Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

THE MOON POOL 125 I have heard—but they tell many tales on these O’Keefe banshee to travel if the O’Keefe was going seas.” to click in.” : He started for the door. Before he reached it he I looked again at my astonishing rescue. He turned. “But this I do know,” he half whispered, seemed perfectly serious. “I am damned glad there is no full moon tonight.” “Have you a cigarette? Mine went out,” he said He passed out, leaving me staring after him in with a grin, as he reached a moist hand out for the amazement. What did the Portuguese know? little cylinder, took it, lighted it. I bent over the sleeper. On his face was no I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw trace of that unholy mingling of opposites the was softened by the wistfulness of the clean-cut lips Dweller stamped upon its victims. and the honesty that lay side by side with the dey- And yet—what was it the Norseman had said? iltry in the laughing blue eyes: nose of a thorough- “The sparkling devil took them!” Nay, he had bred with the suspicion of a tilt: long, well-knit, been even more explicit—The sparkling devil that Slender figure that I knew must have all the came down from the moon!” Strength of fine steel; the uniform of a lieutenant Could it be that the Dweller had Swept upon the in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain’s navy. Brunhilda, drawing down the moon path Olaf Hul- He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and dricksson’s wife and babe even as it had drawn gripped mine. Throckmartin? “Thank you really ever go much, old mau, he As I sat thinking the cabin grew Suddenly dark aig. and from above came a shouting and patter of: feet. Down upon us Swept one of the abrupt, vio- lent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck. I liked Larry O’Keefe from the beginning—but I did not dream ag the Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna how that liking was to be forged into man’s strong love for man by fires which souls The long, peaceful swells had changed into ee oe fee and outs who. yeud. tltis angry, choppy waves from the tops of which the L IL O’Keet h th spindrift streamed in long, stinging lashes. oy eet Pere, Where are you now wi A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly Y0UF lep rechawns and banshee, your heart of a as it had arisen. The sea quieted. Over jn the ae your laughing blue eyes, aud es fe sees west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge of the aie fs Shall I ever ag - ee sages Larry = Hes storm, dropped the red globe of the Setting sun; oe . me as some best beloved younger brother? dropped slowly until it touched the sea rim. Larry! I watched it—and rubbed my eyes and stared CHAPTER VII again. For over its flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic beckoning finger! Larry O’Keefe Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the RESSING back the questions I longed to ask, Suwarna straight toward the descending orb and P I introduced myself, Oddly enough, I its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it found that he knew me, or rather my work. was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckon- He had bought, it appeared, my volume upon the ing finger was a wing of canvas, sticking up and peculiar vegetation whose habitat is disintegrating swaying with the motion of the waves. On the Java rock and voleanic ash, that I had entitled, highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the calmly smoking a cigarette. Craters. For he explained naively that he had We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and picked it up, thinking it an entirely different sort with myself as coxswain pulled toward a wrecked of book, a novel in fact—something like Meredith’s hydro-airplane. Its occupant took a long puff at his Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly. cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greet- He had hardly finished this explanation when we ing. And just as he did so a great wave raised it- touched the side of the Suwarna, and I was forced self up behind him, took the wreckage, tossed it {5 curb my curiosity until we reached the deck. high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When “That thing you saw me sitting on,” he said, we had steadied hae boat, where wreck and man after he had thanked the bowing little skipper for had been was—nothing. his rescue, “was all that was left of one of his There came a tug at the side—, two muscular Majesty’s best little hydro-airplanes after that brown hands gripped it close to my left, anda sleek, cyclone threw it off as excess baggage. And by the black, wet head showed its top between them. Two way, about where are we?” bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a Da Costa gave him our approximate position laughing deviltry looked into Mine, and a long, from the noon reckoning. lithe body drew itself gently over the thwart and O’Keefe whistled. “A good three hundred miles seated its dripping self at my feet. from where I left the H. M. S. Dolphin about four “Much obliged,” said this man from the sea. “I hours ago,” he said. “That squall I rode in on was knew somebody was sure to come along when the gome whizzer! O'Keefe banshee didn’t show up.” “The Dolphin,’ he went on, calmly divesting “The what?” I asked in amazement. himself of his soaked uniform, “was on her way “The O’Keefe banshee—I’m Larry O’Keefe. It’s to Melbourne. I’d been ye rag. 4 (oo) Kas Ves) a far way from Ireland, but not too far for the and went up for an = ecomich OO! ~ Then AS