burst forth--tumultuously; through and through her the radiance +pulsed. Began then that infinitely dreadful, but infinitely glorious, +rhythm they called the dance of the Shining One. And as the girl +swirled within its sparkling mists another and another flew into its +embrace, until, at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad +star's Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleaming +through living flame; transfused with rapture insupportable and horror +that was hellish--and ever, radiant plumes and spirals expanding, the +core of the Shining One waxed--growing greater--as it consumed, as it +drew into and through itself the life-force of these lost ones! + +So they spun, interlaced--and there began to pulse from them life, +vitality, as though the very essence of nature was filling us. Dimly I +recognized that what I was beholding was vampirism inconceivable! The +banked tiers chanted. The mighty sounds pealed forth! + +It was a Saturnalia of demigods! + +Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One withdrew slowly +from the dais down the ramp, still embracing, still interwoven with +those who had thrown themselves into its spirals. They drifted with it +as though half-carried in dreadful dance; white faces sealed--forever-- +into that semblance of those who held within linked God and devil--I +covered my eyes! + +I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought his; saw the +wildness vanish from them as he strained forward. Olaf had leaned far +out, and as he did so the dwarfs beside him caught him, and whether by +design or through his own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half +into the Dweller's path. The Dweller paused in its gyrations--seemed +to watch him. The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes blazing. He +threw himself back and, with one defiant shout, gripped one of the +dwarfs about the middle and sent him hurtling through the air, +straight at the radiant Thing! A whirling mass of legs and arms, the +dwarf flew--then in midflight stopped as though some gigantic +invisible hand had caught him, and--was dashed down upon the platform +not a yard from the Shining One! + +Like a broken spider he moved--feebly--once, twice. From the Dweller +shot a shimmering tentacle--touched him--recoiled. Its crystal +tinklings changed into an angry chiming. From all about--jewelled +stalls and jet peak--came a sigh of incredulous horror. + +Lugur leaped forward. On the instant Larry was over the low barrier +between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's side. And even as they +ran there was another wild shout from Olaf, and he hurled himself out, +straight at the throat of the Dweller! + +But before he could touch the Shining One, now motionless--and never +was the thing more horrible than then, with the purely human +suggestion of surprise plain in its poise--Larry had struck him +aside. + +I tried to follow--and was held by Rador. He was trembling--but not +with fear. In his face was incredulous hope, inexplicable eagerness. + +"Wait!" he said. "Wait!" + +The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did so I saw +the bravest thing man has ever witnessed. Instantly O'Keefe thrust +himself between it and Olaf, pistol out. The tentacle touched him, and +the dull blue of his robe flashed out into blinding, intense azure +light. From the automatic in his gloved hand came three quick bursts +of flame straight into the Thing. The Dweller drew back; the +bell-sounds swelled. + +Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of the silver +_Keth_ cones. But before he could flash it upon the Norseman, Larry +had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold over Olaf, and, holding him +with one hand away from the Shining One, thrust with the other his +pistol into the dwarf's stomach. His lips moved, but I could not hear +what he said. But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped. + +Now Yolara was there--all this had taken barely more than five +seconds. She thrust herself between the three men and the Dweller. She +spoke to it--and the wild buzzing died down; the gay crystal tinklings +burst forth again. The Thing murmured to her--began to whirl--faster, +faster--passed down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with +it, meshed in its light, the sacrifices--swept on ever more swiftly, +triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly crew, vanished +through the Veil! + +Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out. The silver light poured +in upon us. From all the amphitheatre arose a clamour, a shouting. +Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was leaning out, listening. Unrestrained +now by Rador, I vaulted the wall and rushed forward. But not before I +had heard the green dwarf murmur: + +"There is something stronger than the Shining One! Two things--yea--a +strong heart--and hate!" + +Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my hand. + +"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper. "The Shining +Devil!" + +"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance with the Shining +one. And this one, too." He pointed at me malignantly. + +"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was menacing. +She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder. "He shall not dance. No--nor +his friend. I have told you I dare not for this one!" She pointed to +Olaf. + +"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed. This is my +word, Yolara!" + +"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!" + +I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curiously speculative +interest. Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he raised his arms as though to +strike her. Larry's pistol prodded him rudely enough. + +"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English. The red dwarf +quivered, turned--caught a robe from a priest standing by, and threw +it over himself. The _ladala_, shouting, gesticulating, fighting with +the soldiers, were jostling down from the tiers of jet. + +"Come!" commanded Yolara--her eyes rested upon Larry. "Your heart is +great, indeed--my lord!" she murmured; and her voice was very sweet. +"Come!" + +"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing to Olaf. + +"Bring him," she said. "Bring him--only tell him to look no more upon +me as before!" she added fiercely. + +Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where sat the +fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip of some great +doubt. Silently Olaf strode beside me. Rador had disappeared. Down the +stairway, through the hall of turquoise mist, over the rushing +sea-stream we went and stood beside the wall through which we had +entered. The white-robed ones had gone. + +Yolara pressed; the portal opened. We stepped upon the car; she took +the lever; we raced through the faintly luminous corridor to the house +of the priestess. + +And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth had come to +me--no more need to search for Throckmartin. Behind that Veil, in the +lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like those we had just seen swim in +its shining train was he, and Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf +Huldricksson's wife! + +The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped out lightly, +beckoned and flitted up the corridor. She paused before an ebon +screen. At a touch it vanished, revealing an entrance to a small blue +chamber, glowing as though cut from the heart of some gigantic +sapphire; bare, save that in its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a +great globe fashioned from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were +faint tracings as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some +other world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way did +they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth. + +Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked in each +other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman and a man, so +exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I failed to realize that +they, too, were carved of the crystal. And before this shrine--for +nothing else could it be, I knew--three slender cones raised +themselves: one of purest white flame, one of opalescent water, and +the third of--moonlight! There was no mistaking them, the height of a +tall man each stood--but how water, flame and light were held so +evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell. + +Yolara bowed lowly--once, twice, thrice. She turned to O'Keefe, nor +by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew others were there than +he. The blue eyes wide, searching, unfathomable, she drew close; put +white hands on his shoulders, looked down into his very soul. + +"My lord," she murmured. "Now listen well for I, Yolara, give you +three things--myself, and the Shining One, and the power that is the +Shining One's--yea, and still a fourth thing that is all three--power +over all upon that world from whence you came! These, my lord, ye +shall have. I swear it"--she turned toward the altar--uplifted her +arms--"by Siya and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by +the light!" *1 + + +*1 I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this +people, nor to catalogue their pantheon. Siya and Siyana typified +worldly love. Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those +degrading elements usually found in love-cults. Priests and +priestesses of all cults dwelt in the immense seven-terraced +structure, of which the jet amphitheatre was the water side. The +symbol, icon, representation, of Siya and Siyana--the globe and the +up-striving figures--typified earthly love, feet bound to earth, but +eyes among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor +their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain +could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding, +but still maker and ruler of all--an absentee First Cause personified! +Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the +soldiers--Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an +exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious +impulse among the Murians, this far, High God had. I found this +exceedingly interesting, because it had long been my theory--to put +the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula--that the real +attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly according to the +square of their distance--W. T. G. + + + +Her eyes grew purple dark. + +"Let none dare to take you from me! Nor ye go from me unbidden!" she +whispered fiercely. + +Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about O'Keefe, +pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised, eyes closed, +seeking his. O'Keefe's arms tightened around her, his head dropped +lips seeking, finding hers--passionately! From Olaf came a deep +indrawn breath that was almost a groan. But not in my heart could I +find blame for the Irishman! + +The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him back, stood +regarding him. O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a trembling hand to his +face. + +"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whispered. For the +first time she seemed to recognize our presence, stared at us a +moment, then through us, and turned to O'Keefe. + +"Go, now!" she said. "Soon Rador shall come for you. Then--well, +after that let happen what will!" + + + + + +She smiled once more at him--so sweetly; turned toward the figures +upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before them. Quietly we +crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as +we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now +and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a +jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the +_ladala_--and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed! + +Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, covered his face with +his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's eyes troubled reproach, +looked at me. + +"_I_ couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly--half-miserably. +"God, what a woman! I _couldn't_ help it!" + +"Larry," I asked. "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love +her--then?" + +He gazed at me--the old twinkle back in his eye. + +"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed. "I suppose if a burning +angel struck you out of nowhere and threw itself about you, you would +most dignifiedly tell it you didn't want to be burned. For God's sake, +don't talk nonsense, Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly. + +"Evil! Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant. "All +here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she +_djaevelsk_ of beauty--what is she but harlot of that shining devil +they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held +out to you power over all the world, _Ja!_--as if the world had not +devils enough in it now!" + +"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at once. + +Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen silence. There +were footsteps on the path, and into sight came Rador--but a Rador +changed. Gone was every vestige of his mockery; curiously solemn, he +saluted O'Keefe and Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had +seen given only to Yolara and to Lugur. There came a swift quickening +of the tumult--died away. He shrugged mighty shoulders. + +"The _ladala_ are awake!" he said. "So much for what two brave men +can do!" He paused thoughtfully. "Bones and dust jostle not each other +for place against the grave wall!" he added oddly. "But if bones and +dust have revealed to them that they still--live--" + +He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and sent forth +speech. *1 + + +*1 I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these +interesting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic +in one. I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving +apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the +operator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the +vibrations--the extremely rapid impacts--of those short electric +wavelengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages. I +must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of +physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable. +The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with +consummate simplicity. The light with which they shone was produced by +an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated +the merely illuminating globes. The composition of the phonic spheres +gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance. In conjunction +with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of +force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how +distant. When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface +its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone +transmitter breaks an electric current. Simultaneously these +light-vibrations were changed into sound--on the surfaces of all +spheres tuned to that particular instrument. The "crawling" colours +which showed themselves at these times were literally the voice of the +speaker in its spectrum equivalent. While usually the sounds produced +required considerable familiarity with the apparatus to be understood +quickly, they could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and +clear--as I was soon to realize--W. T. G. + + + +"The _Afyo Maie_ has sent me to watch over you till she summons you," +he announced clearly. "There is to be a--feast. You, _Larree_, you +Goodwin, are to come. I remain here with--Olaf." + +"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply. Rador touched his heart, +his eyes. + +"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by what you twain +did before the Shining One--I swear it!" he whispered. + +Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his grip a long +flat box of polished wood. The green dwarf took it, dismissed him, +threw open the lid. + +"Here is your apparel for the feast, _Larree_," he said, pointing to +the contents. + +O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shimmering, softly +metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery girdle, leg swathings +of the same argent material, and sandals that seemed to be cut out +from silver. He made a quick gesture of angry dissent. + +"Nay, _Larree_!" muttered the dwarf. "Wear them--I counsel it--I pray +it--ask me not why," he went on swiftly, looking again at the globe. + +O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness. The dwarf made a +curiously expressive pleading gesture. O'Keefe abruptly took the +garments; passed into the room of the fountain. + +"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked. + +"No," he said. "No"--he hesitate--"it is the usual feast that follows +the sacrament! Lugur--and Double Tongue, who came with you, will be +there," he added slowly. + +"Lugur--" I gasped in astonishment. "After what happened--he will be +there?" + +"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my friend," he +answered--his eyes again full of malice; "and there will be +others--friends of Yolara--friends of Lugur--and perhaps +another"--his voice was almost inaudible--"one whom they have not +called--" He halted, half-fearfully, glancing at the globe; put finger +to lips and spread himself out upon one of the couches. + +"Strike up the band"--came O'Keefe's voice--"here comes the hero!" + +He strode into the room. I am bound to say that the admiration in +Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even, if involuntarily, in +Olaf's. + +"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador. + +He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped something, unwound +it--and, still kneeling, drew out a slender poniard of gleaming white +metal, hilted with the blue stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's +girdle; then gave him again the rare salute. + +"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the pathway. + +"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their power--if they +still have it!" + +And with this strange benediction, he turned back. + +"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the house of the +priestess, "you'll be careful!" + +He nodded--but I saw with a little deadly pang of apprehension in my +heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his eyes. + +As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared. He gave a signal +to our guards--and I wondered what influence the Russian had attained, +for promptly, without question, they drew aside. At me he smiled +amiably. + +"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on--and now I sensed +something deeply sinister in him. "No! It is too bad! Well, don't give +up hope." He turned to O'Keefe. + +"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you--alone!" + +"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe. + +"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely. He bent, whispered to Larry. + +The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked incredulity, +then turned to me. + +"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion of a wink. +They drew aside, out of ear-shot. The Russian talked rapidly. Larry +was all attention. Marakinoff's earnestness became intense; O'Keefe +interrupted--appeared to question. Marakinoff glanced at me and as his +gaze shifted from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up +in the latter's eyes. At last the Irishman appeared to consider +gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision, and +Marakinoff thrust his hand to him. + +And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his microscopic +hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary movement, as though +to shake off something unclean, when the clasp had ended. + +Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went quickly +within. The guards took their places. I looked at Larry inquiringly. + +"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely. "Wait till we get +home. But we've got to get damned busy and quick--I'll tell you that +now--" + + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The Tempting of Larry + + +We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmur +of many voices. They parted; out came two--ushers, I suppose, they +were--in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat of +chain-mail--the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. They +held open the folds. + +The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than either +anteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet long +and half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two huge +semi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle, +and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, and +glittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as +the blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables, +lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and +there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a +half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all his +silvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent their +roseate radiance. + +The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle. Within the arc of the +inner half--circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of those +seated there, facing us--I had eyes for only one--Yolara! She swayed +up to greet O'Keefe--and she was like one of those white lily maids, +whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise, +and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held out +hands to Larry, and on her face was passion--unashamed, unhiding. + +She was Circe--but Circe conquered. Webs of filmiest white clung to +the rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threaded +circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara's +eyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mere +admiration flaming from him. She saw--and, smiling, drew him down +beside her. + +It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were in +white--and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased to +wonder as there entered--Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as he +strode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence. + +His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly his +face grew--dreadful--there is no other word than that for it. +Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose end +I sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort the +red dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I +thought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now I +noted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of which +the Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tension +relaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud should turn away, +but still lurk, threatening. + +My gaze ran back. This end of the room was draped with the +exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands. +Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circular +platform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feet +above the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminous +petals, fragrant, delicate. + +On each side below it, were low carven stools. The curtains parted +and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, the +curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into their +places. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measure +throbbed through the rosy air. + +The stage was set! What was to be the play? + +Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosoms +bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for the +feasters. + +My eyes sought O'Keefe. Whatever it had been that Marakinoff had +said, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the exclusion of the +wondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold--and now and +then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious +speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe +behind her. + +The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of +amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid +that shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to her +lips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it, +touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod from +Yolara and the maid refilled his goblet. + +At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. His +abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leaned +caressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashed +triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass--but +within it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again he +drained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful +eyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayed close-- +alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollicking +deviltry. + +"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and may the hell +where it belongs soon claim it!" + +He had used their own word for their god--all else had been in his own +tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt +in his action they did recognize--and a dead, a fearful silence fell +upon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their +green. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the soft +hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre. + +"The Shining One." He spoke low. "An' now again I see the faces of +those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora--come, God alone +knows how--from Erin--to this place. The Fires of Mora!" He +contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came +that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curse +of Mora: + + "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night; + He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight. + For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--" + +Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he +gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed--he crooned: + + + "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune, + When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--" + +He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess +have her way; drained again the glass. + +And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope was there left with +Larry mad, wild drunk! + +The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at +each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey. + +"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are here!" she +cried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right, +my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up +at her. + +"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly. +"But say anything--you like--I love your voice!" + +I turned sick with dread. Yolara's hand stole softly upon the +Irishman's curls caressingly. + +"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You may +not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger--a +barbarian--food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase. + +"No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered serenely. "Lo, +a son of Siya and of Siyana!" + +"A lie!" roared the red dwarf. "A lie!" + +"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if ye +believe not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!" + +There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--and whatever +their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face +hell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf +bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And +again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so +to sway Lugur. + +"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them. + +Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman, +whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke. + +"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered. + +Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly. +He sat swaying, crooning. + +"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room. +"By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her +mate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to +the drunken head of the O'Keefe. + +The curtains parted widely. Through them filed, two by two, twelve +hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest +vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore +clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire +shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient +clarsach of the Druids. + +Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon +it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed +now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously, +they drew from their faces the covering cowls. + +I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths +and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen--for upon +their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been +forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to +refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about +their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were +clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like +moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp +alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing. + +What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient +beyond thought, it seemed--not with the ancientness of things that for +uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the +ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth +younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of +young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A +languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to +die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter, +ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through +the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of +their circle. + +The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the +circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew +brighter--brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio +dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the +globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of +moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly, +caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated, +re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden +quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles +rose higher! + +Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's. She +raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her +into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow +spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream. + +As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the +slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor, +crept in a shining ring around those two--and began to rise, a +gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier--rising, ever rising--hiding +them! + +With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires, +shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling, +wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles--and +now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees--was +circling higher--higher. + +And ever despair grew deeper in my soul! + +What was that! I started to my feet, and all around me in the +darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of +trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew +closer. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the very +threshold and within it, oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, a +deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass and +reverberant. + +Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and +began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form +grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling +cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her +face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy. + +The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their +delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a +square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of +the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that +Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed +into a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the +true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help +us in very deed! + +I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe. All drunkenness gone, himself +again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and +horror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled. + +Only for a moment did the darkness hold. With lightning swiftness the +blackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portal +open between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured. + +And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmare +figures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tall +O'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands of +green-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their long +muzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening, +slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a horny +helmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-long +lance-headed horns. + +They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide table +aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders +and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists +and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands +and feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws. + +They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of which +were pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whose +touch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador. + +They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything I had ever seen +or dreamed, and they were--terrible! + +And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl! Behind her, +enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one +paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the +others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary +impression--all my gaze was for her. + +For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of the +Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled that +ever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyes +of O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame. + +And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger, half-incredulous, +tinged with fear: + +"Lakla!" + +"Lakla!" + +"The handmaiden!" + +She halted close beside me. From firm little chin to dainty buskined +feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue. +The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight about +it was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled +signet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her +fingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms +cut from gigantic, glowing rubies. + +So she stood contemplating Yolara. Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she +dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of +amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was +as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is +above nadir. + +I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth, +and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate +skin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, a +touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. I +felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of +confidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare +the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and +know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. And +involuntarily I smiled back at her. + +She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain +curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyes +drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest +interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly +human as had been her smile. + +She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's +all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty +of her. + +"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said. "And this is +their command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before them +three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him +there who plots with Lugur"--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw +Yolara start--"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have +looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!" + +There was honeyed venom in the last words. + +Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice +revealed her wrath as she answered. + +"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, _choya_?" + +This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in +a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant, +approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and the +acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin. + +"Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question me. I am but +the messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden to +ask you--do you deliver to me the three strangers?" + +Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister +anticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance showed Marakinoff, +crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl. + +"No!" Yolara spat the word. "No! Now by Thanaroa and by the Shining +One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throat +a little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla--take you my message to the +Silent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"--she pointed to +Larry--"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired +one and him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me. + +"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"--she stamped +upon the dais viciously--"and that in their faces I spit!"--and her +action was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden, +that if _you_ they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed _you_ to +the Shining One! Now--go!" + +The handmaiden's face was white. + +"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied. "And did +you speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you." +Her voice deepened. "Three _tal_ have you to take counsel, Yolara. And +at the end of that time these things must you have determined--either +to do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones; +second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have of +conquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One! +And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, your +cup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for you +and the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their +kind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye +pass and be as though never had ye been!'" + +Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me--but the +priestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into the +silver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur--and after +a little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed with +their mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden, +and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back. + +"Those _are_ great words--great words indeed, _choya_," shrilled Yolara +at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for _laya_ upon +_laya_, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for _laya_ +upon _laya_ they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask you +again--whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whence +comes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved +of the Shining One?" + +And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joined +in her laughter. + +Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deep +within her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm. + +She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more than +suggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed with +triumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden. + +"Look!" she cried. "Look! Why, even _she_ does not believe!" Her +voice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to send +another answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by _you_, Lakla; by +these"--she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand +darted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of +death. + +But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hidden +left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings. +Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine--and now I +knew this was no inert blossoming thing. + +It was alive! + +It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrust +out toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering, held in leash only by +the light touch of the handmaiden at its very end. + +From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came a +succession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raised +their lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching ruby +flowers a faint red mist swiftly grew. + +The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grew +stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; she +stood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil--and now +it was she who laughed. + +"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there _is_ a thing of the Silent Ones +ye fear!" she said. "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_ I promise you in +return for the embrace of your Shining One." + +She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with all +that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shone +upon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the little +merry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me. + +She spoke to the giant frog-man. He wheeled behind her as she turned, +facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop moved +not a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly--almost, I +thought, tauntingly--and as she reached the portal Larry leaped from +the dais. + +"_Alanna_!" he cried. "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've found +you!" + +In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogue +appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant, +unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind +whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered +her. + +"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech. "Come on, +Doc!" He reached out a hand to me. + +But now Yolara spoke. Life and beauty had flowed back into her face, +and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered. + +"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana? And do you +think that you can leave me--me--as though I were a _choya_--like +_her_." She pointed to Lakla. Do you--" + +"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively. "No +promise has passed from me to you--and why would you hold me?" He +passed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," he +urged, "You _have_ got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so have +I; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don't +you get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!" + +She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated to +Lugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess; +whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come in +the Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases. + +Yolara's lips writhed. + +"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried. "Now would I not let you take this man +from me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_ in the agony of the +_Yekta's_ kiss. This I swear to you--by Thanaroa, by my heart, and by +my strength--and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast, +and Thanaroa forget me if I do!" + +"Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again. + +"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek. And her hand again sought +in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death. + +Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone in +her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed. + +"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed--me three +_tal_ to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and say +that Yolara has heard, and that for the three _tal_ they--allow--her +she will take council." The handmaiden hesitated. + +"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last. "Stay you here, +strangers"---the long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and a +hint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay you here, strangers, till then. +But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by that +they come to no harm--else that which you have invoked shall come upon +you swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added. + +Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black flame from +Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise. + +"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The gigantic +frog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guards +turned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed out +the monster with the mace. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Larry's Defiance + + +A clamour arose from all the chambers; stilled in an instant by a +motion of Yolara's hand. She stood silent, regarding O'Keefe with +something other now than blind wrath; something half regretful, half +beseeching. But the Irishman's control was gone. + +"Yolara,"--his voice shook with rage, and he threw caution to the +wind--"now hear _me_. I go where I will and when I will. Here shall we +stay until the time she named is come. And then we follow her, whether +you will or not. And if any should have thought to stop us--tell them +of that flame that shattered the vase," he added grimly. + +The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold. But no answer +made she to him. + +"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at once." The +priestess was facing the nobles. "Now, friends of mine, and friends of +Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, between us end." She glanced +swiftly at Lugur. "The _ladala_ are stirring, and the Silent Ones +threaten. Yet fear not--for are we not strong under the Shining One? +And now--leave us." + +Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently, a signal, for +in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs. + +"Take these two to their place," she commanded, pointing to us. + +The green dwarfs clustered about us. Without another look at the +priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between them, from the chamber. +And it was not until we had reached the pillared entrance that Larry +spoke. + +"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and a pretty +woman, at that. But first she played me with a marked deck, and then +not only pinched all the chips, but drew a gun on me. What the +hell! she nearly had me--_married_--to her. I don't know what the stuff +was she gave me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that +brew I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second and +Broadway. + +"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the world; +three of them, and you forget there is a world. No excuse for it, Doc; +and I don't care what you say or what Lakla may say--it wasn't my +fault, and I don't hold it up against myself for a damn." + +"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I said, +ignoring all this. He stopped abruptly. + +"What're you afraid of?" + +"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance with the +Shining One!" + +"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impatiently. "I've all +the love and admiration for you in the world; but this place has got +your nerve. Hereafter one Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old +U. S. A., leads this party. Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the +superstition! I'm the works. Get me?" + +"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough. "But to use your own +phrase, kindly can the repeated references to superstition." + +"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful. "You scientific people build +up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you +scoff at people who believe in other things that you think _they_ never +saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk +about paradoxes--why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most +skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered +at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith +than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a +cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the dark of +the moon!" + +"Larry!" I cried, dazed. + +"Olaf's no better," he said. "But I can make allowances for him. +He's a sailor. No, sir. What this expedition needs is a man without +superstition. And remember this. The leprechaun promised that I'd have +full warning before anything happened. And if we do have to go out, +we'll see that banshee bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a +blaze of glory. And don't forget it. Hereafter--I'm--in--charge!" + +By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of us in a very +amiable mood I'm afraid. Rador was awaiting us with a score of his +men. + +"Let none pass in here without authority--and let none pass out unless +I accompany them," he ordered bruskly. "Summon one of the swiftest of +the _coria_ and have it wait in readiness," he added, as though by +afterthought. + +But when we had entered and the screens were drawn together his manner +changed; all eagerness he questioned us. Briefly we told him of the +happenings at the feast, of Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what +had followed. + +"Three _tal_," he said musingly; "three _tal_ the Silent Ones have +allowed--and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and thoughtful. *1 + + +*1 A _tal_ in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface +time.--W. T. G. + + + +"_Ja!_" It was Olaf. "_Ja!_ I told you the Shining Devil's mistress +was all evil. _Ja!_ Now I begin again that tale I started when he +came"--he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador. "And tell him not what +I say should he ask. For I trust none here in Trolldom, save the +_Jomfrau_--the White Virgin! + +"After the oldster was _adsprede_"--Olaf once more used that +expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar--"I knew that +it was a time for cunning. I said to myself, 'If they think I have no +ears to hear, they will speak; and it may be I will find a way to save +my Helma and Dr. Goodwin's friends, too.' _Ja_, and they did speak. + +"The red _Trolde_ asked the Russian how came it he was a worshipper of +Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of triumph toward +O'Keefe. "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf, "said that all his people +worshipped Thanaroa and had fought against the other nations that +denied him. + +"And then we had come to Lugur's palace. They put me in rooms, and +there came to me men who rubbed and oiled me and loosened my muscles. +The next day I wrestled with a great dwarf they called Valdor. He was +a mighty man, and long we struggled, and at last I broke his back. And +Lugur was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the +Russian, too. And again, not knowing that I understood them, they +talked. + +"The Russian had gone fast and far. They talked of Lugur as emperor +of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him. They spoke of the green light +that shook life from the oldster; and Lugur said that the secret of it +had been the Ancient Ones' and that the Council had not too much of +it. But the Russian said that among his race were many wise men who +could make more once they had studied it. + +"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier +far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back +also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he +and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these +_Trolde_ have which opens up a _Svaelc_--abysses into which all in its +range drops up into the sky!" + +"What!" I exclaimed. + +"I know about them," said Larry. "Wait!" + +"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf. "He was boastful. The Russian +pressed him to show this thing. After a while the red one went out and +came back with a little golden box. He and the Russian went into the +garden. I followed them. There was a _lille Hoj_--a mound--of stones +in that garden on which grew flowers and trees. + +"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than a sand grain +leaped out and fell beside the stones. Lugur pressed again, and a blue +light shot from the box and lighted on the spark. The spark that had +been no bigger than a grain of sand grew and grew as the blue struck +it. And then there was a sighing, a wind blew--and the stones and the +flowers and the trees were not. They were _forsvinde_--vanished! + +"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober; for he thrust +the Russian back--far back. And soon down into the garden came +tumbling the stones and the trees, but broken and shattered, and +falling as though from a great height. And Lugur said that of _this_ +something they had much, for its making was a secret handed down by +their own forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones. + +"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large as that +he had used would have sent all that garden falling upward and might +have opened a way to the outside before--he said just this--'_before +we are ready to go out into it!_' + +"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more drink and grew +merrier and threatened him, and the Russian was silent through fear. +Thereafter I listened when I could, and little more I learned, but +that little enough. _Ja!_ Lugur is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so +the Council. They tire of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds +not too easy, no, even though they jeer at them! And this they plan-- +to rule our world with their Shining Devil." + +The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep, trembling-- + +"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate whining to be +loosed into a world already devil ridden! And we are but three!" + +I felt the blood drive out of my heart. But Larry's was the fighting +face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years. Rador glanced at him, arose, +stepped through the curtains; returned swiftly with the Irishman's +uniform. + +"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his silence and +whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was submerged in his wild and +joyful whoop. He ripped from him glittering tunic and leg swathings. + +"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment as he donned +it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence to a higher flame. The +last scrap of it on, he drew himself up before us. + +"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried. "Bang your heads on the floor and do +homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great Britain, Autocrat of all +Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, and adjacent waters and +islands! Kneel, ye scuts, kneel." + +"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?" + +"Not a bit of it," he said. "I'm that and more if Comrade Marakinoff +is on the level. Whoop! Bring forth the royal jewels an' put a whole +new bunch of golden strings in Tara's harp an' down with the Sassenach +forever! Whoop!" + +He did a wild jig. + +"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned. "The touch of 'em has +gone to my head. But it's straight stuff I'm telling you about my +empire." + +He sobered. + +"Not that it's not serious enough at that. A lot that Olaf's told us +I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara. But I got the full key to +it from the Red himself when he stopped me just before--before"--he +reddened--"well, just before I acquired that brand-new brand of souse. + +"Maybe he had a hint--maybe he just surmised that I knew a lot more +than I did. And he thought Yolara and I were going to be loving little +turtle doves. Also he figured that Yolara had a lot more influence +with the Unholy Fireworks than Lugur. Also that being a woman she +could be more easily handled. All this being so, what was the logical +thing for himself to do? Sure, you get me, Steve! Throw down Lugur and +make an alliance with me! So _he_ calmly offered to ditch the red dwarf +if I would deliver Yolara. My reward from Russia was to be said +emperorship! Can you beat it? Good Lord!" + +He went off into a perfect storm of laughter. But not to me in the +light of what Russia has done and has proved herself capable, did this +thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I sensed the dawn of +catastrophe colossal. + +"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared. They've got the +_Keth_ ray and those gravity-destroying bombs--" + +"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped. + +"Sure," he said. "The little fairy that sent the trees and stones +kiting up from Lugur's garden. Marakinoff licked his lips over them. +They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow screens cut off +light--and consequently whatever's in their range goes shooting just +naturally up to the moon-- + +"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry. "With them and the +_Keth_ and gentle invisible soldiers walking around assassinating at +will--well, the worst Bolsheviki are only puling babes, eh, Doc? + +"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash of a +downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do for it! But the +others--are the goods! Believe me!" + +But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within me. Not +lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the Dweller--and a +vision passed before me, a vision of an Apocalypse undreamed by the +Evangelist. + +A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous, +glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of peoples +passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly +life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies +trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's +rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of +that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted +world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole +invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying +to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the +unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew +that, once loosed, not any nation could hold this devil-god for long +and that swiftly its blight would spread! + +And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and terror; a +welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos of horror in which +the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the ghastly hordes of those it had +consumed growing ever greater, wreaked its inhuman will! + +At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning through the +shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its murmuring forests, its +meadows and its mountains manned only by a countless crew of soulless, +mindless dead-alive, their shells illumined with the Dweller's +infernal glory--and flaming over this vampirized earth like a flare +from some hell far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest +flung imagining--the Dweller! + +Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe. He bent over +its base; did something with its mechanism; beckoned to us. The globe +swam rapidly, faster than ever I had seen it before. A low humming +arose, changed into a murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice +clearly. + +"It is to be war then?" + +There was a chorus of assent--from the Council, I thought. + +"I will take the tall one named--_Larree_." It was the priestess's +voice. "After the three _tal_, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as +you will." + +"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must +die." + +"He shall die," again Yolara. "But I would that first he see Lakla +pass--and that she know what is to happen to him." + +"No!" I started--for this was Marakinoff. "Now is no time, Yolara, +for one's own desires. This is my counsel. At the end of the three +_tal_ Lakla will come for our answer. Your men will be in ambush and +they will slay her and her escort quickly with the _Keth_. But not +till that is done must the three be slain--and then quickly. With +Lakla dead we shall go forth to the Silent Ones--and I promise you +that I will find the way to destroy them!" + +"It is well!" It was Lugur. + +"It _is_ well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew it for that +old one of ravaged beauty. "Cast from your mind whatever is in it for +this stranger--either of love or hatred. In this the Council is with +Lugur and the man of wisdom." + +There was a silence. Then came the priestess's voice, sullen +but--beaten. + +"It is well!" + +"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and given to the +High Priest Sator"--thus Lugur--"until what we have planned comes to +pass." + +Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased its spinning. +He turned to us as though to speak and even as he did so its bell note +sounded peremptorily and on it the colour films began to creep at +their accustomed pace. + +"I hear," the green dwarf whispered. "They shall be taken there at +once." The globe grew silent. He stepped toward us. + +"You have heard," he turned to us. + +"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry. "Nothing doing!" And then in +the Murian's own tongue. "We follow Lakla, Rador. And _you_ lead the +way." He thrust the pistol close to the green dwarf's side. + +Rador did not move. + +"Of what use, _Larree_?" he said, quietly. "Me you can slay--but in +the end you will be taken. Life is not held so dear in Muria that my +men out there or those others who can come quickly will let you +by--even though you slay many. And in the end they will overpower +you." + +There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face. + +"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the Shining One--or +worse!" + +O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped. + +"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get you in bad," +he said. "Take us to the temple--when we get there--well, your +responsibility ends, doesn't it?" + +The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expression--was it +relief? Or was it emotion higher than this? + +He turned curtly. + +"Follow," he said. We passed out of that gay little pavilion that had +come to be home to us even in this alien place. The guards stood at +attention. + +"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of them. "Should +the _Afyo Maie_ ask, say that I am on my way with the strangers even +as she has commanded." + +We passed through the lines to the _corial_ standing like a great +shell at the end of the runway leading into the green road. + +"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver. The green dwarf +ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept on--on and out +upon the glistening obsidian. + +Then Rador faced us and laughed. + +"_Larree_," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours! And did +you think that Rador would carry to the temple prison a man who would +take the chances of torment upon his own shoulders to save him? Or +you, Goodwin, who saved him from the rotting death? For what did I +take the _corial_ or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what +threatened you--" + +He swept the _corial_ to the left, away from the temple approach. + +"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining One!" cried +Rador. "My hand is for you three and for Lakla and those to whom she +is handmaiden!" + +The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Casting of the Shadow + + +Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had +set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed +slackened; we approached warily. + +"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe. + +The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the bridge ended +in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic piers, between which +ran a spur from the glistening road. Platform and bridge were swarming +with men-at-arms; they crowded the parapets, looking down upon us +curiously but with no evidence of hostility. Rador drew a deep breath +of relief. + +"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There was +disappointment in the Irishman's voice. + +"No use, _Larree_!" Smiling, Rador stopped the _corial_ just beneath +the arch and beside one of the piers. "Now, listen well. They have had +no warning, hence does Yolara still think us on the way to the temple. +This is the gateway of the Portal--and the gateway is closed by the +Shadow. Once I commanded here and I know its laws. This must I do--by +craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the Shadow; +or raise it myself. And that will be hard and it may well be that in +the struggle life will be stripped of us all. Yet is it better to die +fighting than to dance with the Shining One!" + +He swept the shell around the pier. Opened a wide plaza paved with +the volcanic glass, but black as that down which we had sped from the +chamber of the Moon Pool. It shone like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on +each side of it arose what at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of +the same ebon obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures +hewn and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens of +high, narrow windows. + +Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small landings on which a +door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge of greyish stone edging the +lip of this midnight pool and upon it also fell two wide flights from +either side of the bridge platform. Along all four stairways the +guards were ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the +shells--in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in our +own world. + +The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two obelisked +pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain, stretched a barrier of +that tenebrous gloom which, though weightless as shadow itself, I now +knew to be as impenetrable as the veil between life and death. In this +murk, unlike all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a +tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by some +subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of--black +light. + +The green dwarf turned the _corial_ slowly to the edge at the right; +crept cautiously on toward where, not more than a hundred feet from +the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened in the fort. Guarding its +threshold stood two guards, armed with broadswords, double-handed, +terminating in a wide lunette mouthed with murderous fangs. These they +raised in salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador, +dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the badge of +office of Muria's captainry. + +The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the ledge; leaped +out. + +"Greeting, Serku!" he answered. "I was but looking for the _coria_ of +Lakla." + +"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku. "Why, the handmaiden passed with her _Akka_ +nigh a _va_ ago!" + +"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half +was I myself deceived. "You let her _pass_?" + +"Certainly I let her pass--" But under the green dwarf's stern gaze +the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked, +apprehensively. + +"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly. + +"There came no command to me." Little beads of sweat stood out on +Serku's forehead. + +"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung +for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes, +even of the Shining One! And the message was sent--and the fate, +mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of +Lakla with these strangers to the Council. Now truly is my heart +wrung, for there are few I would less like to see dance with the +Shining One than you, Serku," he ended, softly. + +Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame shaking. + +"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded. "There came no +message--tell her--" + +"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in Rador's voice. +"This _corial_ is of the swiftest--Lakla's are of the slowest. With +Lakla scarce a _va_ ahead we can reach her before she enters the +Portal. Lift you the Shadow--we will bring her back, and this will I +do for you, Serku." + +Doubt tempered Serku's panic. + +"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here with me?" he +asked--and I thought not unreasonably. + +"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk. "Lakla will not return unless +I carry to her these men as evidence of our good faith. Come--we will +speak to Yolara and she shall judge you--" He started away--but Serku +caught his arm. + +"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken. "Go you--as you +will. But bring her back! Speed, Rador!" He sprang toward the +entrance. "I lift the Shadow--" + +Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a listening, +alertness. He leaped to Serku's side. + +"I go with you," I heard. "Some little I can tell you--" They were +gone. + +"Fine work!" muttered Larry. "Nominated for a citizen of Ireland when +we get out of this, one Rador of--" + +The Shadow trembled--shuddered into nothingness; the obelisked +outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of roadway, high banked with +verdure, vanishing in green distances. + +And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry! It cut through +the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had +died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the +threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was +between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf's +poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head +swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the +sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp--another flash +and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted +to the high seat--and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we +flew! + +There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon +us. The _corial's_ flight was checked as by a giant's hand. The shell +swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it +quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind. + +The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too late. And +shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some +fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every +malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until +long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku, +groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an +escaping bird. + +"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking. "But they cut the end +off your bus all right!" + +A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly. +Rador noted it with anxious eyes. + +"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps. All depends upon +how closely Lugur and his men can follow us." + +He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute. + +"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have +been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!" + +The Irishman waved an airy hand. + +"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained +poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the +globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his +best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken +toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon +Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but +it is not one I am gay to follow--no!" + +He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the +dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the +_corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my +fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer +happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his +automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened. + +"Buck up, Olaf!" he said. "We've got a good fighting chance. Once we +link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your +wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The +Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe. + +"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the +blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be +given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we +saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I +would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how +to fight the Shining Devil--no!" + +His bitter despair welled up in his voice. + +"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle. "We'll come out on top--I know it. +Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and, +well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to +as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and +set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens +blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the +searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn't he think he was among +thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of hell? Sure he +would! And yet everything he saw would be natural--just as natural as +all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we're Fijians, of +course, but the principle is the same." + +The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely. + +"_Ja!