The Moon Pool | Page 4

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