Professional Documents
Culture Documents
- Borellus
It was near the docks along the southerly part of the Town Street, however, that the worst
things were muttered about Joseph Curwen. Sailors are superstitious folk; and the
seasoned salts who manned the infinite rum, slave, and molasses sloops, the rakish
privateers, and the great brigs of the Browns, Crawfords, and Tillinghasts, all made
strange furtive signs of protection when they saw the slim, deceptively young-looking
figure with its yellow hair and slight stoop entering the Curwen warehouse in Doubloon
Street or talking with captains and supercargoes on the long quay where the Curwen ships
rode restlessly. Curwen's own clerks and captains hated and feared him, and all his sailors
were mongrel riff-raff from Martinique, St. Eustatius, Havana, or Port Royal. It was, in a
way, the frequency with which these sailors were replaced which inspired the acutest and
most tangible part of the fear in which the old man was held. A crew would be turned
loose in the town on shore leave, some of its members perhaps charged with this errand
or that; and when reassembled it would be almost sure to lack one or more men. That
many of the errands had concerned the farm of Pawtuxet Road, and that few of the sailors
had ever been seen to return from that place, was not forgotten; so that in time it became
exceedingly difficult for Curwen to keep his oddly assorted hands. Almost invariably
several would desert soon after hearing the gossip of the Providence wharves, and their
replacement in the West Indies became an increasingly great problem to the merchant.
By 1760 Joseph Curwen was virtually an outcast, suspected of vague horrors and
daemoniac alliances which seemed all the more menacing because they could not be
named, understood, or even proved to exist. The last straw may have come from the affair
of the missing soldiers in 1758, for in March and April of that year two Royal regiments
on their way to New France were quartered in Providence, and depleted by an
inexplicable process far beyond the average rate of desertion. Rumour dwelt on the
frequency with which Curwen was wont to be seen talking with the red-coated strangers;
and as several of them began to be missed, people thought of the odd conditions among
his own seamen. What would have happened if the regiments had not been ordered on, no
one can tell.
Meanwhile the merchant's worldly affairs were prospering. He had a virtual monopoly of
the town's trade in saltpetre, black pepper, and cinnamon, and easily led any other one
shipping establishment save the Browns in his importation of brassware, indigo, cotton,
woollens, salt, rigging, iron, paper, and English goods of every kind. Such shopkeepers as
James Green, at the Sign of the Elephant in Cheapside, the Russells, at the Sign of the
Golden Eagle across the Bridge, or Clark and Nightingale at the Frying-Pan and Fish near
New Coffee-House, depended almost wholly upon him for their stock; and his
arrangements with the local distillers, the Narragansett dairymen and horse-breeders, and
the Newport candle-makers, made him one of the prime exporters of the Colony.
Ostracised though he was, he did not lack for civic spirit of a sort. When the Colony
House burned down, he subscribed handsomely to the lotteries by which the new brick
one - still standing at the head of its parade in the old main street - was built in 1761. In
that same year, too, he helped rebuild the Great Bridge after the October gale. He
replaced many of the books of the public library consumed in the Colony House fire, and
bought heavily in the lottery that gave the muddy Market Parade and deep-rutted Town
Street their pavement of great round stones with a brick footwalk or "causey" in the
middle. About this time, also, he built the plain but excellent new house whose doorway
is still such a triumph of carving. When the Whitefield adherents broke off from Dr.
Cotton's hill church in 1743 and founded Deacon Snow's church across the Bridge,
Curwen had gone with them; though his zeal and attendance soon abated. Now, however,
he cultivated piety once more; as if to dispel the shadow which had thrown him into
isolation and would soon begin to wreck his business fortunes if not sharply checked.