_" he answered at last. "And at least we can fight. That is why +I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_ And _one_ have I hope in for +mine Helma--the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old gods it +has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_, +the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white +maiden." + +"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what you don't +understand. There's another thing"--he hesitated, nervously--"there's +another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with +Lakla--her--er--frogs!" + +"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf. + +"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly. "It's this way--I figure that the +frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit different +too. Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained. Carry spears and clubs +and all that junk--just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the +circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that, +Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and +rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers." + +Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's mind from the +outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself +than Olaf. + +"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons--" he +went on. + +But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had +begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled masses +and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber +moss. + +The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains +were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes, +clusters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were +the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft, +almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs +rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the +immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness +turned to startled realization. The speed of the shell was slackening! +The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I +glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its +coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled +and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source. +Rador nodded grimly. + +"The Shadow takes its toll," he said. + +We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm. + +"Look!" he cried, and pointed. Far, far behind us, so far that the +road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came +speeding. + +"Lugur and his men," said Rador. + +"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry. + +"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled. + +"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe. + +Rador looked about him. The coppery ramparts were close, not more +than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a +long rolling swell, and up this the _corial_ essayed to go--with a +terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and +we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla +nor her frogmen. + +Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely crawled and from +beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base +was no longer held above the glassy surface but rested on it. + +"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador. He pressed upon the control lever +and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball +expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of +coruscations into the cylinder. The shell rose; leaped through the +air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled; +died--but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest. +Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping +down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose +sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering +barrier. + +Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the shell, we +plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine +breasts of the cliffs! + +Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our aid. As +the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and +himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the +finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft, +low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick +carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from +it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious +bruise. + +"Quick!" cried the green dwarf. He seized an arm, dragged me to my +feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside +us raced O'Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped +abruptly--was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred +feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On +each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense, +almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across +its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for more than a +glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again. + +"Quick!" he cried again. "The handmaiden has passed!" + +At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this +we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching, +Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards +we raced--and the path ended in a _cul de sac_! To our ears was borne +a louder shouting. + +The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of the great +bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent. +Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur. + +"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry viciously. He +raised his pistol. + +His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood +beside him. + +"No!" rasped the green dwarf. He heaved a shoulder against one of the +boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit. + +"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O'Keefe +slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap +the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth +as it swung into place! + +We were in Cimmerian darkness. I felt for my pocket-flash and +recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit +when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light. + +"Grip hands!" he ordered. We crept, single file, holding to each +other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf +paused. + +"Await me here," he whispered. "Do not move. And for your lives--be +silent!" + +And he was gone. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Dragon Worm and Moss Death + + +For a small eternity--to me at least--we waited. Then as silent as +ever the green dwarf returned. "It is well," he said, some of the +strain gone from his voice. "Grip hands again, and follow." + +"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry. "Does Lugur know this side +entrance? If he does, why not let Olaf and me go back to the opening +and pick them off as they come in? We could hold the lot--and in the +meantime you and Goodwin could go after Lakla for help." + +"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal--if he dare use it," answered +the captain, with a curious indirection. "And now that they have +challenged the Silent Ones I think he _will_ dare. Also, he will find +our tracks--and it may be that he knows this hidden way." + +"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment was almost +ludicrous. "If _he_ knows all that, and _you_ knew all that, why +didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?" + +"_Larree_," the green dwarf was oddly humble. "It seemed good to me, +too--at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop +you--that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!" + +"Command? From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled out of the +blackness the very essence of bewilderment. + +"I thought," Rador was whispering--"I thought it came from the Silent +Ones!" + +"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation. "Always +superstition! What can you do against it! + +"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his aid. "It's too +late now, anyway. Where do we go from here, old dear?" he laughed. + +"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered Rador. +"But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the pale shield he +bears upon his throat and send the flame into the flower of cold fire +that is its centre--nor look into his eyes!" + +Again Larry gasped, and I with him. + +"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered dejectedly. "Can you +make head or tail of it?" + +"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears something and +that's his description of it." + +"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand." I could +feel his grin. "All right for the flower of cold fire, Rador, and I +won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully. "But hadn't we +better be moving?" + +"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went blindly on. + +O'Keefe was muttering to himself. + +"Flower of cold fire! Don't look into his eyes! Some joint! +Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly: + + "Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me; + Two young frog-men are in love with me; + Shut my eyes so I can't see." + +"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering. "For half a _va_ we go +along a way of death. From its peril we pass into another against +whose dangers I can guard you. But in part this is in view of the +roadway and it may be that Lugur will see us. If so, we must fight as +best we can. If we pass these two roads safely, then is the way to the +Crimson Sea clear, nor need we fear Lugur nor any. And there is +another thing--that Lugur does not know--when he opens the Portal the +Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the _Akka_ will be swift to greet +its opener." + +"Rador," I asked, "how know _you_ all this?" + +"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly. + +O'Keefe drew a long breath. + +"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man who's going to +be your nephew!" + +And thereafter he never addressed the green dwarf except by the +avuncular title, which Rador, humorously enough, apparently conceived +to be one of respectful endearment. + +For me a light broke. Plain now was the reason for his foreknowledge +of Lakla's appearance at the feast where Larry had so narrowly escaped +Yolara's spells; plain the determining factor that had cast his lot +with ours, and my confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious +perils, experienced a remarkable quickening. + +Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation and +appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my consciousness that +we were now moving in a dim half-light. We were in a fairly wide +tunnel. Not far ahead the gleam filtered, pale yellow like sunlight +sifting through the leaves of autumn poplars. And as we drove closer +to its source I saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen +hanging over the passage end. This Rador drew aside cautiously, +beckoned us and we stepped through. + +It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould. Its base was +a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which the walls curved out in +perfect cylindrical form, smoothed and evened with utmost nicety. +Thirty feet wide they were at their widest, then drew toward each +other with no break in their symmetry; they did not close. Above was, +roughly, a ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light +like that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot through +with curiously evanescent bronze shadows. + +"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a sharp pace. + +Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that the tunnel's +walls were of moss. In them I could trace fringe leaf and curly leaf, +pressings of enormous bladder caps (Physcomitrium), immense splashes +of what seemed to be the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge +moss veils, crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown +and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean blues, +pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic force. + +"Hurry!" It was Rador calling. I had lagged behind. + +He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing; panting. The +amber light grew stronger; the rift above us wider. The tunnel curved; +on the left a narrow cleft appeared. The green dwarf leaped toward it, +thrust us within, pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky +fissure--well-nigh, indeed, a chimney. Up and up this we scrambled +until my lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more. The +crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador, upon a little +leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns. + +Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back strength and +breath. Rador was first to rise. Thrice he bent low as in homage, +then-- + +"Give thanks to the Silent Ones--for their power has been over us!" he +exclaimed. + +Dimly I wondered what he meant. Something about the fern leaf at +which I had been staring aroused me. I leaped to my feet and ran to +its base. This was no fern, no! It was fern _moss_! The largest of its +species I had ever found in tropic jungles had not been more than two +inches high, and this was--twenty feet! The scientific fire I had +experienced in the tunnel returned uncontrollable. I parted the +fronds, gazed out-- + +My outlook commanded a vista of miles--and that vista! A _Fata +Morgana_ of plantdom! A land of flowered sorcery! + +Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every +conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and +nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous +flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living +jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of +rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the +trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are +shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven! + +And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and +bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery; +oriflammes of elfland! + +Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of +pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or +curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in +ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore +cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones, +caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and +unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely! + +They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over +_Titania's_ court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the _Flower Maiden_ +music of "Parsifal"; _bizarrerie_ of the angled, fantastic beings that +people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's +paradise! + +Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the distances by +huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying mantles of the +hurricane. + +And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of birds, +darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of gigantic, +shimmering butterflies. + +A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susurrus of the +incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger--now its mournful +whispering quivered all about us, shook us--then passing like a +Presence, died away in far distances. + +"The Portal!" said Rador. "Lugur has entered!" + +He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our path. Peering +with him we saw the barrier through which we had come stretching +verdure-covered walls for miles three or more away. Like a mole burrow +in a garden stretched the trail of the tunnel; here and there we could +look down within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw +the glint of spears. + +"They come!" whispered Rador. "Quick! We must not meet them here!" + +And then-- + +"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry. + +From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the +cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns--of +tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted +higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two +enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosphorescence; +higher still--noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from +which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it +rose--its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from +whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire; +and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery +shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted--and in the shield's +centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining +out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even +as Rador had said. + +Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred +feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along +the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell, +whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering +length dropped back. + +"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and +down the other side of the steep we raced. + +Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a +far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence! + +"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf, +pausing. + +"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic. +"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor +said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato +knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show +in me!' + +"What was it, Doc?" he asked. + +"The dragon worm!" Rador said. + +"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf. + +"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying +down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling, +behind me. + +The green dwarf was signalling us for caution. He pointed through a +break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the +glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered +whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on; +drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and +less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us +shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us. +Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating. + +The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some +indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression +was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether +it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi +scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the +cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were +thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique. +Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike +forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there the simulacra of the +giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much +resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew +into a distinct nausea. + +Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had +looked upon the dragon worm. + +"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do--and +speak not at all!" + +He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept +after him; passed the heaps beside the path--and as I passed my skin +crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable +loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow +of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling. + +"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe. + +The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of +us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the +moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque +appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay +there--and from it came a shout. A dozen of the _coria_ clustered, +filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing +wickedly! + +There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of +them toward us. + +"Run!" shouted Rador. + +"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic +spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still +laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his shell. +But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest, +came a series of muffled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions +the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers +grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of +puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed +their faces, stricken with agony. + +Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood +rigid. + +The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their +heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments--and swiftly they +began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The +glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow, +grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the +soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift +growth! + +Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps, +swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds +that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of +ancient viridescence! + +The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to +my senses. + +"Olaf's right," he gasped. "This _is_ hell! I'm sick." And he was, +frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from +their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away. + +"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed--the Silent Ones +watch over us!" + +Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants. +I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call +me--superstitious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other +swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the +hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its +microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through +the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and +never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been +sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the +development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to +explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassuring him. + +"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said. + +Again I explained, patiently. But he seemed to derive no comfort at +all from my assurances that the phenomena were entirely natural and, +aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the +botanist. + +"I know," was all he would say. "But suppose one of those things had +burst while we were going through--God!" + +I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus +when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon. + +"Now is all danger passed," he said. "The way lies open and Lugur has +fled--" + +There was a flash from the road. It passed me like a little lariat of +light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face +and drew itself within! + +"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground. My head struck +sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the +green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still, +eyes staring. A shout--and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's +men; I could hear Lugur bellowing. + +There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my +face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman. + +She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its +tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence, +leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at +their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and +uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of +throats, of faces, of breasts like a spring endowed with +consciousness, volition and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as +stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still +unstricken fled. + +Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces poured the +frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances, +tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs. + +Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand. They raced for the +shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--and then Lakla's voice, +pealing like a golden bugle of wrath. + +"Go, Lugur!" she cried. "Go--that you and Yolara and your Shining One +may die together! Death for you, Lugur--death for you all! Remember +Lugur--death!" + +There was a great noise within my head--no matter, Lakla was +here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor +dragon worm had frightened him away--he had crept back to trap +us--Lakla had come too late--Larry was dead--Larry! But I had heard no +banshee wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that +warning--no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my +mind. + +A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were +staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden +Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe. + +The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me away on its +thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +The Crimson Sea + + +I was in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no, I was in a +rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space. Consciousness flooded me, in +reality I was in the arms of one of the man frogs, carrying me as +though I were a babe, and we were passing through some place suffused +with glow enough like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my +awakening vagaries. + +Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and content enough +was I for a time to watch her. She had thrown off the metallic robes; +her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of +bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green; +little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the +proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose, +sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden +girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees. + +She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-arched feet +were sandalled. Between the buckled edges of her kirtle I caught +gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely moulded, as delectably +rounded, as those revealed so naively beneath the hem. + +Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness--some tragic +thing. What was it? Larry! Where was Larry? I remembered; raised my +head abruptly; saw at my side another frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and +behind him, Olaf, step instinct with grief, following like some +faithful, wistful dog who has lost a loved master. Upon my movement +the monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered a +deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation. + +Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the sweet mouth +drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness, that undefinable +synthesis of all her tender self that seemed always to circle her with +an atmosphere of lucid normality, lulled my panic. + +"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my lips. + +Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly effective, +for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of strength; +consciousness was restored. + +"Larry!" I cried. "Is he dead?" + +Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled. + +"No," she said; "but he is like one dead--and yet unlike--" + +"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer. + +He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke--in +sonorous, reverberating monosyllables--and I was set upon my feet; I +leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting, +abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the +antithesis of the _rigor mortis_, thank God, but terrifyingly toward +the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was +stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; the +respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were enormously +dilated; it was as though life had been drawn from every nerve. + +"A light flashed from the road. It struck his face and seemed to sink +in," I said. + +"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not; and I thought I +knew all the weapons of our rulers." He glanced at me curiously. "Some +talk there has been that the stranger who came with you, Double +Tongue, was making new death tools for Lugur," he ended. + +Marakinoff! The Russian at work already in this storehouse of +devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for his plots! The +Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me-- + +"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant. "He is not dead; and +the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they +will--and they will, they _will_!" For a moment she was silent. "Now +their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may, +whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I +fall upon them and I will slay those two--yea, though I, too perish!" + +"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burning. "But +Lugur is mine to slay." + +That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she looked upon the +Norseman banished the white wrath from them. She turned, half +hurriedly, as though to escape his gaze. + +"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still weak." + +I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I +could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine +protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering +fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her. + +"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered. "And the touch of +your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I +added in Larry's best manner. + +Her eyes danced, trouble flying. + +"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me +you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a +lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be +as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils? + +Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her. Again I noted that +broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze +caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a +curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to the lovely face--flowerlike, +pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling +over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous +suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender, +rounded, bare left breast-- + +"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw +you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world. +And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the +black box that you left behind," she added swiftly. + +"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped. + +"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping. +How call you _him_?" She paused. + +"Larry!" I said. + +"Larry!" she repeated it excellently. "And you?" + +"Goodwin," said Rador. + +I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young +lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed. + +"Yes--Goodwin." she said. "Oft and oft I came. Sometimes I thought +you saw me. And _he_--did he not dream of me sometime--?" she asked +wistfully. + +"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal. +"But how came you?" I asked. + +"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with +_him_--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty. +But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her, +turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she +went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the +Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman _he_ +seeks"--she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast from +her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw +herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I +could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes +to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!" + +She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens to voices +unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture; I crowded back my +questions, glanced about me. We were passing over a smooth strand, +hard packed as some beach of long-thrust-back ocean. It was like +crushed garnets, each grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling. On +each side were distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of +vegetation--stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist, even +as did the space above. + +Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians, fivescore of +them at least, black scale and crimson scale lustrous and gleaming in +the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes shining circles of phosphorescence +green, purple, red; spurs clicking as they crouched along with a gait +at once grotesque and formidable. + +Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it a long, dark +line began to appear--the mouth I thought of the caverned space +through which we were going; it was just before us; over us--we stood +bathed in a flood of rubescence! + +A sea stretched before us--a crimson sea, gleaming like that lost +lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's blood which Fu S'cze set +upon the bower he built for his stolen sun maiden--that going toward +it she might think it the sun itself rising over the summer seas. +Unmoved by wave or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool +when night rushes up over the world. + +It seemed molten--or as though some hand great enough to rock earth +had distilled here from conflagrations of autumn sunsets their flaming +essences. + +A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flashing bronze, +ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates of armour. It leaped +high, shaking from it a sparkling spray of rubies; dropped and shot up +a geyser of fiery gems. + +Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea, floated a half +globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence melting into turquoise, +thence to amethyst, to orange, to scarlet shot with rose, to +vermilion, a translucent green, thence back into the iridescence; +behind it four others, and the least of them ten feet in diameter, and +the largest no less than thirty. They drifted past like bubbles blown +from froth of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young. Then from +the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long, slender +whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again beneath the crimson +surface. + +I gasped--for the fish had been a _ganoid_--that ancient, armoured +form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all life on our planet +during the Devonian era, but which for age upon age had vanished, save +for its fossils held in the embrace of the stone that once was their +soft bottom beds; and the half-globes were _Medusae_, jelly-fish--but +of a size, luminosity, and colour unheard of. + +Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a clarion note +ringing out. The ledge on which we stood continued a few hundred feet +before us, falling abruptly, though from no great height to the +Crimson Sea; at right and left it extended in a long semicircle. +Turning to the right whence she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile +or more away, veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic +prismatic arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange +atmosphere. It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the crimson tide, +and dropped three miles away upon a precipitous, jagged upthrust of +rock frowning black from the lacquered depths. + +And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a huge dome of +dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind with something unhumanly +alien, baffling; sending the mind groping, as though across the +deserts of space, from some far-flung star, should fall upon us linked +sounds, coherent certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar--yet +never to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own +particular planet. + +The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous +colour--this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by +the anomalous, aureate excrescence--the half human batrachians-the +elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and +terrors--I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking. +Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting +a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the +breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I +groaned. + +Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me, +held me till the vertigo passed. + +"Patience," she said. "The bearers come. Soon you shall rest." + +I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leaping swiftly +another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not +unlike palanquins-- + +"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing to the arch. +"Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which souls go to Valhalla. +And _she_--she is a Valkyr--a sword maiden, _Ja!_" + +I gripped the Norseman's hand. It was hot, and a pang of remorse shot +through me. If this place had so shaken me, how must it have shaken +Olaf? It was with relief that I watched him, at Lakla's gentle +command, drop into one of the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as +two of the monsters raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders. Nor was +it without further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety +cushions of another. + +The cavalcade began to move. Lakla had ordered O'Keefe placed beside +her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion, leaning over the pale +head on her lap, the white, tapering fingers straying fondly through +his hair. + +Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal of her +tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil over her and +him. + +Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing--I turned away my gaze, lorn +enough in my own heart, God knew! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Three Silent Ones + + +The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and +aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist, +no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained +with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the +Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of +chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a +hundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the +Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and +which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock. + +It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low +arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm +of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous +span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it. + +Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at +its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred +feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled, +curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of +the plastic rock had curled. + +On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the +bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining +dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing +over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in +front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs. + +From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps, +widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to +two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like +panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And +this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer +precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood. + +We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were +striding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seized +me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss +indeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the +Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a +pit that struck down into earth's heart itself, + +Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below? A +stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it +like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--that +burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible +blossoming of splendours in the black heavens. + +And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with +its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of +crystal bell sounds! + +The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they +swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us, +and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle +wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman +frog of the Moon Pool wall. + +Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and +gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her +side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in a +swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla +answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face, +felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the +passage. + +Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at +last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant +rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson +light from without. + +I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition; +still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador +and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood +beside me, silent. + +"I go to the Three," said Lakla. "Wait you here." She passed through +a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the +hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her. + +"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent +Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's +disconcerted, almost fearful start. + +Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf. + +"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him." + +He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast. The dwarf +glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded. + +"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds. + +Of that journey I have few memories. I only know that we went through +corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some +carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as +into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and +spaces in which softer lights held sway. + +We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green +dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the +same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it +slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the +opening--and as one in a dream I entered. + +We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in +the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held +within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my +eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the +globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them, +through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge +and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against +the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was +checked as though by a barrier. + +I felt Lakla's touch; turned. + +A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the +floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating +mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's +shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it +stretched like a wall. + +Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male, +one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes +of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if +I could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive. + +They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of +the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping +red flames. + +Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored; +their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an +upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great +lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice +the size of mankind's! + +Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that +they were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered +scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the +giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins; +the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing +up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty +fires of opalescence! + +Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly. What--what were these +beings? + +I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current +of reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. I +saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite +their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way, +benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them +fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness, +the despair wiped from his face. + +Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched +hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to +pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to +the Norseman. + +"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent +Ones." + +She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared +from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and +something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward, +lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It +wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and +within it there was no sign of Larry! + +Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the +chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but +before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent; +sensed a movement as though they lifted something. + +The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable. + +And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais, +leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking +as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to +her, gripped her in his arms. + +"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!" She slipped from his embrace, +blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw +the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman +being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded +some well-beloved child. + +"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said. "And the Silent Ones +drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are +good and they are mighty!" + +She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked +into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been +Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what +can I call it?--_holiness_ that streamed from them. + +Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another +moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before +them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am +not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and +Olaf and Rador. + +The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them. + +And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him +to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder. + +But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the +Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door +into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in +which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of +green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself? + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +The Wooing of Lakla + + +I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great +chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that +culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours--the facing of +the Three. + +Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's +voice: + +"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a +silence--then: "Yes, they look like _birds_--and they look, and it's +meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like +_lizards_"--and another silence--"they look like some sort of gods, and, +by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's +_none_ of them they are either, so what--what the--what the sainted St. +Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed +and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are--it +all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--" + +He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head. + +"Wake up!" shouted Larry. "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized +superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!" + +Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment +with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my +anger was swept away. + +"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three +are!" + +"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm. + +"Yes?" he mimicked. "Yes! Ye--ye" He paused under the menace of my +look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De, +the old ones, the great people of Ireland, _that's_ who they are!" + +I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god +Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in +Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have +left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths. + +"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient Ones who had +spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas, +an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even +Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament; +yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the +shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an' +death--even Orchil would weave as they commanded!" + +He was silent--then: + +"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I have bent my knee +to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else +would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair, +whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with +mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?" +he whispered, eyes full of dream. + +"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably. + +"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily. "But at +once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is +that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way +to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while; +an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got +wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed +on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest +of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in +particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?" + +I shook my head. + +"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily. + +"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly +intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those +through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed +batrachians they call the _Akka_ prove that evolution in these +caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on +earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very +entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he +made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing +inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of +earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another +series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the +dominant race. + +"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the +Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development +took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the +structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be +different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies +unfamiliar to us--and hence also the question whether they may not +have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and that is +rather terrifying," I concluded. + +Larry shook his head. + +"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had +sense of justice enough to help _me_ out--and certainly they know +love--for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow--for there +was no mistaking that in their faces. + +"No," he went on. "I hold to my own idea. They're of the Old People. +The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who +sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here--which save the +mark!--I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit +before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at +home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it +all fits in too well to be wrong." + +I made a last despairing attempt. + +"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the +Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--and again I had +spoken most unfortunately. + +"Is there?" he shouted. "Is there? By the kilt of Cormack +MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little +meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar +an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces +the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn--" + +How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have +heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador. + +"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see. The handmaiden bade me +call you. You are to eat with her in her garden." + +Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as +beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming, +fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table, +as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was +not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of +verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted +it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure. + +Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear. +Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people +hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss. +My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at +the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began, +stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns +and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with +here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or +more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in +the haze. + +I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true +sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew--the first real wind I had +encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been +as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a +spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted--stately, +luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons. + +Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping +with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were +luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and +vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd +shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of +jewels. + +Rador broke in upon my musings. + +"Lakla comes! Let us go down." + +It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and, +blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took +them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that +had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had +given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering +fingers--then pressed them to her own heart. + +"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me +here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of +light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance +of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower +face. + +"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently. "Do you, Lakla?" He bent +toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside +half-haughtily. + +"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf, +were setting forth?" + +"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a +current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one, +Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes +even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came +striding the Norseman. + +As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him. +Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope. +The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to +her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me. + +"There is to be battle," he said. "I go with Rador to call the armies +of these frog people. As for me--Lakla has spoken. There is no hope +for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the +Shining Devil and give _mine_ Helma peace. And with that I am well +content, _ja!_ Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will +fight!" he muttered. "_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness +returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone. + +Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla. + +"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken," +she said. "He asked me--and it was better that I tell him. It is part +of the Three's--_punishment_--but of that you will soon learn," she went +on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought +it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind +other than sorrow upon which to feed." + +Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers. +Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles +covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling +ornaments. + +And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the +_Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are, +and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it, +as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the +stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a +different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as +man did his from the four-footed folk. + +The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but +the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital +differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and +retreating--its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a +sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that +stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the +spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different +also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their +crouching gait--but I wander from my subject. *1 + + +*1 The _Akka_ are viviparous. The female produces progeny at +five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are +monogamous, like certain of our own _Ranidae_. Pending my monograph +upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and +customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in +Brandes and Schvenichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_, +p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's _Unusual Modes of Breeding among +Anura_, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G. + + + +They set their burdens down. Larry looked at them with interest. + +"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said. + +"Things!" The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation. "You +call my _Akka_ things!" + +"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?" + +"My _Akka_ are a _people_," she retorted. "As much a people as your race +or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and +they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think +them beautiful, Larry, _beautiful_!" She stamped her foot. "And you call +them--_things_!" + +Beautiful! These? Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque +fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were +not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same +thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily. + +"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my +not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. _Truly_, I think them +beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk." + +Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech +that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe +with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves. + +"They say they like _you_ better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla. + +"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he +murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish +princess!" he muttered to himself. + +"Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping through with +news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food. +"Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the _Akka_--for there will +be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went +before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a +swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the _Akka_." + +"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?" +said Larry. + +"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's +that?" + +"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered. "It does--that +is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry." + +"I like that word," mused Lakla. + +"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe. + +"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla. "When they come we shall have first of +all my _Akka_--" + +"Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry. + +"Can they fight! My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed. "They will +fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift +rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those _Saddu_ +there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on +the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I +know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears +and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and +brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at them, +it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are +passing into the nothingness!" + +"And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked. + +"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have we here, +although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them." + +"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried. "Surely they can +tell--" + +"No," she said slowly. "No--there is something you must know--and +soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You, +especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom." + +"Then," said Larry, "we have the _Akka_; and we have the four men of +us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges--an'--an' +the power of the Three--but what about the Shining One, Fireworks--" + +"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when +Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is +strong--and he has his--slaves!" + +"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang. +But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no +further. The trouble fled from her eyes--they danced. + +"Larry darlin'?" she murmured. "I like the touch of your lips--" + +"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the +beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, _acushla_, you're +goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said. + +And I turned it. There was quite a long silence, broken by an +interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving +frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the +Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and +adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his +clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which +rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true, +all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real +music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger +than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all +that mystery we call life. + +Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head, kissed him +between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling little laugh from his +embrace. + +"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to me a little +unsteadily. + +I took their hands--and Lakla kissed me! + +She turned to the booming--smiling--frog-maids; gave them some +command, for they filed away down the path. Suddenly I felt, well, a +little superfluous. + +"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path there again +and look about." + +But they were so engrossed with each other that they did not even hear +me--so I walked away, up to the embrasure where Rador had taken me. +The movement of the batrachians over the bridge had ceased. Dimly at +the far end I could see the cluster of the garrison. My thoughts flew +back to Lakla and to Larry. + +What was to be the end? + +If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could she live in +our world? A product of these caverns with their atmosphere and light +that seemed in some subtle way to be both food and drink--how would +she react to the unfamiliar foods and air and light of outer earth? +Further, here so far as I was able to discover, there were no +malignant bacilli--what immunity could Lakla have then to those +microscopic evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death +have bought for us a modicum of protection? I began to be oppressed. +Surely they had been long enough by themselves. I went down the path. + +I heard Larry. + +"It's a green land, _mavourneen_. And the sea rocks and dimples +around it--blue as the heavens, green as the isle itself, and foam +horses toss their white manes, and the great clean winds blow over it, +and the sun shines down on it like your eyes, _acushla_--" + +"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus Lakla-- + +But enough! + +At last we turned to go--and around the corner of the path I caught +another glimpse of what I have called the lake of jewels. I pointed to +it. + +"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said. "I have never seen +anything like them in the place from whence we come." + +She followed my pointing finger--laughed. + +"Come," she said, "let me show you them." + +She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out of it upon a +little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more I suppose about +it. The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a high-pitched, tremulous, +throbbing call. + +The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed over it; +stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a shimmering torrent +of shining flowers down upon us! She called again, the movement became +more rapid; the gem blooms streamed closer--closer, wavering, +shifting, winding--at our very feet. Above them hovered a little +radiant mist. The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from +the sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five flowers of +flaming ruby--shot up, flew into her hand and coiled about the white +arm, its quintette of lambent blossoms--regarding us! + +It was the thing Lakla had called the _Yekta_; that with which she had +threatened the priestess; the thing that carried the dreadful +death--and the Golden Girl was handling it like a rose! + +Larry swore--I looked at the thing more closely. It was a hydroid, a +development of that strange animal-vegetable that, sometimes almost +microscopic, waves in the sea depths like a cluster of flowers +paralyzing its prey with the mysterious force that dwells in its +blossom heads!1 + + +*1 The _Yekta_ of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments +of hydroid forms as the giant _Medusae_, of which, of course, they are +not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer +water forms are among the _Gymnoblastic Hydroids_, notably _Clavetella +prolifera_, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles. +Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain +that contact with certain "jelly fish" produces. The _Yekta's_ +development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its +five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect, +for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous +system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the +same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities +of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this +sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What +Lakla called the _Yekta_ kiss is I imagine about as close to the +orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control +over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that +followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she +told me, from those few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they +recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by +the Murians as these were--W. T. G. + + + +"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was deep. Lakla +laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for her in his eyes; +opened her hand, gave another faint call--and back it flew to its +fellows. + +"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated. "They know me!" + +"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely. + +She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call. The lake of +gems--rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues--wavered +and shook even as it had before--and swept swiftly back to that place +whence she had drawn them! + +Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown +neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing +merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle. + +Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the +bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the +frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on +spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts +crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found +in what was Olaf's hell, their true paradise. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +The Coming of Yolara + + +"Never was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in +hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us, +pleading service to the Silent Ones. + +"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by my dead +mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered +fervently. + +He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming. + +I walked about the room, examining it--the first opportunity I had +gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the +Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed +almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering, +palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was +arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it +collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it, +diffused, through the room. + +Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor, +balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite +curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings +giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the +rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were +colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable +designs in scarlet and sapphire blue. + +There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half +a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull +soft gold. + +Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four +feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one +curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese. + +There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this +constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a +sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a +flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and +stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from +the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it +I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear +flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes--and with a disconcerting +abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred +feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where +were the guards? + +I peered closely. Nothing! But now against the aperture I saw a +score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought, +and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings +there. I turned it back again--and there they were. And what were +they like? Realization came to me--they were like the little, dancing, +radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had +stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the +nothingness! And that green light I had noticed--the _Keth_! + +A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as the heavy +curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a +body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again--with the +dreadful passing of unseen things! + +"Larry!" I cried. "Here! Quick!" + +He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly--and disappeared! +Yes--vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as +though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched +him away! + +Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of +straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the +balustrade, drawing my own pistol--was caught in a pair of mighty +arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed +close to a broad, hairy breast--and through that obstacle--formless, +shadowless, transparent as air itself--I could still see the battle on +the divan! + +Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased. From +a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air +itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of +nothingness. + +And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of +Larry--bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with +rage--floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy. + +His hands flashed out--armless; they wavered, appearing, +disappearing--swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet +hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into +vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken +from sight was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand. + +And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the +couch, dripping to the floor. + +I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly--and then +close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying +instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as +devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through +it like delicate white flames from hell--and beautiful! + +"Stir not! Strike not--until I command!" She flung the words beyond +her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose +presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head, +crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took +a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward +purple; sparkled with malice. + +"So," she said. "So, _Larree_--you thought you could go from me so +easily!" She laughed softly. "In my hidden hand I hold the _Keth_ +cone," she murmured. "Before you can raise the death tube I can smite +you--and will. And consider, _Larree_, if the handmaiden, the _choya_ +comes, I can vanish--so"--the mocking head disappeared, burst forth +again--"and slay her with the _Keth_--or bid my people seize her and +bear her to the Shining One!" + +Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and I knew he was +thinking not of himself, but of Lakla. + +"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely. + +"Nay," came the mocking voice. "Not Yolara to you, _Larree_--call me +by those sweet names you taught me--Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of +Hearts--" Again her laughter tinkled. + +"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the lips rigid. + +"Ah, you are afraid, _Larree_." There was diabolic jubilation in the +words. "What should I want but that you return with me? Why else did I +creep through the lair of the dragon worm and pass the path of perils +but to ask you that? And the _choya_ guards you not well." Again she +laughed. "We came to the cavern's end and, there were her _Akka_. And +the _Akka_ can see us--as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise +you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken. "And I feared that +they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in +your joy. And so, _Larree_, I loosed the _Keth_ upon them--and gave +them peace and rest within the nothingness. And the portal below was +open--almost in welcome!" + +Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter. + +"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly +he strove for control. + +"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm. "Do not Siya and Siyana +grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half done--and do they not +desire it finished? And am I not beautiful? More beautiful than your +_choya_?" + +The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue, wondrous; the +veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half +revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling +was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air--and beautiful, +sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith, +the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam! + +"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I hate you; +perhaps because I love you--or perhaps for Lugur or perhaps for the +Shining One." + +"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly. + +"Then shall I spare the handmaiden--and--who knows?--take back my +armies that even now gather at the portal and let the Silent Ones rot +in peace in their abode--from which they had no power to keep me," she +added venomously. + +"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming the +handmaiden?" he asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I +wrenched my face from the smothering contact. + +"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried--and again the grip choked me. + +"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?" he asked +quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. "If he's in front I'll take +a chance and wing him--and then you scoot and warn Lakla." + +But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I, had +I been able. + +"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice. + +The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn +close, opened. They framed the handmaiden! The face of Yolara changed +to that gorgon mask that had transformed it once before at sight of +the Golden Girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting +veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself +with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla. + +But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could loose its +force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf +hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the +other the wrist that lifted the quivering death; white limbs wrapped +about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held +the _Keth_ swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into +the wrist--the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The +cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the +hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast and +fired. + +The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my feet a little +pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from nothingness, +clawed--and was still. + +Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like +some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of +them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a pike from one of the high tripods +in his hand--thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a +broadsword against poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out +of vacancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always +covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a caveman of old +who does battle with his mate for their lives. + +The sword-club struck--and on the floor lay the half body of a dwarf, +writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside +him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon. +I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the +remaining supports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his +dagger darted toward me! The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a +golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it +like a staff; felt it crunch once--twice--through unseen bone and +muscle. + +At the door was a booming. Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the +frog-men. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to +us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and +spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here +and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of +dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And +at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with +that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe +reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet. +The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her; +with difficulty she steadied her voice. + +"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have +desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests +of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden--why did you do +these things?" + +"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe. + +"Why?" asked Lakla. + +"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that +were hers in her face. "Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!" + +"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage. "It is a lie! +But here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you +and he shall go forth from here unmolested--for Yolara, it is his +happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness--you shall +go together. And now, Larry, choose!" + +Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched the last +shreds of the hiding robes from her. + +There they stood--Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her +wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining through it; serpent woman---and +wonderful, too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias--and hell-fire +glowing from the purple eyes. + +And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids +who stood and fought for dun and babes at the side of those old heroes +of Larry's own green isle; translucent ivory lambent through the rents +of her torn draperies, and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath, +indeed--not the diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous +wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the +doing. + +"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there _is_ no choice. +I love you and only you--and have from the moment I saw you. It's not +easy--this. God, Goodwin, I feel like an utter cad," he flashed at me. +"There is no choice, Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers. + +The priestess's face grew deadlier still. + +"What will you do with me?" she asked. + +"Keep you," I said, "as hostage." + +O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head. + +"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the Silent Ones +say--_no_; they bid me let you go, Yolara--" + +"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "_You_, Lakla! You fear, +perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!" + +Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced it back. + +"No," she answered, "the Silent Ones so command--and for their own +purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to +feed your wickedness--tell that to Lugur--and to your Shining One!" +she added slowly. + +Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. "Am I to +return alone--like this?" she asked. + +"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla; "and by +those who will guard--and _watch_--you well. They are here even now." + +The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador. + +The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the +Norseman--and for the first time lost her bravado. + +"Let not _him_ go with me," she gasped--her eyes searched the floor +frantically. + +"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that +covered the exquisite, alluring body. "And you shall pass through the +Portal, not skulk along the path of the worm!" + +She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had told him, I +supposed, the secret of its opening. + +"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her, Yolara, head +bent, passed out of those hangings through which, but a little before, +unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped. + +Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his +shoulders, looked deep into his eyes. + +"_Did_ you woo her, even as she said?" she asked. + +The Irishman flushed miserably. + +"I did not," he said. "I was pleasant to her, of course, because I +thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'." + +She looked at him doubtfully; then-- + +"I think you must have been _very_--pleasant!" was all she said--and +leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips. An extremely +direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything +she might consider non-essentials; and at this moment I decided she +was wiser even than I had thought her. + +He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up something that +in the grasping turned his hand to air. + +"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me. "There must be quite a +lot of them about--I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers. +They're a bit shopworn, probably--but we're considerably better off +with 'em in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy--who +knows?" + +There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a dwarf raised +out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in death throes; fell back. +Lakla shivered; gave a command. The frog-men moved about; peering here +and there; lifting unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form +after form of the priestess's men. + +Lakla had been right--her _Akka_ were thorough fighters! + +She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her attendant. To +her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws +and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them +and passed out--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of +vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems +as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her. + +The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and +filed, booming triumphantly away. + +And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had slipped from +Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched. +But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we +did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men +clutched it and had it been borne away with them? With the thought +Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they +carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it, +retrieved it swiftly without our seeing. + +Whatever was true--the cone was gone. And what a weapon that one +little holder of the shaking death would have been for us! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +In the Lair of the Dweller + + +It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it +I must deal with an experience so contrary to every known law of +physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course, +the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not +susceptible of naturalistic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside +the domain of science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy +in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of +Science. Amazing, unfamiliar--_advanced_--as many of the phenomena were, +still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the +possible; in regions, it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but +toward which that mind is steadily advancing. + +But this--well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic; +but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines +of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that +even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp, +that I despair. + +I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in +precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it. + +Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary +approach toward the heart of the perplexity. And the first path is the +realization that our world _whatever_ it is, is certainly _not_ the +world as we see it! Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon +"Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the distinguished +English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of +hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution. *1 + + +*1 Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested +may peruse it.--W. T. G. + + + +I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue--"The world +is not as we think it is--therefore everything we think impossible is +possible in it." Even if it _be_ different, it is governed by _law_. The +truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing _can_ be +outside law, the impossible _cannot_ exist. + +The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we +think is impossible may or may not be possible under laws still beyond +our knowledge. + +I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression, +but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at +ease. And now to resume. + +We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the bodies of Yolara's +assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the +dying, there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated, +dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, varicoloured tentacles +whipped out; the giant iridescent bubbles _climbed_ over the cadavers. +And as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting +away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the +dart touched fruit that time I had saved Rador--and upon this the +Medusae gorged; pulsing lambently; their wondrous colours shifting, +changing, glowing stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites +whose glimmering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment +whose glorious hues were sucked from horror. + +Sick, I turned away--O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back into the +corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched; met +Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed +faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering, +shook us--then passing like a presence, died away in far distance. + +"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden. A fainter sighing, like +an echo of the other, mourned about us. "Yolara is gone," she said, +"the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten--for the Three have +commanded that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I tread that strange road +of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart +break--and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge." + +Her hand sought Larry's. + +"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down through hall after +hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be +beneath the domed castle--Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast +of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its +side; it revolved; we entered; it closed behind us. + +The room, the--hollow--in which we stood was faceted like a diamond; +and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened--though dully. Its shape +was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished +base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that in +the closing of the entrance there had been left no trace of it save +the steps that led from where that entrance had been--and as I looked +these steps _turned_, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the +faceted walls about us--and in each of the gleaming faces the three of +us reflected--dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg +whose graven angles had been turned _inward_. + +But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it--a screen +that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences--stretching from +the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber; slightly +convex and crisscrossed by millions of fine lines like those upon a +spectroscopic plate, but with this difference--that within each line I +sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into +infinitude, ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to +whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the needle of +a micrometer. + +A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass, +bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal ran concentric +rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the +dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut +eight small cups. + +Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers. She +gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit--and the screen behind us +slipped noiselessly into another angle. + +"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand close," she +murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder." + +Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers upon the +shelf's indentations--three of the rings of vapour spun into intense +light, raced around each other; from the screen behind us grew a +radiance that held within itself all spectrums--not only those seen, +but those _unseen_ by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more +brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a +window pane! + +The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and in each +sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn like pennants in a +whirlwind. I turned to look--was stopped by the handmaiden's swift +command: "Turn not--on your life!" + +The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of light in which I +was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears--nay with +_mind_ itself--a vast roaring; an _ordered_ tumult of sound that came +hurling from the outposts of space; approaching--rushing--hurricane +out of the heart of the cosmos--closer, closer. It wrapped itself +about us with unearthly mighty arms. + +And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us. + +The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted, diaphanously, +like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame; through their vanishing, +under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable +tornado, I began to move, slowly--then ever more swiftly! + +Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed--ever faster we went. +Cutting down through the length, the _extension_ of me, dropped a wall +of rock, foreshortened, clenched close; I caught a glimpse of the +elfin gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin--slice--of colour +that was a part of me; another wall of rock shrinking into a thin +wedge through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me +like a card slipped beside those others! + +Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of +flickering scarlet flames. And always the steady hurling +forward--appallingly mechanical. + +Another barrier of rock--a gleam of white waters incorporating +themselves into my--_drawing out_--even as were the flowered moss lands, +the slicing, rocky walls--still another rampart of cliff, dwindling +instantly into the vertical plane of those others. Our flight checked; +we seemed to hover within, then to sway onward--slowly, cautiously. + +A mist danced ahead of me--a mist that grew steadily thinner. We +stopped, wavered--the mist cleared. + +I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with swift +prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun +glow through green, tropic waters: dancing, scintillating veils of +sparkling atoms that flew, hither and yon, through depths of nebulous +splendour! + +And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes upon a +smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this +place--a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly +through creeping veils of phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire. We +were shadows--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a +part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we +stretched--nor will I qualify this--we _stretched_ through mile upon +mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an +absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical +concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space +whatever; we stood _there_ upon the face of the stone--and still we +were _here_ within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance! + +"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me _there_, but at my ear +close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And--see!" + +The sparkling haze cleared. Enormous reaches stretched before me. +Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium +thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure--fruiting trees and +trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms, +like that sea fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the +tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides. + +Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted and eddied a +horde--great as that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast +as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs--men and +women and children--clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked; +slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and brown and +yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons with grizzled locks +fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline Javans, Dyaks of hill and +shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and +Vikings centuries _beyond_ their lives: scores of the black-haired +Murians; white faces of our own Westerners--men and women and children +--drifting, eddying--each stamped with that mingled horror and +rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God +and devil in embrace--the seal of the Shining One--the dead-alive; the +lost ones! + +The loot of the Dweller! + +Soul-sick, I gazed. They lifted to us visages of dread; they swept +down toward us, glaring upward--a bank against which other and still +other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused; until as far as I +could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they +stretched beneath us--staring--staring! + +Now there was a movement--far, far away; a concentrating of the +lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated--forming a long +lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry +insistence. + +First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendours +through the lane came--the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive +swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting; +and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings +and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome +gleamings--like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly. +And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once +more. + +The Dweller paused beneath us. + +Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin! Throckmartin, +my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon door; my friend +whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the Dweller's +dreadful stamp; the lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent, +something like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them--and +soulless. + +He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing +against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely--lovely +even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like +Throckmartin's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed +against him closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning, +these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters. + +And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save +him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace! + +"Throckmartin!" I cried. "Throckmartin! I'm here!" + +Did he hear? I know now, of course, he could not. + +But then I waited--hope striving to break through the nightmare hands +that gripped my heart. + +Their wide eyes never left me. There was another movement about them, +others pushed past them; they drifted back, swaying, eddying--and +still staring were lost in the awful throng. + +Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of +recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were +gone. Try as I would I could not see them--nor Stanton and the +northern woman named Thora who had been the first of that tragic party +to be taken by the Dweller. + +"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly. My tears blinded me. + +I felt Lakla's light touch. + +"Steady," she commanded, pitifully. "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help +them--now! Steady and--watch!" + +Below us the Shining One had paused--spiralling, swirling, vibrant +with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was +contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot +through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of +glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing +lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires. +Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of +emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They +poised themselves like a diadem--calm, serene, immobile--and down +from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals, +ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun +thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to +run--_power_--from the seven globes; like--yes, that was it--miniatures +of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the +septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's chamber roof. + +Swam out of the coruscating haze the--face! + +Both of man and of woman it was--like some ancient, androgynous deity +of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet neither woman nor man; human and +unhuman, seraphic and sinister, benign and malefic--and still no more +of these four than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or +devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or +the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills. + +Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not ours. Its +lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar +form--and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come; something +amorphous, unearthly--as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing +through the depths of star-hung space; and still of our own earth, +with the very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it--and +in some--unholy--way debased. + +It had eyes--eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its +luminosity like veils falling, and falling, _opening_ windows into the +unknowable; deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the Moon +Pool itself; then flashing out, and this only when the--face--bore its +most human resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of +little moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-holes +into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man! + +"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine. + +I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again. And I saw that +of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining One had +none--nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core streaked with lightning +veins of rainbows; and around this, never still, sheathing it, the +swirling, glorious veilings of its hell and heaven born radiance. + +So the Dweller stood--and gazed. + +Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral! + +Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; dead-alive and their master +vanished--I danced, flickered, _within_ the rock; felt a swift sense of +shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the carded walls of stone, +of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are +withdrawn from a pack, one by one--slipped, wheeled, flattened, and +lengthened out as I passed through them and they passed from me. + +Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm +still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still +clutching her girdle. + +The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the +outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming, flooding +radiance lessened--died. + +"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road. And +now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the +Shining One is--and how it came to be." + +The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened. + +Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The Shaping of the Shining One + + +We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it. +Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we +had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance +but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought +articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I +afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--and no +mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost +to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat +commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the +handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and +motioned me to sit close to him. + +"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to +tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in +your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three +will ask--and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they +say, must answer, too--and it--frightens me!" + +The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook +her head impatiently. + +"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the +Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like +those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the +_Taithu_, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where +now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they +dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with others, +not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone, +others that still dwell--below--in their--cradle. + +"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips through my +mind--because I know so little that even as the Three told it to me it +passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on, +quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but +cold mists in the--the heavens--something of these mists drawing +together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they +whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, growing +warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning +around the sun--something of regions within this globe where vast fire +was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb--of one +such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company +us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life +particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent +Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which, like you, they say +came from above--and all this I do not understand--do you, Goodwin?" +she appealed to me. + +I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an +excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing +nebula contracting into the sun and its planets. + +Astonishing was the recognition of this theory. Even more so was the +reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great +Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life +_spores_, propelled through space by the driving power of light and, +encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast +ages into man and every other living thing we know. *1 + + +*1 Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his _Worlds in the Making_-- +the conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted +from all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space +for years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the +heat of some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on +globes which have reached the habitable stage.--W. T. G. + + + +Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix +of our solar system similar, or rather _dissimilar_, particles in all +but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and, +resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of +outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment +to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and--only _they_ could +tell what else! + +"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in +their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the +turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they +say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth +heart--strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever +derived from sun. + +"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was +this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--themselves. And +wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from their cradle, because they did +not wish to dwell longer with those--others--they came and found this +place. + +"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived +only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save hunger and its +satisfaction, _they_ had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths +such as we have just travelled and to look out upon those waters! And +_laya_ upon _laya_ thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the +paths and watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming +ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things which had +grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the flats rise higher and +higher and green life begin to clothe them; saw mountains uplift and +vanish. + +"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew +greater and took ever different forms; until at last came a time when +the steaming mists lightened and the things which had begun as little +more than tiny hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the +tallest of my _Akka_ would not have reached the knee of the smallest +of them. + +"But in none of these, in _none_, was there--realization--of +themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving +them to still its crying. + +"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no +more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way +to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart. +They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom--and after other time on +time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the +half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and +death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of +creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering +from the flaming jewel of truth--but when they had crept within those +mysteries they bid me tell _you_, Goodwin, they found ever other +mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of +truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not +wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end! + +"And for this they were glad--because now throughout eternity might +they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable. + +"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding from the +nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things +that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their +bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink; +light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of +space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on +thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the +flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their +own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they +wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay. + +"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones. They led them +all in wisdom so that in the Three grew--pride. And the Three built +them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and +withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map +alone the facets of Truth Jewel. + +"Then there came the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they are now, +and glowing but faintly within them the spark of--self-realization. +And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not slay them. But they took +the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon +earth face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green +life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each +other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew +and ran from those that would slay. + +"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_ had come and +closed it. Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught +them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time +they became much as they are now--my _Akka_. + +"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have strengthened +life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not _create_ +life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. "The Three are +speaking," she murmured. "They have my tongue--" + +And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a +voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their +thoughts, she spoke. + +"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant. "We said that what we would +create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the +tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of +all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that +mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured. Think not +that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what +has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms +the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her. + +"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and +through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon +them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were +her children. + +"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller, +which those without name--the Shining One. Within the Universal Mother +we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go +before us lighting the mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it, +giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever +may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in +the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it. And we +wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching +pride and from our travail came the Shining One--our child! + +"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient +force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses +all that ether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you, +that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass +and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds +sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the +firmament. And this ye call consciousness! + +"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the +channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate, +the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become +choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child. + +"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride; in +giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for +good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished +of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold +that knowledge itself; and in forging it from the immortal energies we +had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it +held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with +all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless +worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye symbolize as gods +and all ye symbolize as devils--not negativing each other, for there +is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing +them, encompassing them, pole upon pole!" + +So _this_ was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror +that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of +all the Dweller's slaves! + +The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the brooding passed +from her face; the golden voice that had been so deep found its own +familiar pitch. + +"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said. "Now the shaping +of the Shining One had been a long, long travail and time had flown +over the outer world _laya_ upon _laya_. For a space the Shining One +was content to dwell here; to be fed with the foods of light: to open +the eyes of the Three to mystery upon mystery and to read for them +facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of +consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes +of their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always stronger +of _itself within itself_. Its will strengthened and now not always was +it the will of the Three; and the pride that was woven in the making +of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within +it waned. + +"Not ignorant were the _Taithu_ of the work of the Three. First there +were a few, then more and more who coveted the Shining One and who +would have had the Three share with them the knowledge it drew in for +them. But the Silent Ones in their pride, would not. + +"There came a time when its will was now _all_ its own, and it rebelled, +turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the Portal, offering +itself to the many there who would serve it; tiring of the Three, +their control and their abode. + +"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we. Over water it +can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it cannot, through +rock or metal. So it sent a message--how I know not--to the _Taithu_ +who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the Portal. And when +the time was ripe they opened the Portal and the Shining One passed +through it to them; nor would it return to the Three though they +commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had +hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome. + +"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the seven shining +orbs; but they would not because--they loved, it! + +"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have shown you, +and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned +more and more from the ways in which the _Taithu_ had walked--for it +seemed that which came to the Shining One through the seven orbs had +less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil. +Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear +and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were they flares +pointing the dark roads that lead to--to the ultimate evil! + +"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of the Shining +One. There were many, many, who would have none of it nor of its +power. So were the _Taithu_ split; and to this place where there had +been none, came hatred, fear and suspicion. Those who pursued the +ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their +work--and they would not, for still they loved it. + +"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay before its +worshippers--for now so they had become--the fruits of its knowledge; +and it grew--restless--turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had +turned it from the Three. It whispered to the _Taithu_ to take again +the paths and look out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great +fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts, +seeking and finding wisdom--mankind! Mighty builders were they; vast +were their cities and huge their temples of stone. + +"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a god Thanaroa whom +they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They +worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but to be prayed to and to +be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with +his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the +other high priest to the sun. + +"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his +nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and the moon king and his +followers were like Yolara--or Lugur. And this, the Three say, +Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that +whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the +black-haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon +god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until +at last from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones, +but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them." + + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +The Building of the Moon Pool + + +She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked +ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an +ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in +the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all +organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of +black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired--but this, with a shock +of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the +dark-polled _ladala_, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown +tressed Lakla! + +How--questions began to stream through my mind; silenced by the +handmaiden's voice. + +"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One," she said, "was +their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All +about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each enclosing +its own space and squared and ruled and standing within a shallow +lake; the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land--" + +"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought. + +"Out upon all this looked the _Taithu_ who were now but the servants +of the Shining One as it had been the messenger of the Three," she +went on. "When they returned the Shining One spoke to them, promising +them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, _under it_ dominion of +all earth itself and later perhaps of other earths! + +"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge to gain that +which it desired. Therefore it told its _Taithu_--and mayhap told +them truth--that not yet was it time for _them_ to go forth; that slowly +must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart +of earth and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through +the above. Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do. They +hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it +that path down which from it you sped. + +"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon flame is kin +to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the +chamber too of moon birth and into it went the subtle essence and +powers that flow in that earth child: and it taught them how to make +that which fills what you call the Moon Pool whose opening is close +behind its Veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs. + +"When this was done it taught them how to make and how to place the +seven lights through which moon flame streams into Moon Pool--the +seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs even as its fires are +kin to moon fires--and which would open for it a path that it could +tread. And all this the _Taithu_ did, working so secretly that neither +those of their race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor +the busy men above know aught of it. + +"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the Moon +Pool Chamber. Moon flame streamed through the seven globes, poured +down upon the pool; they saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with +the moon flame--and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within +the mists of light, whirling, radiant--the Shining One! + +"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted! + +"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal +you found first; set the fires within its stones, and revealing +themselves to the moon king and his priests spake to them even as the +Shining One had instructed. + +"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked upon the +_Taithu_, shrouded with protecting mists of light in Moon Pool +Chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the +power that would be his if he heeded and how quickly the strength of +the sun king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the Shining +One's messengers. + +"When next the moon was round and poured its flames down upon Moon +Pool, the _Taithu_ gathered there again, watched the child of the +Three take shape within the pillars, speed away--and out! They heard a +mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence; +a vast sighing--and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for +they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have +enabled them to look without. + +"Another tumult--and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy, +pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman, +ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side +by side--gloriously, hideously. And still holding them it danced above +the Moon Pool and--sank! + +"Now must I be brief. _Lat_ after _lat_ the Shining One went forth, +returning with its sacrifices. And stronger after each it grew--and +gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the +pool, the _Taithu_ who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a +drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the Shining One +forgot what it had promised them of dominion--and in this new evil +delight they too forgot. + +"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon king +and his kind, through the guidance of the evil _Taithu_ and the favour +of the Shining One, had become powerful and the sun king and his were +darkened. And the moon priests preached that the child of the Three +was the moon god itself come to dwell with them. + +"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great +portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said +the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because +wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and +there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor +any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down to the babe +at breast. + +"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land! + +"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led through Moon +Pool Chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the +_ladala_, and they were given place and set to work; and they thrived. +Came many of the fair-haired; and they were given dwellings. They sat +beside the evil _Taithu_; they became drunk even as they with the +dancing of the Shining One; they learned--not all; only a little part +but little enough--of their arts. And ever the Shining One danced more +gaily out there within the black amphitheatre; grew ever stronger--and +ever the hordes of its slaves behind the Veil increased. + +"Nor did the _Taithu_ who clung to the old ways check this--they +could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were +imperilled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to +keep this land from perishing; nor had they help from those others mad +for the poison of the Shining One; and they had no time to deal with +them nor the earth race with whom they had foregathered. + +"At last came a slow, vast flood. It rolled even to the bases of the +walled islets of the city of the gods--and within these now were all +that were left of my people on earth face. + +"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly, "one of the +daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive in the _ladala_!" + +As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand. + +"This tide did not recede," she went on. "And after a time the +remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who had already fled +below. The rocks became still, the quakings ceased, and now those +Ancient Ones who had been labouring could take breath. And anger grew +within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they +sought the Three--and the Three now knew what they had done and their +pride was humbled. They would not slay the Shining One themselves, for +still they loved it; but they instructed these others how to undo +their work; how also they might destroy the evil _Taithu_ were it +necessary. + +"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth--but now the +Shining One was strong indeed. They could not slay it! + +"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass beyond its +Veil nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of +craft and cunning had the Shining One become. So they turned upon +their kind who had gone astray and made them perish, to the last. The +Shining One came not to the aid of its servants--though they called; +for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use +to it; that it would rest awhile and dance with them--who had so +little of the power and wisdom of its _Taithu_ and therefore no reins +upon it. And while this was happening black-haired and fair-haired ran +and hid and were but shaking vessels of terror. + +"The Ancient Ones took counsel. This was their decision; that they +would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters--leaving, since +they could not kill it, the Shining One with its worshippers. They +sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the Moon Pool Chamber +and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where +it had been. But the passage itself they left open--having +foreknowledge I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far +future--perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin +--verily I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which +we three trod to the Dweller's abode. + +"For the last time they went to the Three--to pass sentence upon them. +This was the doom--that here they should remain, alone, among the +_Akka_, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have +will to destroy the evil they had created--and even now--loved; nor +might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to +pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness +that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their +arts that it might not be broken. + +"Then they passed--to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One +could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land--" + +"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it." + +"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding. "The +people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they +forgot where had been the passage the _Taithu_ had sealed. The moon +king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a +woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess. + +"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through +the Moon Pool--returning with still others in its coils. + +"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces. +It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead +_Taithu_, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing +to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was +it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe--and +many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart +with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world! + +"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you--and it is +done." + +Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost +world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the +thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry, +indeed the whole object of my quest--the fate of Throckmartin and +those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of +Olaf's wife, too. + +"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who +went before him--can we not save them?" + +"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with +which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One--_feeds_--upon the +flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own +will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say +the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon +great indeed." + +"But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her. "And they're +alive still--in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them." + +I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--holding that the +existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory +methods--for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin, +Edith had been close beside him. + +"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized +Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed +gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they +come together in the Dweller's lair?" + +"I do not know," she answered, slowly. "You say they loved--and it is +true that love is stronger even than death!" + +"One thing I _don't_ understand"--this was Larry again--"is why a girl +like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and +one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed +boys--and if they are what becomes of them?" + +"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a +pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the +Murians feared the return of the _Taithu_ and greatly they feared the +Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it--for a +time; and not even now is it eager to face them--_that_ I know. Nor are +Yolara and Lugur so _sure_. It may be that the Three commanded it: but +how or why I know not. I only know that it is true--for here am I and +from where else would I have come?" + +"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly. "And that's where +you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been +brought up--Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three +quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and +the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye, +and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!" + +Larry! Larry! If it had but been true--and I could see Lakla and you +beside me now! