The Moon Pool | Page 3

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