The Greatest Tales of Lost Worlds & Alternative Universes. Филип Дик
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wistfully. We sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so well.
Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O’Keefe and I drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna tossed them aside. O’Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.
“Are you American or Irish, O’Keefe?” I asked suddenly.
“Why?” he laughed.
“Because,” I answered, “from your name and your service I would suppose you Irish — but your command of pure Americanese makes me doubtful.”
He grinned amiably.
“I’ll tell you how that is,” he said. “My mother was an American — a Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O’Keefe, of Coleraine. And these two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And there you are — I’m as much American as I am Irish.
“When I’m in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue. But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk, and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as well as St. Patrick’s Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of times, and never a heartache after that wasn’t a pleasant one, and never a real purpose in life until I took the king’s shilling and earned my wings; something over thirty — and that’s me — Larry O’Keefe.”
“But it was the Irish O’Keefe who sat out there waiting for the banshee,” I laughed.
“It was that,” he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. “There’s never an O’Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning. An’ twice have I heard the banshee calling — once it was when my younger brother died an’ once when my father lay waiting to be carried out on the ebb tide.”
He mused a moment, then went on: “An’ once I saw an Annir Choille, a girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through Carntogher woods, an’ once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an’ Eilidh the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping of Cravetheen, an’ I heard the echo of his dead harpings —”
He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.
Chapter VIII.
Olaf’s Story
There was a little silence. I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and touched.
Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him an easy prey.
He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes; turned to me and grinned:
“Don’t think I’m cracked, Professor,” he said. “I’m not. But it takes me that way now and then. It’s the Irish in me. And, believe it or not, I’m telling you the truth.”
I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was mounting.
“You can’t make me see what you’ve seen, Lieutenant,” I laughed. “But you can make me hear. I’ve always wondered what kind of a noise a disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?”
O’Keefe looked at me seriously.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll show you.” From deep down in his throat came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair — for from behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and died away! O’Keefe’s grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
“It’s all right, Professor,” he said. “It’s for me. It found me — all this way from Ireland.”
Again the silence was rent by the cry. But now I had located it. It came from my room, and it could mean only one thing — Huldricksson had wakened.
“Forget your banshee!” I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.
Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief flit over O’Keefe’s face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were within — what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought essential to draw it from the blue pool!
From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O’Keefe pushed me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with wondering pity.
Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon Huldricksson’s staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the lights.
The Norseman’s dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut. His gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him. Da Costa shrunk behind me. O’Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step that brought him in front of me.
“Where do you take me?” said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the growl of a beast. “Where is my boat?”
I touched O’Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
“Listen, Olaf Huldricksson,” I said. “We take you to where the sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?” I spoke slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.
He thrust out a shaking hand.
“You say you follow?” he asked falteringly. “You know where to follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?”
“Just that, Olaf Huldricksson,” I answered. “Just that! I pledge you my life that