“My brain sprang into action. My hand threw up the pistol and I fired shot after shot into the shining core.
“As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again. I slipped a second clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force that shaped this Dweller in the Pool — from the pouring rays came its strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was all.
“But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds — their pitch higher, all their sweetness lost, angry.
“And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
“It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.
“So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and strengthened. Its shining core had shape — but a shape that my eyes and brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the soul? I have never believed — and yet —
“Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it rested. I knew now that the Dweller was — complete!
“I heard a scream. It was Edith’s voice. It came to me that she had heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped — fell.
“The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly — and straight into it raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God!
“She threw herself squarely within its splendour,” he whispered. “It wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face — the look!
“But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool. She tottered; she fell — with the radiance still holding her, still swirling and winding around and through her — into the Moon Pool! She sank, and with her went — the Dweller!
“I dragged myself to the brink. Far down was a shining, many-coloured nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith’s face, disappearing; her eyes stared up at me — and she vanished!
“‘Edith!’ I cried again. ‘Edith, come back to me!’
“And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in which I came to Port Moresby.
“I have formed a plan; you must bear it, Goodwin —” He fell upon his berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.
All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.
The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.
“Come to my cabin,” he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him. “Something is happening,” he said. “The mark is smaller.” It was as he said.
“I’m escaping,” he whispered jubilantly, “Just let me get to Melbourne safely, and then we’ll see who’ll win! For, Walter, I’m not at all sure that Edith is dead — as we know death — nor that the others are. There is something outside experience there — some great mystery.”
And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
“There’s a natural explanation, of course,” he said. “My theory is that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab, just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption from — from — what emanates.
“Look, here on the chart are their locations. I have made this in duplicate for you in the event — of something happening — to me. And if I lose — you’ll come after us, Goodwin, with help — won’t you?”
And again I promised.
A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
“But it’s just weariness,” he said. “Not at all like that other drowsiness. It’s an hour till moonrise still,” he yawned at last. “Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before.”
He lay upon the berth. I sat thinking. I came to myself with a guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation. What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.
“Up, quick, man!” I cried. He rose sleepily. His shirt fell open at the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little flecks of light were in it.
Throckmartin seemed only half-awake. He looked down at his breast, saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
“Yes,” he said drowsily, “it’s coming — to take me back to Edith! Well, I’m glad.”
“Throckmartin!” I cried. “Wake up! Fight!”
“Fight!” he said. “No use; come after us!”
He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little rays; seemed to writhe.
The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship, for I heard shoutings above.
Throckmartin still stood at the open port. Over his shoulder I saw a gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it, clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and from him. The cabin filled with murmurings —
A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness. When consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly.
But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
CHAPTER VI
“THE SHINING DEVIL TOOK THEM!”
My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my narrative,