2
The sight of this strange, pallid man, hardly middle-aged in aspect yet certainly not less
than a full century old, seeking at last to emerge from a cloud of fright and detestation too
vague to pin down or analyse, was at once a pathetic, a dramatic, and a contemptible
thing. Such is the power of wealth and of surface gestures, however, that there came
indeed a slight abatement in the visible aversion displayed toward him; especially after
the rapid disappearances of his sailors abruptly ceased. He must likewise have begun to
practice an extreme care and secrecy in his graveyard expeditions, for he was never again
caught at such wanderings; whilst the rumours of uncanny sounds and manoeuvres at his
Pawtuxet farm diminished in proportion. His rate of food consumption and cattle
replacement remained abnormally high; but not until modern times, when Charles Ward
examined a set of his accounts and invoices in the Shepley Library, did it occur to any
person - save one embittered youth, perhaps - to make dark comparisons between the
large number of Guinea blacks he imported until 1766, and the disturbingly small number
for whom he could produce bona fide bills of sale either to slave-dealers at the Great
Bridge or to the planters of the Narragansett Country. Certainly, the cunning and
ingenuity of this abhorred character were uncannily profound, once the necessity for their
exercise had become impressed upon him.
But of course the effect of all this belated mending was necessarily slight. Curwen
continued to be avoided and distrusted, as indeed the one fact of his continued air of
youth at a great age would have been enough to warrant; and he could see that in the end
his fortunes would be likely to suffer. His elaborate studies and experiments, whatever
they may have been, apparently required a heavy income for their maintenance; and since
a change of environment would deprive him of the trading advantages he had gained, it
would not have profited him to begin anew in a different region just then. Judgement
demanded that he patch up his relations with the townsfolk of Providence, so that his
presence might no longer be a signal for hushed conversation, transparent excuses or
errands elsewhere, and a general atmosphere of constraint and uneasiness. His clerks,
being now reduced to the shiftless and impecunious residue whom no one else would
employ, were giving him much worry; and he held to his sea-captains and mates only by
shrewdness in gaining some kind of ascendancy over them - a mortgage, a promissory
note, or a bit of information very pertinent to their welfare. In many cases, diarists have
recorded with some awe, Curwen shewed almost the power of a wizard in unearthing
family secrets for questionable use. During the final five years of his life it seemed as
though only direct talks with the long-dead could possibly have furnished some of the
data which he had so glibly at his tongue's end.
About this time the crafty scholar hit upon a last desperate expedient to regain his footing
in the community. Hitherto a complete hermit, he now determined to contract an
advantageous marriage; securing as a bride some lady whose unquestioned position
would make all ostracism of his home impossible. It may be that he also had deeper
reasons for wishing an alliance; reasons so far outside the known cosmic sphere that only
papers found a century and a half after his death caused anyone to suspect them; but of
this nothing certain can ever be learned. Naturally he was aware of the horror and
indignation with which any ordinary courtship of his would be received, hence he looked
about for some likely candidate upon whose parents he might exert a suitable pressure.
Such candidates, he found, were not at all easy to discover; since he had very particular
requirements in the way of beauty, accomplishments, and social security. At length his
survey narrowed down to the household of one of his best and oldest ship-captains, a
widower of high birth and unblemished standing named Dutee Tillinghast, whose only
daughter Eliza seemed dowered with every conceivable advantage save prospects as an
heiress. Capt. Tillinghast was completely under the domination of Curwen; and
consented, after a terrible interview in his cupolaed house on Power's Lane hill, to
sanction the blasphemous alliance.
Eliza Tillinghast was at that time eighteen years of age, and had been reared as gently as
the reduced circumstances of her father permitted. She had attended Stephen Jackson's
school opposite the Court-House Parade; and had been diligently instructed by her
mother, before the latter's death of smallpox in 1757, in all the arts and refinements of
domestic life. A sampler of hers, worked in 1753 at the age of nine, may still be found in
the rooms of the Rhode Island Historical Society. After her mother's death she had kept
the house, aided only by one old black woman. Her arguments with her father concerning
the proposed Curwen marriage must have been painful indeed; but of these we have no
record. Certain it is that her engagement to young Ezra Weeden, second mate of the
Crawford packet Enterprise, was dutifully broken off, and that her union with Joseph
Curwen took place on the seventh of March, 1763, in the Baptist church, in the presence
of the most distinguished assemblages which the town could boast; the ceremony being
performed by the younger Samuel Winsor. The Gazette mentioned the event very briefly.
and in most surviving copies the item in question seems to be cut or torn out. Ward found
a single intact copy after much search in the archives of a private collector of note,
observing with amusement the meaningless urbanity of the language:
'Monday evening last, Mr. Joseph Curwen, of this Town, Merchant, was
married to Miss Eliza Tillinghast, Daughter of Capt. Dutee Tillinghast, a
young Lady who has real Merit, added to a beautiful Person, to grace the
connubial State and perpetuate its Felicity.'
