第8章

"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted for.It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect upon the nervous system.We accepted this as the explanation of the reactions we had ex-perienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds.Thora's nervous-ness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria.Science could readily explain her part in the night's scene.

"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives --and used by them during their rites.We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we would set forth im-mediately to Nan-Tauach.We would investigate during the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp, leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing from some safe hiding-place what might occur.

"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward the full.Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany them.Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was that, we were now con-vinced, they wanted to conceal from us.At least that was true of Stanton and myself.It was not true of Edith.She was thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.

"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach.Soon its mighty sea-wall towered above us.We passed through the water-gate with its gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged pier.In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars.In the centre of the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.

"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what follows--and--and--" he hesitated."Should you decide later to return with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to my description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn and squared, twenty feet wide at the top.To get to the gateway in the sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach and the islet named Tau.The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear.The steps lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the courtyard.

"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rec-tangular, following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer barricades.The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originally it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.The wall of the first en-closure is fifteen feet across the top and its height varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.

"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.Its terrace, of the same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high.Entrance is gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great central vault with which is associated the one name of living being that has come to us out of the mists of the past.The natives say it was the treas-ure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long 'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.' It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific continent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.

"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides the Moon Pool.

"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.We had been inspecting the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part of the terrace studying it wonderingly.

"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up.