The Moon Pool - A. Merritt (top novels .TXT) 📗

The Moon Pool

By A. Merritt.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dedication Foreword The Moon Pool I: The Thing on the Moon Path II: “Dead! All Dead!” III: The Moon Rock IV: The First Vanishings V: Into the Moon Pool VI: “The Shining Devil Took Them!” VII: Larry O’Keefe VIII: Olaf’s Story IX: A Lost Page of Earth X: The Moon Pool XI: The Flame-Tipped Shadows XII: The End of the Journey XIII: Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One XIV: The Justice of Lora XV: The Angry, Whispering Globe XVI: Yolara of Muria vs. the O’Keefe XVII: The Leprechaun XVIII: The Amphitheatre of Jet XIX: The Madness of Olaf XX: The Tempting of Larry XXI: Larry’s Defiance XXII: The Casting of the Shadow XXIII: Dragon Worm and Moss Death XXIV: The Crimson Sea XXV: The Three Silent Ones XXVI: The Wooing of Lakla XXVII: The Coming of Yolara XXVIII: In the Lair of the Dweller XXIX: The Shaping of the Shining One XXX: The Building of the Moon Pool XXXI: Larry and the Frog-Men XXXII: “Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!” XXXIII: The Meeting of Titans XXXIV: The Coming of the Shining One XXXV: “Larry—Farewell!” Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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To
Robert H. Davis
In appreciation, among many other things, for Larry O’Keefe’s faith in the fairies.

Foreword

The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International Association of Science.

First:

To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.

Second:

Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin’s experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.

For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin’s own report to the Council, supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr. Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.

Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph. D., F.R.G.S., etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from this popular presentation⁠—because of the excessively menacing potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might develop⁠—will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of carefully guarded circulation.

The International Association of Science

Per J. B. K., President

The Moon Pool I The Thing on the Moon Path

For two months I had been on the d’Entrecasteaux Islands gathering data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer ones between Melbourne and New York.

It was one of Papua’s yellow mornings when she shows herself in her sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself⁠—sinister even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing.

It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was something familiar about the