The Moon Pool Part 10

"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said. "So well that I almost believed you myself."

"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.

His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.

"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy, Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I think?"

I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.

"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," 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 gratefully.

"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--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 recollections 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 Huldricksson.

"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 superst.i.tious 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. Because, Dr.

Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller.

"And another thing," said O'Keefe. "After this--cut out the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, 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 captain's importunities to use his own cabin.

And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I watched him go. Superst.i.tious. I, whose pride was my scientific devotion to fact and fact alone! Superst.i.tious--and this from a man who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe!

Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part promise of Larry O'Keefe's comrades.h.i.+p 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

When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.

Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The song was one with the wholesome suns.h.i.+ne and the breeze blowing stiffly 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 outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.

The sea was crisping 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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, subconsciously, I knew that somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I was consciously 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 Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and, giant torso naked under the sun, he 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 sorrow, 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 Metalanim Harbour--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 answered.

"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson. "It is good!"

He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following his thought, answered his unspoken question.

"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."

"Good!" repeated the Norseman. He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.

A restraint fell upon us; the embarra.s.sment all men experience when they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at breakfast only the most casual topics.

When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard the Brunhilda.

The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.

When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me expectantly.

"Well?" I asked.

"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superst.i.tions. Let me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer, a.n.a.lyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."

O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.

"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped. "But if you could have seen yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in his eyes--"and then with all this suns.h.i.+ne and this wide-open world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything such as you and Huldricksson have described."