"A. E. Merritt - The Moon Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

love for man by fires which souls such as his and mineЧand yours who read
thisЧcould never dream.
Larry! Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and banshee, your
heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your fearless soul? Shall I ever
see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me as some best beloved younger brother?
Larry!
CHAPTER VII
Larry O'Keefe
PRESSING BACK the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself. Oddly enough,
I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had bought, it appeared, my
volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose habitat is disintegrating lava rock
and volcanic ash, that I had entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive,
Flora of the Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up,
thinking it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in factЧsomething like
Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of the Suwarna,
and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached the deck.
"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the bowing
little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of his Majesty's
best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it off as excess baggage.
And by the way, about where are we?"
Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning.
O'Keefe whistled. "A good three hundred miles from where I left the H.M.S.
Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in on was some
whizzer!
"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked uniform, "was
on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy ride and went up for an
alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out of nowhere, picked me up, and
insisted that I go with it.
"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it. I turned,
and blick went my right wing, and down I dropped."
"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I said. "We have
no wireless."
"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course, sairЧperhapsЧЧ"
"ThanksЧbut not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe. "Lord alone knows where the
Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for me. Anyway, she's just
as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe we'll strike something with a
wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you
bound, by the way?" he asked.
"For Ponape," I answered.
"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe. "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago for fruit.
Natives seemed scared to death at usЧor something. What are you going there
for?"
Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me. It troubled me.
O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said. "Maybe I oughn't to have asked that?"
"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied. "I'm about to undertake some
exploration workЧa little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal."
I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor crept beneath
his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the cross, glancing as he did so