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Eliza Burt Gamble - "The God Idea of the Ancients or Sex in Religion"

Sophocles - "Philoktetes "

Plato - "Phaedo"

G. K. Chesterton - ""

The Moon Pool

A >> A. Merritt >> The Moon Pool




"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 Yo-
lara 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 some-
thing 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 disap-
peared. 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 vibra-
tion began, increasing to incredible rapidity. It wavered be-
fore 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 prick-
ling 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 them-
selves.

"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 blos-
soms 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 mo-
tioned 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 extraordi-
nary 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 irresponsi-
bility, 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, per-
haps, 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 hang-
ings, 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 foun-
tain 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 break-
ing 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 with-
ered; 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 in-
stantaneously leaving a mind that was utterly fearless, in-
credulous, 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 vibra-
tion 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 vi-
brates. 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 elec-
trons, 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 curios-
ity 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 in-
voked 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 swim-
ming 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 de-
scribed as having heralded the approach of the Dweller be-
fore 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 buoy-
ant 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 uni-
form.

"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 con-
tinued, 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. What-
ever 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.

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