第29章

I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.Now we were coming fast to the end of the passage.Before us was a high arch, and through it I glimpsed a dim, shifting luminosity as of mist filled with rainbows.We reached the portal and I looked into a chamber that might have been transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King that rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.

Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him, Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms.

The Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery lip of stone within whose oval lay a blue pool.And down upon this pool staring upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light--one of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and three of emerald, of silver, and of amber.They fell each upon the azure surface, and I knew that these were the seven streams of radiance, within which the Dweller took shape--now but pale ghosts of their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream raced through them.

Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool that which he held--and I saw that it was the body of a child! He set it there so gently, bent over the side and thrust a hand down into the water.And as he did so he moaned and lurched against the little body that lay before him.Instantly the form moved--and slipped over the verge into the blue.Huldricksson threw his body over the stone, hands clutching, arms thrust deep down--and from his lips issued a long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in it nothing human!

Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.

"Catch him!" shouted the Russian."Drag him back!

Quick!"

He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the dis-tance, O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by the shoulders and toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering and sobbing.And as I rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with real pity in his cold eyes.

Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked straight into mine; and ever sinking slowly, slowly--vanished! And I knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his beloved yndling!

But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?

The Russian was first to speak.

"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and carried with me during the mad rush down the passage.Inodded and drew it out.

"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned over Huldricksson.He rolled up the sailor's sleeves half-way to the shoulder.The arms were white with somewhat of that weird semitranslucence that Ihad seen on Throckmartin's breast where a tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same whiteness--like a baroque pearl.Above the line of white, Marakinoff thrust the needle.

"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.