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

"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring. She thrust her head forward
toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she listened. Suddenly she
raised her arms and made a curious gesture to the moon. It wasЧan
archaicЧmovement; she seemed to drag it from remote antiquityЧyet in it was a
strange suggestion of power. Twice she repeated this gesture andЧthe tinklings
died away! She turned to us.
"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances. 'Go from
hereЧand quickly! Go while you may. It has calledЧ' She pointed to the islet.
'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It beckonsЧtheЧtheЧЧ'
"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the tinklings, now
with a quicker note of jubilanceЧalmost of triumph.
"We watched beside her throughout the night. The sounds from Nan-Tauach
continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the morning Thora awoke, none
the worse, apparently. She had had bad dreams, she said. She could not remember
what they wereЧexcept that they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen,
and throughout the 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-Tauach the silence
was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.
"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related would excite
the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of course, any explanation
admitting the supernatural.
"OurЧsymptoms let me call themЧcould all very easily be accounted for. It is
unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain musical instruments have
definite and sometimes extraordinary effect upon the nervous system. We accepted
this as the explanation of the reactions we had experienced, hearing the
unfamiliar sounds. Thora's nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had
wrought her up to a condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could
readily explain her part in the night's scene.
"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passageway between Ponape and
Nan-Tauach known to the nativesЧand used by them during their rites. We decided
that on the next departure of our labourers we would set forth immediately to
Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during the day, and at evening my wife and
Thora would go back to camp, leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the
island, observing from some safe hiding-place what might occur.
"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward the full.
Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany them. Their
importunities only made us more eager to see what it was that, we were now
convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least that was true of Stanton and
myself. It was not true of Edith. She was thoughtful, abstractedЧreluctant.
"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we took our boat
and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty sea-wall towered above us. We
passed through the water-gate with its gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed
beside a half-submerged pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps
leading into a vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre
of the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of basalt
blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what followsЧandЧandЧЧ" he
hesitated. "Should you decide later to return with me or, if I am taken,
toЧtoЧfollow usЧlisten carefully to my description of this place: Nan-Tauach is