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 bear, 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 motherof-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 bear 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!
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