A Lost Page of Earth
When I the sun was through the porthole. Outside a fresh voice lilted. I on my two chairs and listened. The song was one with the and the and the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
The little red is his wings,
Straight from the of his love he springs
Larry's voice soared.
His and his are red,
He the sun and his head,
Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.
This last was a most interpolation, I well knew. I opened my door. O'Keefe laughing. The Suwarna, her silent, was making under all sail, the Brunhilda in her wake with her up.
The sea was and under the wind. Blue and white was the world as as the reach. Schools of little green fish through the water on each of us; for an and were gone. Behind us and dipped. The of had over the of this wide and world and if, subconsciously, I that it was and waiting, for a little while at least I was free of its oppression.
"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have just as I left the cabin. The Norseman had on a pair of and, under the sun, he out upon us. We all of us looked at him a anxiously. But Olaf's had left him. In his was much sorrow, but the was gone.
He spoke to me: "You said last night we follow?"
I nodded.
"It is where?" he asked again.
"We go to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour—to the Nan-Matal. You know the place?"
Huldricksson bowed—a white as of ice in his eyes.
"It is there?" he asked.
"It is there that we must search," I answered.
"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson. "It is good!"
He looked at Da Costa and the little Portuguese, his thought, answered his question.
"We should be at Ponape tomorrow early, Olaf."
"Good!" the Norseman. He looked away, his tear-filled.
A upon us; the all men when they a great and a great pity, to neither of which they know how to give expression. By we at only the most topics.
When the was over Huldricksson a to go the Brunhilda.
The Suwarna to and Da Costa and he into the small boat. When they the Brunhilda's I saw Olaf take the wheel and the two into talk. I to O'Keefe and we ourselves out on the under of the foresail. He a cigarette, took a of puffs, and looked at me expectantly.
"Well?" I asked.
"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think—and then I'll to point out your scientific errors." His mischievously.
"Larry," I replied, severely, "you may not know that I have a scientific which, all modesty, I may say is an one. You used a word last night to which I must objection. You more than that I hid—superstitions. Let me you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am a seeker, observer, analyst, and of facts. I am not"—and I to make my as pointed as my words—"I am not a in or spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or harpers."
O'Keefe and with laughter.
"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped. "But if you have the banshee"—another in his eyes—"and then with all this and this wide-open world"—he his shoulders—"it's hard to 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 is in the and table have that word. I do think it is supernormal; by a unknown to modern science—but that doesn't I think it the of science."
"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said. I hesitated—for not yet had I been able to put into to satisfy myself any of the Dweller.
"I think," I finally, "it is possible that some members of that the which we know here in the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these are with and spaces, lands in some cases out the floor. It is possible that for some of this in the spaces, one of is on the where Throckmartin's party met its end.
"As for their in these caverns—we know they a high science. They may have gone in the of of energy—especially that we call light. They may have a and a science more than ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this science. Larry—it may well be that this is to again upon earth's surface!"
"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific from their Ark?" I to the in his question.
"Did you of the Chamats?" I asked him. He his head.
"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and old that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a of who once this region 'when it from sun to sun the moon god the over it'—I from the legend. Not only in Papua but Malaysia you this story. And, so the runs, these people—the Chamats—will one day through the and the world; 'make over the world' is the of the phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer who pointed out that there is a of in every and of man. It is possible that these I am Spencer's for the Malaysian legend.[1]
"This much is sure—the moon door, which is by the action of moon upon some unknown or and the through which the moon upon the their columns, are mechanisms. So long as they are made, and so long as it is this of moonlight from which the Dweller its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if not the product of the mind, is at least upon the product of the mind for its appearance."
"Wait a minute, Goodwin," O'Keefe. "Do you to say you think that this thing is of—well—of moonshine?"
"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, sunlight. But the which pass to earth after their impact on the moon's surface are changed. The that they all the slower we call red and infra-red, while the we call the and ultra-violet are and altered. Many scientists that there is an unknown in the moon—perhaps that which makes the that in all from the Tycho—whose are by and on the moon rays.
"At any rate, by the of the of the red or by the of this force, the light of the moon something different from sunlight—just as the or of one other chemical in a of makes the product a with different and potentialities.
"Now these rays, Larry, are still another activity by the through which Throckmartin said they passed in the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary in the of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist, produced every that we call by of to the action of of colours. Something in light and nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not to know how to the of that magnetic of the we call light."
"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take you say about this continent, the people who used to live on it, and their caverns, for granted. But by the of Brian Boru, you'll me to for the idea that a of can a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, a two-fisted man such as you say Throckmartin was, Huldricksson's wife—and I'll she was one of those big northern too—you'll me to that any of them and take them off along a to it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, Tennessee couldn't do that—nix!"
"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much indeed. "What's your theory?" And I not adding: "Fairies?"
"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a it's Irish and when it sees me it'll be so there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost, strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so for the old I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me quick I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me—an' that's the truth.
"Now don't me wrong. I you all saw something all right. But what I think you saw was some of gas. All this region is and and are up from the sea. It's gas; a emanation; something new to us and that you crazy—lots of of do that. It the Throckmartin party on that and they were all more or less all the time; they saw things; talked it over and—collective hallucination—just like the Angels of Mons and other of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' he. 'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are—collective hallucination.
"When your friends got it they most likely jumped one by one. Huldricksson into a place where it is and it his wife. She the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon make it luminous! I've on the under the moon that looked like a thousand devils. Yes, and you see the devil's in it. And if it got into your nothing make you think you hadn't 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 as you are. If we don't across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll word at Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report me for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only old man, be reasonable. You've over this so long, you're going bug, you are."
And again, the that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was so great that I to be angry.
[1] William Beebe, the famous American and ornithologist, in France with America's air force, called attention to this in an article printed not long ago in the Atlantic Monthly. Still more was it that he noted a that the out of the was close.—W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
