The Moon Pool

by Abraham Merritt

  CHAPTER III

  The Moon Rock

  "I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "theresults of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later--if I amallowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say thatat the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of mytheories.

  "The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us withany touch of morbidity--that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. ButThora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her bloodran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland--some of them sostrangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spiritsof mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. Fromthe first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may becalled the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghostsand warlocks.

  "I laughed at her then--

  "Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our nativescame to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. Hereminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in themorning; they would return after the third night, when the moon hadbegun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' andsolemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauachduring their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.

  "No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spendthe days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of thegroup. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and onthe morning of the third day set forth along the east face of thebreakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything inreadiness for the return of our men the next day.

  "We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.

  "'Listen!' she said. 'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!'

  "I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming upfrom great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, dieddown, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.

  "'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said. 'We're probablyover some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'

  "'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully. Welistened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, anothersound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us andNan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music--of a sort; I won'tdescribe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it--"

  "You mean on the deck?" I asked. Throckmartin nodded.

  "I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out.As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight,looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.

  "'That's the queerest sound!' he said. He listened again.'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bellsof crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he addedhalf-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on thesea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group oflights. Stanton laughed.

  "'The beggars!' he exclaimed. 'That's why they wanted to get away, isit? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival--rites of somekind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were soeager to have us _keep_ away, too.'

  "The explanation seemed good. I felt a curious sense of relief,although I had not been sensible of any oppression.

  "'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not.

  "'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said. 'If we break into one oftheir religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let'skeep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'

  "'That's so,' agreed Stanton.

  "The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--

  "'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edithat last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. Theyfrighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel asthough some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'

  "'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.

  "And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into themoonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall,deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years hadslipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.

  "She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring. She thrust herhead forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; shelistened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture tothe moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it fromremote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twiceshe repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned tous.

  "'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances. 'Gofrom here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointedto the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'Itbeckons--the--the--"

  "She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again thetinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph.

  "We watched beside her throughout the night. The sounds fromNan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In themorning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had baddreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except thatthey had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughoutthe morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.

  "That afternoon the natives returned. And that night on Nan-Tauachthe silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.

  "You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have relatedwould excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, ofcourse, any explanation admitting the supernatural.

  "Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accountedfor. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certainmusical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effectupon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of thereactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora'snervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to acondition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readilyexplain her part in the night's scene.

  "We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way betweenPonape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them duringtheir rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers wewould set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate duringthe day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observingfrom some safe hiding-place what might occur.

  "The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly towardthe full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompanythem. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it wasthat, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At leastthat was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She wasthoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.

  "When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, wetook our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mightysea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with itsgigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submergedpier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into avast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre ofthe court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace ofbasalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.

  "And now, Walter, for the better understanding of whatfollows--and--and--" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to returnwith me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to mydescription of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn andsquared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in thesea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauachand the islet named Tau. The entrance to the cana
l is bidden by densethickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The stepslead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to thecourtyard.

  "This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular,following with mathematical exactness the march of the outerbarricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originallyit must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and itsheight varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradualsinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.

  "Within this courtyard is the second enclosure. Its terrace, of thesame basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance isgained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the greatcentral vault with which is associated the one name of living beingthat has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say itwas the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both forsun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.'It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacificcontinent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took thename of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.

  "And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hidesthe Moon Pool.

  "It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock. We had been inspectingthe inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a partof the terrace studying it wonderingly.

  "'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed tothe wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteenfeet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisitenicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then Irealized that its colour was subtly different--tinged with grey and ofa smooth, peculiar--deadness.

  "'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said. I touched it andwithdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my armtingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it.It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force--the phrase Ihave used--frozen electricity--describes it better than anything else.Stanton looked at me oddly.

  "'So you felt it too,' he said. 'I was wondering whether I wasdeveloping hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that theblocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'

  "We examined the slab eagerly. Its edges were cut as though by anengraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks inalmost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted asclosely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. Andthen we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the lineof the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression runningfrom one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rockstood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering half.Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it.Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like allthe stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn--this was assmooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of thepolisher.

  "'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton. 'It swings around in that littlecup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'

  "'Maybe you're right,' I replied. 'But how the devil can we open it?'

  "We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges, thrustingagainst its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to lookup--and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of thegrey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angleat which my gaze struck it.

  "We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went. Thebosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in thestone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it backsharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the sameshock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. Theimpression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I wentcarefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ranthrough my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curvedplace, each of which communicated the precise sensation I havedescribed. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactlythe same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spotssingly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion tothe slab itself.

  "'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.

  "'Why do you say that?' I asked.

  "'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly. 'But something tells meso. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purelyscientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. Thescientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab eitherdown or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to donothing of the sort and get away while I can!'

  "He laughed again--shamefacedly.

  "'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his tone thehuman side of him was ascendant.

  "'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,' I said.

  "'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he addedsoberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the samefeeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed outof the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impiouslip. We turned away--uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breachon the terrace.

  "'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped. Her eyes wentpast me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiffsteps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon itsbreast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream asthough her very soul were being drawn from her--and watched her fallat its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look Ihad observed when first we heard the crystal music ofNan-Tauach--that unhuman mingling of opposites!"