!

"'Edith!' I cried again. 'Edith, come back to me!'

"And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through
the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left
me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged
from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in
which I came to Port Moresby.

"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his
berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story
had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.

All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room
to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.

The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at
lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.

"Come to my cabin," he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him.
"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
said.

"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are.
There is something outside experience there--some great mystery."

And all that day he talked to me of his plans.

"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said. "My theory is
that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of
moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little
circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When
the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab,
just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious
arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the
full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We
will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon
these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we
will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption
from--from--what emanates.

"Look, here on the chart are their locations. I have made this in
duplicate for you in the event--of something happening--to me. And if
I lose--you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help--won't you?"

And again I promised.

A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.

"But it's just weariness," he said. "Not at all like that other
drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at la