All-Story Weekly, March 1, 1919 — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

__ endin’ an’ cookin’ an’ other things per- tainin’ to general wife work. Not that I _ think the blue-eyed wan is keen for mendin’ an’ cookin’!’ says he. “* You don’t have to be comin’ all this way to tell me that,’ I answer. “* Well, I’m just-a tellin’ you,’ he says. ‘Ye’ve got some rough knocks comin’, Larry. In fact ye’re in for a very devil of a time. But, remember that ye’re the O’Keefe,’ says he. ‘An’ while. the bhoys are all wid ye, avick, ye’ve got to be on the job yourself.’ ' “*T hope,’ I tell him, ‘ that the O’Keefe banshee can-find her way here in time—that is, if it’s necessary, which I hope it won’t =e.” _“*T)on’t ye worry about that,’ says he. -*Not that she’s keen on leavin’ the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul’s in quite a state o’ mind about ye, aroon. I don’t mind tellin’ ye, lad, that she’s mobilizin’ all the clan an’ if she “as to come for ye, avick, they’ll be wid her an’ they’ll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What they’ll do to it ll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on Lough Lene! An’ that’s about all Larry. We thought a voice from the green isle would cheer ye. Don’t fer- git that ye’re the O’Keefe—an’ I -say it- agin—all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t’ kape bein’ proud o’ ye, lad!’ “ An’ I looked again and there was only a bush waving.” - There wasn’t a smile in my heart—or if there was it was a very tender one. Sub- conscious visions, or whatever it had been, he meant every word, and I was curiously touched. “Lord, I’d like to have a cigarette,” he said. “ Spill me a little scientific dope, old dear. What is this place, anyway?” “ Well,” I said. “I think it’s the matrix of the moon.” “The what!” he exclaimed, with almost ludicrous amazement. I told him of Von ‘Hetzdorp’s suggestion and my ideas upon it, as I have related them, somewhat frag- mentarily, in another chapter. “ Any real evidence for that?’ he asked. I assured him that there was. “That,” I continued, ‘“ would explain these enormous, caverned spaces—scar tis- ALL-STORY WEEKLY. sue of the world, permeated with gigantic spaces as human scar tissue is often per- meated with lesions beneath the scarified surface. Now these people we have en- countered are undoubtedly, as poor Throck- martin divined, the remnants of that lost and ancient-race that built the Nan-Matal and similar Pacific structures. Undoubt- edly they were forced below as their con- tinent subsided. And here the green dwarf’s statement that they made their way here “where was the Shining One and where others before us had been’ is highly sug- gestive.” ““Qdd lads, those dwarfs,” said Larry. “They look like folk who started out to be gods and somebody’s hand pushed them down while they were still soft!” The characterization was so apt I started. ‘““ However—” said O’Keefe. ‘“ Pardon me, Doc. Go on— it just occurred to me.” “This race that they found,” I went on, “or rather its remnants, its relics or only its monuments, must have been immeasure- . ably more ancient even than they. Indeed, it is legitimate to doubt whether they had ever reached the surface of our planet. And while on this point I would call your atten- tion to the fact that the legend that their most distant ancestors were born within and issued from deep earth caverns is no un- common one, not only among primitive peo- ples, but others who once, at least, had a high culture. ‘““ What happened here I cannot of course tell. It may be that a condition prevailed analogous to that of the Mayans and Aztecs. The Mayans were the great race of Central America. They developed a marvelous civ- ilization; attained a high command of art and science, were unsurpassed—and are even to-day—as builders, were extraordi- nary astronomers and their calender is now one of the wonders of the scientific world. “ Pestilence and famine destroyed them. Down upon their last few survivors came the Aztecs, far, far lower in all knowledge. But they took what they found and upon it built that civilization so amazingly com- plex in its mingled wickedness and good, darkest barbarism and true enlightenment, that the Spaniards, under Cortez, wantonly annihilated.” (E@) JOOKS com