A. E Merrit - The Moon Pool.pdf - Merrit, A. E - margozap

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 treatises 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

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 tall man. As he

reached the gangplank he looked up straight into my eyes, stared

for a moment, then waved his hand.

And now I knew him. It was Dr. David Throckmartin--"Throck"

he was to me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind

of the first water whose power and achievements were for me a

constant inspiration as they were, I know, for scores other.

Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise,

definitely--unpleasant. It was Throckmartin--but about him was

something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well

and to whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less

than a month before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had

married only a few weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor

William Frazier, younger by at least a decade than he but at one

with him in his ideals and as much in love, if it were possible, as

Throckmartin. By virtue of her father's training a wonderful

assistant, by virtue of her own sweet, sound heart a--I use the word

in its olden sense--lover. With his equally youthful associate Dr.

Charles Stanton and a Swedish woman, Thora Halversen, who had

been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from babyhood, they had set forth

for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary group of island ruins

clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in the Carolines.

what was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course

by my silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look

had given me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser,

hesitated --then hurried off to his stateroom.

"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser. "Know 'im well, sir?

Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."

I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair. There I sat,

composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken

me so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of

his venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling

expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what

shall I say --expectant search. His always questioning brain had

stamped its vigor upon his face.

But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne

some scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul

cataclysm that in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his

face, setting on it seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though

indeed these two had come to him hand in hand, taken possession

of him and departing left behind, ineradicably, their linked

shadows!

Yes--it was that which appalled. For how could rapture and

horror, Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss?

Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's

face!

Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore

line sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I

had hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that

I would meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I

was sensible of deliverance within my disappointment. All that

afternoon I lounged about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--

and within me was no strength to summon him. Nor did he appear

at dinner.

A. E Merrit - The Moon Pool.pdf

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