Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

THE MOON POOL “Nuts!” he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. “T think he’s crazy, Dr. Goodwin,” he corrected him- | self, quickly. ‘What else could I think?” I turned to the little Portuguese without an- swering. | “There’s no need for any anxiety tonight, Cap- tain,” I said. “Take my word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping draft?” “I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair,” he answered gratefuly. “Tomorrow, when I feel bet- tair—I would have a talk with you.” I nodded. He did know something then! I mixed him an opiate of considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin. I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping Norseman, I told O’Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross- examined me rather minutely upon my recollec- tions of the radiant phases upon each appearance, checking these with Throckmartin’s observations of the same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool. “And now what do you think of it all?” I asked. He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricks- son. “Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin,” he answered at last, gravely. “Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain—you and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw—something. But—” he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found vaguely irritating—“but I’ve noticed that when a scientist gets superstitious it—er—takes very hard! “Here’s a few things I can tell you now though,” he went on while I struggled to speak—‘I pray in my heart that we’ll meet neither the Dolphin nor -anything with wireless on board going up. Be- cause, Dr. Goodwin, I’d dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller. “And another thing,” said O’Keefe. “After this —cut out the trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're crazy or whether I don’t you’re there with the nerve, Professor, and I’m for you. “Good night!” said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the ecaptain’s importunities to use his own cabin. And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I watched him go. Super- stitious! I, whose pride was my scientific devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious—and this from a man who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and no doubt in leprechawns and all their tribe! Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy’ in even the part promise of Larry O’Keefe’s com- radeship on my venture, I arranged a couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson. CHAPTER IX A Lost Page of Earth HEN I awakened the sun was streaming WW through the cabin porthole. Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The song was one with the whole- some sunshine and the breeze blowing stiffiy and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O’Keefe at his matins: The little red lark is shaking his wings, Straight from the breast of his love he springs. Larry’s voice soared. His wings and his feathers are sunrise red, He hails the sun and his golden head, Good morning, Doc, you are long abed. This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened my door. O’Keefe stood out- side, laughing. The Suwarna, her engines silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brun- hilda skipping in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up. The sea was crispinge and dimpling under the wind. Blue and white was the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery green, flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us; flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this wide awake and beautiful world and if, subcon- sciously, I knew that somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I was con. sciously free of its oppression. _ “How’s the patient?” asked O’Keefe. He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I left the cabin. The Norse- man had slipped on a pair of pajamas and, giant torso naked under the sun, strode out upon us. We all of us looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf’s madness had left him. In his eyes was much sor- row, but the berserk rage was gone. He spoke straight to me: “You said last night we follow?” I nodded. “It is where?” he asked again. “We go first to Ponape and from there to Metal- anim Harbor—to the Nan-Matal. You know the place?” Huldricksson bowed—a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes. “It is there?” he asked. | “It is there that we must first search,” I an- swered. “Good!” said Olaf Huldricksson. “It is good!” He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following his thought, answered his un- spoken question. “We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf.” “Good!” repeated the Norseman. away, his eyes tear-filled. He looked A restraint fell upon us; “decal raliier0l t= cao) Af