CHAPTER XVII
The Leprechaun
The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry wasawaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first wehad faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again theportal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.
But now the scene was changed. Around the jet table were grouped anumber of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others--all of themfair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of thepriestess--an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her facebearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara'sown, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins thefearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held withina corpse!
Began then our examination, for such it was. And as it progressed Iwas more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancywas gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of hisanswers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studyinghis opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing somefar-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Alwayshe stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, theirsolidarity.
Their questions were myriad. What were our occupations? Our system ofgovernment? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interestedwere they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, itseffects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they wereexceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins whichhad excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and ifothers than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through theirentrance!
At this I shot a glance at Lugur. He did not seem unduly interested.I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosywall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search.Then I answered as briefly as possible--omitting all reference tothese things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakableamusement--and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur hadkept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spokento none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered theKeth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment--ofhelpless search for clue to all the tangle.
For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Radorand let us go.
Larry was sombre as we returned. He walked about the room uneasily.
"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me."I can't make out just the particular brand--that's all that bothersme. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to doquick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the walllately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic.
"Laugh if you want to," he went on. "But she's our best bet. It'sgoing to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee--but I put mymoney on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden,after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see aleprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a littleman in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw oneonce--in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, inYolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of thosebushes, twirling a little shillalah.
"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don'tye be downhearted, lad.'
"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' Isaid, or thought I did.
"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered. 'An' where the heartrests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like tolive here, Larry,' said he.
"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him. 'It rests on a girl withgolden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair--butme feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said."
The brogue thickened.
"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled hisshillalah.
"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he. 'Don't ye fall for theBhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughterof Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleenashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an'his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's isto think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an'I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place allcluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' otherthings pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyedwan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he.
"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer.
"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says. 'Ye've got some roughknocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But,remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys areall wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.'
"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way herein time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.'
"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he. 'Not that she's keen onleavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o'mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she'smobilizing all the clan an' if she _has_ to come for ye, avick, they'llbe wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. Whatthey'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze onLough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from theGreen Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' Isay it again--all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein'proud o' ye, lad!'
"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was a very tenderone.
"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly. "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!"
Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little ofeach other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were calledbefore the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendoursand surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company ofRador. Together we two passed the green barriers into thedwelling-place of the ladala.
They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywherewas an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that wasspiritual rather than material--as tangible as the latter and far, farmore menacing!
"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constantand only reply to my efforts to find the cause.
Once I had concrete evidence of the mood. Glancing behind me, I saw awhite, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, ashining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. InstinctivelyI thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where thelittle missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped myhand.
"That, some day I will repay!" he said. I looked again at the thing.At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinoussubstance.
Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.
"Look!" he said. He dropped it upon the dart--and at once, before myeyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!
"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" hesaid.
Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the dramawhose history this narrative is--only scattering and necessarilyfragmentary observations.
First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spacesbetween the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, Thesewere magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations ofradiance; literally screens of electric force which formed asimpervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.
They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was.But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They wereextremely simple in their inception--no more miraculous than is glass,which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out thosecoarser ones we call air--and, partly, those others which produce uponour audi
tory nerves the effects we call sound.
Briefly their mechanism was this:
[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanismof the atomic engines was deleted, his description of thelight-destroying screens has been deleted by the ExecutiveCouncil.--J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]
There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the soldiers and thedream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing socialphenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environmentthe wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians hadperfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.
They were, too, intensely musical. Their favourite instruments weredouble flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small.They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave ofsmall drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to theemotional centres.
It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few trulyhumorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me--it was justafter our fourth sleep, I remember.
"Come on to a concert," he said.
We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons. Rador called thetwo-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, thewhole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Savethe King." They sang--in a closer approach to the English than mighthave been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send himvictorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise.
"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till thatRed hears it. He'll blow up.
"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taughther," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There wasan impish twinkle in his eyes.
And I did hear. For it was not many minutes later that the priestesscondescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe.
"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of thelips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry.
She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out ofthe exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of littlesilver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed:
"She's only a bird in a gilded cage, A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--"
And so on to the bitter end.
"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's onlypart of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the onlyway I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly."She's a devil-ess from hell--but a wonder. Whenever I find myselfgoing I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some otherancient lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective!POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"