"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane.We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks.At last reason came back to us.
"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to force entrance through the slab.The rock re-sisted our drills.We tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock.They made not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.
"Afternoon found us hopeless.Night was coming on and we would have to decide our course of action.I wanted to go to Ponape for help.But Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us that night, if at all.
What then was left? Clearly only one of two choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach.But this would mean the abandonment of Thora for at least two days.
We could not do it; it would have been too cowardly.
"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie through it for Thora before it could close again.
"Our path lay clear before us.We had to spend that night on Nan-Tauach!
"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully.If our theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disap-pearance were linked with secret religious rites of the na-tives, the logical inference was that the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of such things.Or the sleep might have been simply a coin-cidence and produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other manifestations.We made some rough and ready but effective respirators.
"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.Edith was an excellent shot with both rifle and pistol.We had decided that my wife was to remain in the hiding-place.Stanton would take up a station on the far side of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near Edith.The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her, and Icould reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked down upon the hollow wherein she crouched.From our respective stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance.His position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard.
"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.Stanton and Itook our places.The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.
"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner terrace.Stanton straightened up and stared in-tently through the gateway, rifle ready.
"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.He waved a silencing hand.I turned my head to look at Edith.A shock ran through me.She lay upon her side.Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon.She was again in deepest sleep!
"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the steps and stopped, fascinated.For the moon-light had thickened.It seemed to be--curdled--there; and through it ran little gleams and veins of shimmering white fire.A languor passed through me.It was not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night.It was a sapping of all will to move.I tried to cry out to Stanton.I had not even the will to move my lips.Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes!
"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.I watched him leap up the steps and move toward the gateway.The curdled radiance seemed to await him.He stepped into it--and was lost to my sight.
"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.Then a rain of tinklings that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny fingers of ice--and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the courtyard--a great cry--a scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable and horror un-imaginable! And once more there was silence.I strove to burst the bonds that held me.I could not.Even my eyelids were fixed.Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable! The crys-talline music swelled.Where I sat I could take in the gate-way and its basalt portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet above, shattered, ruined portals--unclimbable.From this gateway an intenser light began to flow.It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked Stanton.
"Stanton! But--God! What a vision!"
A deep tremor shook him.I waited--waited.