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Larry and the Frog-Men + + +Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I +been in the repeating--but not every day are the mists rolled away to +reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here, +adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is +true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and +phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately +to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my +narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with +the Murians. + +Rising, I found I was painfully stiff--as muscle-bound as though I had +actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary +groan. + +"Faith, _mavourneen_," he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into +English, "your roads would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've +got their kick, just the same!" + +She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of +mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back upon the cushions. + +"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us. "I had +forgotten--for those new to it the way is a weary one, indeed--" + +She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage. +Through the hangings came two of the frog-men. She spoke to them +rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an +amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, baring the glistening +rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination +that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around +our knees, lifted us up like babies--and as calmly started to walk +away with us! + +"Put me down! Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice was both +outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him struggling violently to +get to his feet. The _Akka_ only held him tighter, booming +comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly. + +"But, Larry--darlin'!"--Lakla's tones were--well, maternally +surprised--"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry you quite +easily." + +"I _won't_ be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe. "Damn it, Goodwin, there +are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the +Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a--like a +bundle of rags--it's not discipline! Put me down, ye _omadhaun_, or +I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer--who only boomed +gently, and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further +instructions. + +"But, Larry--dear!"--Lakla was plainly distressed--"it will _hurt_ you +to walk; and I don't _want_ you to hurt, Larry--darlin'!" + +"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made a mighty +effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip; gave up with a groan. +"Listen, _alanna_!" he said plaintively. "When we get to Ireland, you +and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every +time we get a bit tired. And it's getting me in bad habits you are!" + +"Oh, _yes_, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden, "because many, oh, +many, of my _Akka_ will go with us!" + +"Will you tell this--BOOB!--to put me down!" gritted the now +thoroughly aroused O'Keefe. I couldn't help laughing; he glared at me. + +"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla. + +"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to explain the +word in my present position, light of my soul!" + +The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected. But she spoke again to the +_Akka_, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the floor. + +"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to walk, why, +of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me. + +"Do you?" she asked. + +"I do not," I said firmly. + +"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Goodwin, with Kra and +Gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little--for not +soon will Rador and Olaf return. And let me feel your lips before you +go, Larry--darlin'!" She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft +little palms; pushed him away. + +"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!" + +Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk; and with a smile +noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not +disdain the support of Kra's shining, black-scaled arm which, slipping +around his waist, half-lifted him along. + +They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool, +sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in +the wide basins. Then they began to undress us. And at this point the +O'Keefe gave up. + +"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!" he moaned. +"Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knot-hole, and I +don't care--I don't care--as the song says." + +When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the water. But not +long did the _Akka_ let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted +us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic +unguents. + +I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling, +strange and perilous experiences in that underground world none was +more bizarre than this--valeting. I began to laugh, Larry joined me, +and then Kra and Gulk joined in our merriment with deep batrachian +cachinnations and gruntings. Then, having finished apparelling us and +still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room +whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans. Still smiling, I +sank at once into sleep. + +How long I slumbered I do not know. A low and thunderous booming +coming through the deep window slit, reverberated through the room and +awakened me. Larry yawned; arose briskly. + +"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were +serenading us!" he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window; +peered through. + +We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length +was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the _Akka_ were +crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering +thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's crescent strand. On black +scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in +little flickering points. + +Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss +were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as +interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog +King. + +"Come on!" shouted Larry. + +Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge--and +straight into the group. + +"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon, +Larry--darlin'!" + +"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's +voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in +a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why +didn't you call me?" + +"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the +handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her +eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!" + +"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry. "Look here, Lakla, what do you +think I am?" + +"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take +care of you, Larry--darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else." + +"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general +fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going +on?" he asked. + +"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went +through the Portal. She was very, _very_ angry--" + +"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf. + +"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly. "The +_ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts +against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime +we shall have disposed my _Akka_ to meet Yolara's men. And on that +disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and +Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_." + +"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her +little call?" asked Larry. + +"Yes," she answered. "They prepare, and we may expect them in--" She +gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time. + +"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding +voice, "should the Shining One come--with its slaves--are the Three +strong enough to cope with it?" + +There was troubled doubt in her own eyes. + +"I do not know," she said at last, frankly. "You have heard their +story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know--any +more than do you, Goodwin!" + +I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared +forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had +felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted. + +"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf +here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead--" + +"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "_You_ lead, Larry? Why you are +to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there, there we can watch." + +"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed. "A thousand times I've +looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with +ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the +ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the +grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't +know your future husband, soul of my delight!" + +And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men +following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor +did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated +ourselves. + +"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know. First--how many can +Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these _Akka_ have we to +meet them?" + +Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara +could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it +appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the +_Akka_. + +"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry. "Hell, with odds like +that what're you worrying about? It's over before it's begun." + +"But, _Larree_," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the nobles +will have the _Keth_--and other things; also that the soldiers have +fought against the _Akka_ before and will be shielded very well from +their spears and clubs--and that their blades and javelins can bite +through the scales of Nak's warriors. They have many things--" + +"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your nerve. +Why, we're more than two to one. And take it from me--" + +Without warning dropped the tragedy! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!" + + +Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower. +She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe. Glancing at her I had +seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers +whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished; +swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony. + +"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden. "The Silent Ones summon us!" + +"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with interest. + +"The time is now," she said--and hesitated. "Larry dear, put your +arms about me," she faltered, "for there is something cold that +catches at my heart--and I am afraid." + +At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little +laugh. + +"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague me," she +told him. + +Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on, +his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close +together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to +the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it; +then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the +bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once +more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us. + +Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring +from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked +up--straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon +the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced +them. She smiled up; seemed to listen. + +"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the Silent Ones." + +We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais. The sparkling mists +thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I +caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered +with draperies as of pale-blue fire. + +I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a +question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for +our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those +whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of +speech. + +"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded." + +Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering, +I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and +bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the +gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe. + +"Thus speak the Silent Ones--through Lakla, their handmaiden," the +golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is +that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye +dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say +the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means +to destroy the Shining One." + +She listened again--and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear. + +"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know not whether +even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered +into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has +gathered to itself"--she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her +voice "and other energies still, forces that ye _do_ know and symbolize +by certain names--hatred and pride and lust and many others which are +forces real as that hidden in the _Keth_; and among them--fear, which +weakens all those others--" Again she paused. + +"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make +powerless all the evil others, that which we call--love," she ended +softly. + +"I'd like to be the one to put a little more _fear_ in the beast," +whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird +heads bent, ever so slightly--and I gasped, and Larry grew a little +white as Lakla nodded-- + +"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one side of the +heart of the matter--for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones +hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!" + +The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine +reflected it--for what _really_ were this Three to whom our minds were +but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla +broke the little silence. + +"This, they say, is what is to happen. First will come upon us Lugur +and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will +lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller _does_ dread +the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess +will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong +enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish +from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three. + +"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the +world, free to do there as it wills! + +"But if they do not conquer--and the Shining One comes not to their +aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own _Taithu_--then will +the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go +through the Portal, seek the Shining One beyond the Veil, and, +piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it." + +"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. "Weaken the +morale--then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While +they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do; get their +nerve--and not a thing can they do. And yet in both cases they're the +same men." + +Lakla had been listening again. She turned, thrust out hands to +Larry, a wild hope in her eyes--and yet a hope half shamed. + +"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice. Remembering that +your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice--choice to stay +and help fight Yolara's armies--and they say they look not lightly on +that help. Or choice to go--and if so be you choose the latter, then +will they show another way that leads into your world!" + +A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking. He +took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes; glancing up I saw +the Trinity were watching them intently--imperturbably. + +"What do you say, _mavourneen_?" asked Larry gently. The handmaiden +hung her head; trembled. + +"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered. "So going or +staying, I am beside you." + +"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me. I shrugged my shoulders--after +all I had no one to care. + +"It's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing his own +phraseology. + +The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into +the flame-flickering eyes. + +"We stick!" he said briefly. + +Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this +colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste. I am +glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla +turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope +had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring +pride. And the marble visages of the Three softened, and the little +flames died down. + +"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer +before they will hold us to that promise--wait--" + +She listened, and then her face grew white--white as those of the +Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling +them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind. + +"Not that!" she cried out to the Three. "Oh, not that! Not +Larry--let me go even as you will--but not him!" She threw up frantic +hands to the woman-being of the Trinity. "Let _me_ bear it alone," she +wailed. "Alone--mother! Mother!" + +The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from +the eyes of the woman One rolled--tears! Larry leaped to Lakla's side. + +_"Mavourneen!"_ he cried. "Sweetheart, what have they said to you?" + +He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching toward the +high-hung pistol holster. + +The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around his neck; held +her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased. + +"This they--say--the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all the courage +of her came back. "O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing +deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms. +"This they say--that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and +Lugur, should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but one +way left to destroy it--and to save your world." + +She swayed; he gripped her tightly. + +"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its embrace! Yea, we +must pass within it--loving each other, loving the world, realizing to +the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our +lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give +ourselves _all_ to the Shining One--gladly, freely, our love for each +other flaming high within us--that this curse shall pass away! For if +we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry +into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has +become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!" + +The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my +reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the +Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three +out of their own weakness--and as it flashed I looked up to see their +eyes, full of sorrow, on mine--and knew they read the thought. Then +into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of +history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and +most of all, by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these +things--was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary? + +"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to +say _yes_ to this?" + +"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did +so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to bear you children, +Larry--and to see the sun." + +My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me. + +"If the world _is_ at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only +one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up +there--and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and +bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and +bullet--but I hadn't Lakla then--and it's the damned _doubt_ I have +behind it all." + +He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an +anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men? + +"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried. "If we do this, Lakla and I, +is it _sure_ you are that you can slay the--Thing, and save my world? Is +it _sure_ you are?" + +For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the Silent Ones. +It was the man-being at the right who spoke. + +"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking, +vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck +the eyes. Another moment the O'Keefe stared at them. Once more he +squared his shoulders; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes. + +"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three. + +Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was--awesome; the +tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which +brimmed serenity, hope--an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat +upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders +raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those +others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised +again. The woman bent forward--and as she did so, Lakla and Larry, as +though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais. + +Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long, +six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their +white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful, +radiating power and--all womanly! + +They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla and the +O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked +them--lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction. And withdrew! + +The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent Ones. As +silently as once before we had gone we passed out of the place of +light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the handmaiden's chamber. + +Only once on our way did Larry speak. + +"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet before the +finish. An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yolara are going to pull +this thing off? Are you?" + +The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow filled. + +"They are!" said Larry. "They are! Like HELL they are!" + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +The Meeting of Titans + + +It is not my intention, nor is it possible no matter how interesting +to me, to set down _ad seriatim_ the happenings of the next twelve +hours. But a few will not be denied recital. + +O'Keefe regained cheerfulness. + +"After all, Doc," he said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap we're going +to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned +about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he +promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old +girl an' all the clan'll be along, said the little green man, an' I +bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me." + +Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too: + +"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little, +Larry--darlin'. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle +yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin--for +if--if--the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it. +And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight," she said, +looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes. + +The O'Keefe's jaw dropped. + +"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly. "Still--I see +their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray +out among the lions," he added grimly. "Don't worry, sweet," he told +her. "As long as I've sat in the game I'll stick to the rules." + +Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. "The Norns spin close to the +end of this web," he rumbled. "_Ja!_ And the threads of Lugur and the +Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be +with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In his +hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long, +crowned with a massive head. + +I pass to the twelve hours' closing. + +At the end of the _coria_ road where the giant fernland met the edge +of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the _Akka_ were stationed in +ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and +their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the +Murians debauched from the _corials_. We had little hope of doing more +here than effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place +the captains of the Shining One could wield the _Keth_ and their other +uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and +artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised +to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people--and both +Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity. + +At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened. + +Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by +subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the +probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the +_Akka_ a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and +spears--curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon. + +At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to +the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had +not been time to build it entirely across the mouth. + +And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang +outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from +the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled. + +Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other +thousands of the _Akka_. At each end of the unfinished barricade they +were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where +their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the +ledge as opportunity offered. + +Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the +pinnacles and in the hollows of the island's ragged outer lip; the +domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors--and the +rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them. + +"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can do--save +wait." + +She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to +the embrasure. + +Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering +that beat about us and fled away. + +"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew +her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her. + +"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe. "A real woman--and mine!" + +With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the _Akka_, the +glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny +spurs, rumblings of battle-cries. + +And we waited--waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the +low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal +through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon +us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a +command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady +had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines +furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior +leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green +light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon +rays, sprang from behind the wall--sprang and struck and burned upon +the scales of the batrachians. + +"They come!" whispered Lakla. + +At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it +was plain the _Akka_ were holding. Faintly, for the distance was +great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places +of those who had fallen. + +Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a +mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating +points of diamond dust that darted and danced. + +What had once been Lakla's guardians--dancing now in the nothingness! + +"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the O'Keefe; +Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin +as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador +was livid with rage; the handmaiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her +wrathful soul in her eyes. + +Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the _Akka_ had built +at the cavern mouth--was not! It vanished, as though an unseen, +unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning's speed swept it +away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians +close behind it. + +Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up +geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men, +fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments +whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above. + +"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf. "That which I saw +in the garden of Lugur!" + +The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to +Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within +its range racing outward into space! + +And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and +daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in +ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and +nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak's warriors. Leaping upon +the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the +_Akka_ fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and +dragged down and slew. + +Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of +the cliff. + +And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them +all! + +That last thin line of the _Akka_ was going; yet they fought to the +last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the +armoured Murians in his arms. + +My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs. Stretched along their +length was a wide ribbon of beauty--a shimmering multitude of +gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter, +ever more wondrous--the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and +frog-man alike! + +Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur's +and Yolara's men! + +Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler, changing to +a faint rose? There was an exclamation from Larry; something like hope +relaxed the drawn muscles of his face. He pointed to the aureate dome +wherein sat the Three--and then I saw! + +Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which the Silent +Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and abyss, a torrent of the +opalescent light was pouring. It cascaded like a waterfall, and as it +flowed it spread whirling out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps +of misty, curdled coruscations. It hung like a veil over all the +islands, filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as +though possessed of impenetrable substance--and still it cast not the +faintest shadowing upon our vision. + +"Good God!" breathed Larry. "Look!" + +The radiance was marching--_marching_--down the colossal bridge. It +moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way _intelligently_. It swathed the +_Akka_, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon +which Yolara's men had now gained foothold. + +From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray--aimed at +the abode! But as the light sped and struck the opalescence it was +blotted out! The shimmering mists seemed to enfold, to dissipate it. + +Lakla drew a deep breath. + +"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she whispered; and +again hope blossomed on her face even as it did on Larry's. + +The frog-men were gaining. Clothed in the armour of that mist, they +pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders. There was another +prodigious movement at the ends of the crescent, and racing up, +pressing against the dwarfs, came other legions of Nak's warriors. And +re-enforcing those out on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed +in the gardens below us poured back to the castle and out through the +open Portal. + +"They're licked!" shouted Larry. "They're--" + +So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic leaped to his +hand--spoke, once and again and again. Rador leaped to the head of the +little path, sword in hand; Olaf, shouting and whirling his mace, +followed. I strove to get my own gun quickly. + +For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men, while from +below Lugur's own voice roared. + +"Quick! Slay not the handmaiden or her lover! Carry them down. +Quick! But slay the others!" + +The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled shrilly--again +and again. Larry's pistol was empty, but as the dwarfs rushed upon him +I dropped two of them with mine. It jammed--I could not use it; I +sprang to his side. Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's +men. Olaf, a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and +striking, striking through armour, flesh, and bone. + +Larry was down, Lakla flew to him. But the Norseman, now streaming +blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse of her coming, turned, +thrust out a mighty hand, sent her reeling back, and then with his +hammer cracked the skulls of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the +path. + +A cry from Lakla--the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted her despite +her struggles, were carrying her away. One I dropped with the butt of +my useless pistol, and then went down myself under the rush of +another. + +Through the clamour I heard a booming of the _Akka_, closer, closer; +then through it the bellow of Lugur. I made a mighty effort, swung a +hand up, and sunk my fingers in the throat of the soldier striving to +kill me. Writhing over him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it +deep, staggered to my feet. + +The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long sword against a +half dozen of the soldiers. I started toward him, was struck, and +under the impact hurled to the ground. Dizzily I raised myself--and +leaning upon my elbow, stared and moved no more. For the dwarfs lay +dead, and Larry, holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and +ranged at the head of the path were the _Akka_, whose booming advance +in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard. + +And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his wounds, and +Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each other's grip, struggling, +smiting, tearing, kicking, and swaying about the little space before +the embrasure. I crawled over toward the O'Keefe. He raised his +pistol, dropped it. + +"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered. Lakla signalled +the frog-men; they advanced toward the two--but Olaf saw them, broke +the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reeling a dozen feet away. + +"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes glinting +like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face and dripping from +his hands. "No! Lugur is mine! None but me slays him! Ho, you Lugur--" +and cursed him and Yolara and the Dweller hideously--I cannot set +those curses down here. + +They spurred Lugur. Mad now as the Norseman, the red dwarf sprang. +Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an ordinary man, but Lugur +only grunted, swept in, and seized him about the waist; one mighty arm +began to creep up toward Huldricksson's throat. + +"'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer. He waited until +the red dwarf's hand was close to his shoulder; and then, with an +incredibly rapid movement--once before had I seen something like it +in a wrestling match between Papuans--he had twisted Lugur around; +twisted him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast, +the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's +armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over that knee +lay the small of the red dwarf's back. + +For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his enemy, +motionless in that paralyzing grip. And then--slowly--he began to +break him! + +Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two. But Larry drew +her head down against his breast, hiding her eyes; then fastened his +own upon the pair, white-faced, stern. + +Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf. Twice Lugur moaned. At the +end he screamed--horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout +stick snapped. + +Huldricksson stooped, silently. He picked up the limp body of the +Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips strove to speak; +lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it twice over his head, and +cast it down to the red waters! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +The Coming of the Shining One + + +The Norseman turned toward us. There was now no madness in his eyes; +only a great weariness. And there was peace on the once tortured face. + +"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before! Soon you will come to +me--to me and the Yndling who will await you--Helma, _meine liebe!_" + +Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell. And thus died Olaf +Huldricksson. + +We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor I try to hide +our tears. And as we stood the _Akka_ brought to us that other mighty +fighter, Rador; but in him there was life, and we attended to him +there as best we could. + +Then Lakla spoke. + +"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him greater care," +she said. "For, lo! the hosts of Yolara have been beaten back; and on +the bridge comes Nak with tidings." + +We looked over the parapet. It was even as she had said. Neither on +ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of Muria--only heaps of +slain that lay everywhere--and thick against the cavern mouth still +danced the flashing atoms of those the green ray had destroyed. + +"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously. "We live then--heart of +mine!" + +"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to the dome. +Back through the slitted opening the radiance was streaming; +withdrawing from sea and island; marching back over the bridge with +that same ordered, intelligent motion. Behind it the red light +pressed, like skirmishers on the heels of a retreating army. + +"And yet--" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into her chamber, and +doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the O'Keefe. + +"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them--" + +What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so faintly? My +heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for an eternity. What was +it--coming nearer, ever nearer? Now Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life +ebbing from lips and cheeks. + +Nearer, nearer--a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells, tinkling, +tinkling--a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass! Nearer, +nearer--not sweetly now, nor luring; no--raging, wrathful, sinister +beyond words; sweeping on; nearer-- + +The Dweller! The Shining One! + +We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast. The bell notes +swept through and about us, a hurricane. The crescent strand was once +more a ferment. Back, back were the _Akka_ being swept, as though by +brooms, tottering on the edge of the ledge, falling into the waters. +Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying +throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms tossing +--like marionettes of Satan. + +The dead-alive! The slaves of the Dweller! + +They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened +dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the +bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing, +spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to +fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram +of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the _Akka_, pressing them +to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they +forced them--for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against +that implacable tide. + +Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs and ran. We +heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon +to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes. + +Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge +there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled +_ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that +sailed the seas--milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a +sluggish current. + +The bell notes became sharper, more insistent. At the cavern mouth a +radiance began to grow--a gleaming from which the atoms of diamond +dust seemed to try to flee. As the radiance grew and the crystal notes +rang nearer, every head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly, +slowly toward the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes +fixed and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of +horror! + +A movement shook them. Those in the centre began to stream back, +faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep ranks on each side. +Back they flowed until from golden doors to cavern mouth a wide lane +stretched, walled on each side by the dead-alive. + +The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the end of the +dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with pulsings of +polychromatic light. The crystal storm was intolerable, piercing the +ears with countless tiny lances; brighter still the radiance. + +From the cavern swirled the Shining One! + +The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the Silent Ones half +doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted out upon the bridge. +Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of +her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was +the withered, shattered echo of her own. + +Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer. Did I sense in it a +doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that +accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were +not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone +of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood +plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and +withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the +castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than any of these, the dome +wherein sat the Three. + +Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those +beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence. + +Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She +murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in +their shining mists, as though listening. It drew erect once more, +resumed its doubtful scrutiny. Yolara's face darkened; she turned +abruptly, spoke to a captain of her guards. A dwarf raced back between +the palisades of dead-alive. + +Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver clarion. + +"Ye are done, ye Three! The Shining One stands at your door, +demanding entrance. Your beasts are slain and your power is gone. Who +are ye, says the Shining One, to deny it entrance to the place of its +birth?" + +"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that ye hear! The +Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your handmaiden and that +lying stranger she stole; send them forth to us--and perhaps ye may +live. But if ye send them not forth, then shall ye too die--and soon!" + +We waited, silent, even as did Yolara--and again there was no answer +from the Three. + +The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed. + +"It is ended!" she cried. "If you will not open, needs must we open +for you!" + +Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the dwarfs. They +bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose head was knobbed with a +huge ball of metal. Past the priestess, past the Shining One, they +carried it; fifty of them to each side of the ram; and behind them +stepped--Marakinoff! + +Larry awoke to life. + +"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, anyway!" + +He drew his pistol, took careful aim. Even as he pressed the trigger +there rang through the abode a tremendous clanging. The ram was +battering at the gates. O'Keefe's bullet went wild. The Russian must +have heard the shot; perhaps the missile was closer than we knew. He +made a swift leap behind the guards; was lost to sight. + +Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the castle. + +Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the listening +aloofness. Gravely she bowed her head. + +"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe. "The Silent Ones +say that the way of fear is closed, but the way of love is open. They +call upon us to redeem our promise!" + +For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast to breast +and lip to lip. Below, the clangour was increasing, the great trunk +swinging harder and faster upon the metal gates. Now Lakla gently +loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and for another instant those two +looked into each other's souls. The handmaiden smiled tremulously. + +"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin'," she whispered. +"But at least--we pass together, dearest of mine!" + +She leaped to the window. + +"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly. The clanging ceased. +"Draw back your men. We open the Portal and come forth to you and the +Shining One--Larry and I." + +The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel, mocking. + +"Come, then, quickly," she jeered. "For surely both the Shining One +and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter chimed high once more. +"Keep us not lonely long!" the priestess mocked. + +Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me. + +"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained. "Good-by and +good luck, old boy. If you get out, and you _will_, let the old +_Dolphin_ know I'm gone. And carry on, pal--and always remember the +O'Keefe loved you like a brother." + +I squeezed his hands desperately. Then out of my balanceshaking woe a +strange comfort was born. + +"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried. "The banshee has not +cried!" + +A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin shone +forth. + +"It's so!" he said. "By the Lord, it's so!" + +Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time--kissed me. + +"Come!" she said to Larry. Hand in hand they moved away, into the +corridor that led to the door outside of which waited the Shining One +and its priestess. + +And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their love and +sacrifice, I crept softly behind. For I had determined that if enter +the Dweller's embrace they must, they should not go alone. + +They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden pressed its +opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back. + +Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and out upon the +hither span. I followed. + +On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned rigidly +toward their master. A hundred feet away the Shining One pulsed and +spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency of sparkling plumes. + +Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla and the +O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew closer to that +wondrous shape. I could not see their faces, but I saw awe fall upon +those of the watching dwarfs, and into the burning eyes of Yolara +crept a doubt. Closer they drew to the Dweller, and closer, I +following them step by step. The Shining One's whirling lessened; its +tinklings were faint, almost stilled. It seemed to watch them +apprehensively. A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding, +ominous, palpable. Now the pair were face to face with the child of +the Three--so near that with one of its misty tentacles it could have +enfolded them. + +And the Shining One drew back! + +Yes, drew back--and back with it stepped Yolara, the doubt in her eyes +deepening. Onward paced the handmaiden and the O'Keefe--and step by +step, as they advanced, the Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming +out, puzzled questioning--half fearful! + +And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very centre of +that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed the green fires of +earth heart. And there Yolara gripped herself; the hell that seethed +within her soul leaped out of her eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore +from her lips. + +As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and eddying +mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed radiance. A score +of coruscating tentacles swept straight upon the pair who stood +intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its embrace. And upon me, lurking +behind them. + +Through me swept a mighty exaltation. It was the end then--and I was +to meet it with them. + +Something drew us back, back with an incredible swiftness, and yet as +gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of thistle-down! Drew us back +from those darting misty arms even as they were a hair-breadth from +us! I heard the Dweller's bell notes burst out ragingly! I heard +Yolara scream. + +What was that? + +Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled moon flames, +swirling about the Shining One and its priestess, pressing in upon +them, enfolding them! + +And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three--implacable, +sorrowful, filled with a supernal power! + +Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring, penetrating +the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking through its pulsing +nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs. + +Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven orbs to dull; +the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them down into the +Dweller's body snapped, vanished! Through the battling nebulosities +Yolara's face swam forth--horror-filled, distorted, inhuman! + +The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as though each +felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved them. The radiance +that the Three wielded grew more intense, thicker, seemed to expand. +Within it, suddenly, were scores of flaming triangles--scores of eyes +like those of the Silent Ones! + +And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of silver, of blue +and amethyst and green, of rose and white, split, shattered, were +gone! Abruptly the tortured crystal chimings ceased. + +Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and shadowed +squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dancing spirals stripped +from it, that which had been the Shining One wrapped itself about +Yolara--wrapped and drew her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled +itself over the edge of the bridge--down, down into the green fires of +the unfathomable abyss--with its priestess still enfolded in its +coils! + +From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came screams of panic +fear. They turned and ran, racing frantically over the bridge toward +the cavern mouth. + +The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook. Then from their +faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and anguish. Peace, utter +peace, followed in its wake. + +And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind, they fell. +No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead, freed from their +dreadful slavery! + +Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was gone. Faintly +revealed in them were only the heads of the Silent Ones. And they drew +before us; were before us! No flames now in their ebon eyes--for the +flickering fires were quenched in great tears, streaming down the +marble white faces. They bent toward us, over us; their radiance +enfolded us. My eyes darkened. I could not see. I felt a tender hand +upon my head--and panic and frozen dread and nightmare web that held +me fled. + +Then they, too, were gone. + +Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing--sobbing out her +heart--but this time with the joy of one who is swept up from the +very threshold of hell into paradise. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +"Larry--Farewell!" + + +"My heart, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels +like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow." + +We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the _Akka_ +beside us, others following with those companies of _ladala_ that had +rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently +within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king--much +less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living. + +Hours had passed since the terror I have just related. My first task +had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen +multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of +stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could +reach. + +At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them. They lay close to +the bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each other's arms, pallid +face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that +unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own +had come back for one fleeting instant--and they had known each other, +and clasped before kindly death had taken them. + +"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly. +"Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And +when its evil fled, love went with them--wherever souls go." + +Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of +those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead--and they +were free. + +We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower. But +before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it +a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but +cold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touching +fingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course of +veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though +their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, was +paper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadow +or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming +from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the +dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at +least was certain. + +But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad +task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of +the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories +of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the +Sea of Crimson. + +While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were +clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we +listened to a leader of the _ladala_. They had risen, even as the +messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the +gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had +left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the +fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so +long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily +malicious elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been. + +The ancient city of Lara was a charnel. Of all the rulers not +twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to +describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the _ladala_ fared so +well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken +their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive. + +And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick, +thick--they whispered. + +They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike, +its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed +interminable! + +Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean +temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseen +hands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal +shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris +of all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of +the Shining One had slaved--the sealing of the lair! + +Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how, +thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain, +they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and +slaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men--only to find the +tempest stilled here, too. + +But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing! Had the Russian escaped, I +wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead? + +But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to +govern them. + +"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him. "I want to go out +with you to Ireland. But for a time--I think the Three would have us +remain and set that place in order." + +The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of +Muria. + +"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart of +mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter +what," he added hastily. + +"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously. "Marry us? Why, Larry +dear, we _are_ married!" + +The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse +seemed imminent. + +"We are?" he gasped. "When?" he stammered fatuously. + +"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put her +hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you +understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly. + +He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into the +purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great love +transfiguring his keen face. + +"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered humbly. + +"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound. +"Enough? Larry darlin', what _more_ could we ask?" + +He drew a deep breath, clasped her close. + +"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe. And for the third and, +soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilled +to the touch of her soft, sweet lips. + +Quickly were our preparations for departure made. Rador, conscious, +his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead +of us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to +the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. We +knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose +eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of +the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home, +had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were +we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence +came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its +curved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais +was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone. + +A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with +gratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so +alien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us, +of our same Mother Earth. + +And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrung +from their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Three +had said had been all true--whence had come their power to avert the +sacrifice at the very verge of its consummation? + +"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla. + +Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells within +love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and to +enable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded by +their own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will toward +abnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest +thrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlock +the Dweller's guard and strike through at its life? + +Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed! Lakla softly closed the crimson +stone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we +discovered a half-dozen of the water _coria_ moored in a small cove +not far from where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom. +The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond +the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the +farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well, +Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage. + +The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the _Akka_ carrying them out +by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane down +which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at +last to the space where the _coria_ waited. And not long after we +swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining +depths of the Midnight Pool. + +Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not to +Yolara's--I do not know why, but go there then she would not. And +within one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks, +the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, served +us. + +There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us +of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not +possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries. + +I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the +O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant +suggestion. + +"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!" + +He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla. + +"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled. + +"What did you say, Larry?" asked she. + +"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching the +sun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed. + +But now I must hasten. We went to the temple, and here at least the +ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through +the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the +rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave +at the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet. + +Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows nor +colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out +beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its +priestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There was +but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base +the lake lapped. + +Long I looked--and turned away saddened. Knowing even as I did what +the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing of +supernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced; +a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed. + +"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly. + +I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving--and, +after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead, +his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I +followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the +imprisoned stream I heard my name called softly. + +"Goodwin! Dr. Goodwin!" + +Amazed, I turned. From behind the pedestal of a carved group +slunk--Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he had +escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward +cautiously. + +"I am finished," he whispered--"Done! I don't care what _they'll_ do +to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of +the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew +closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep +lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a +step backward. + +A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage. +He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat! + +"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock of his +onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me. + +"But _you'll_ carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff. "No!" + +My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy. The roaring of the +racing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself +forward. + +I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling me. I +struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a +moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being +hurled with dreadful speed on--full realization came--on the breast of +that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and +rushing--where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled +with the devil who clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably. + +Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my +ears--blackness! + +Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly. + +"Larry!" I groaned. "Lakla!" + +A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids. It hurt. I +opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain +shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun! + +I staggered to my feet. Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt +monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and +blue and smiling. + +And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been, +was--Marakinoff! + +He lay there, broken and dead indeed. Yet all the waters through +which we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--could +wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I +dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A +little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking +and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It +floated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his +schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell. + +My strength began to come back to me. I found a thicket and slept; +slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the +dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to +say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had +recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover +where I was. + +The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north +I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon +door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway, +somehow, I must reach, and quickly. + +At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together +in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift +paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to +it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the +little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant +steps, made my way to the inner enclosure. + +And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my +cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with +weariness. + +For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold +we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and +broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and +about them shone a film of water, half covering them. + +There was no moon door! + +Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying +fragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a great +subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all that +side--the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the +Dweller's lair! + +The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the seven +globes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no trace +of it. + +The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to +me--its chamber covered by the sea! + +There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla! + +And there, for me, the world ended. + + + + + + +I have made the following changes to the text: +PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO + 3 14 sinster sinister + 17 11 Nam-Tauach Nan-Tauach + 22 20 on on on + 69 39 'Didn't "Didn't + 75 21 'But "But + 90 36 "Trolde!" _"Trolde!"_ + 91 35 'We "We + 96 11 shown shone + 96 14 smiled smiled. + 105 11 drank drunk + 106 24 acomplish accomplish + 109 23 'Shake "Shake + 111 18 overtstressed overstressed + 116 11 increduously incredulously + 120 30 Yolar Yolara + 128 12 spirtual spiritual + 150 13 cushoned cushioned + 172 29 semed seemed + 204 34 there?"' there?" + 208 25 "Its "It's + 231 8 meal metal + 239 6 suling sulting + 248 28 finshed finished + 280 29 much must + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL *** + +This file should be named mpool11.txt or mpool11.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mpool12.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mpool11a.txt + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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