The collection of Durfee-Arnold letters, discovered by Charles Ward shortly before his
first reputed madness in the private collection of Melville F. Peters, Esq., of George St.,
and covering this and a somewhat antecedent period, throws vivid light on the outrage
done to public sentiment by this ill-assorted match. The social influence of the
Tillinghasts, however, was not to be denied; and once more Joseph Curwen found his
house frequented by persons whom he could never otherwise have induced to cross his
threshold. His acceptance was by no means complete, and his bride was socially the
sufferer through her forced venture; but at all events the wall of utter ostracism was
somewhat torn down. In his treatment of his wife the strange bridegroom astonished both
her and the community by displaying an extreme graciousness and consideration. The
new house in Olney Court was now wholly free from disturbing manifestations, and
although Curwen was much absent at the Pawtuxet farm which his wife never visited, he
seemed more like a normal citizen than at any other time in his long years of residence.
Only one person remained in open enmity with him, this being the youthful ship's officer
whose engagement to Eliza Tillinghast had been so abruptly broken. Ezra Weeden had
frankly vowed vengeance; and though of a quiet and ordinarily mild disposition, was now
gaining a hate-bred, dogged purpose which boded no good to the usurping husband.
On the seventh of May, 1765, Curwen's only child Ann was born; and was christened by
the Rev. John Graves of King's Church, of which both husband and wife had become
communicants shortly after their marriage, in order to compromise between their
respective Congregational and Baptist affiliations. The record of this birth, as well as that
of the marriage two years before, was stricken from most copies of the church and town
annals where it ought to appear; and Charles Ward located both with the greatest
difficulty after his discover of the widow's change of name had apprised him of his own
relationship, and engendered the feverish interest which culminated in his madness. The
birth entry, indeed, was found very curiously through correspondence with the heirs of
the loyalist Dr. Graves, who had taken with him a duplicate set of records when he left
his pastorate at the outbreak of the Revolution. Ward had tried this source because he
knew that his great-great-grandmother Ann Tillinghast Potter had been an Episcopalian.
Shortly after the birth of his daughter, an event he seemed to welcome with a fervour
greatly out of keeping with his usual coldness, Curwen resolved to sit for a portrait. This
he had painted by a very gifted Scotsman named Cosmo Alexander, then a resident of
Newport, and since famous as the early teacher of Gilbert Stuart. The likeness was said to
have been executed on a wall-panel of the library of the house in Olney Court, but neither
of the two old diaries mentioning it gave any hint of its ultimate disposition. At this
period the erratic scholar shewed signs of unusual abstraction, and spent as much time as
he possibly could at his farm on the Pawtuxet Road. He seemed, as was stated, in a
condition of suppressed excitement or suspense; as if expecting some phenomenal thing
or on the brink of some strange discovery. Chemistry or alchemy would appear to have
played a great part, for he took from his house to the farm the greater number of his
volumes on that subject.
His affectation of civic interest did not diminish, and he lost no opportunities for helping
such leaders as Stephen Hopkins, Joseph Brown, and Benjamin West in their efforts to
raise the cultural tone of the town, which was then much below the level of Newport in
its patronage of the liberal arts. He had helped Daniel Jenckes found his bookshop in
1763, and was thereafter his best customer; extending aid likewise to the struggling
Gazette that appeared each Wednesday at the Sign of Shakespeare's Head. In politics he
ardently supported Governor Hopkins against the Ward party whose prime strength was
in Newport, and his really eloquent speech at Hacher's Hall in 1765 against the setting off
of North Providence as a separate town with a pro-Ward vote in the General Assembly
did more than any other thing to wear down the prejudice against him. But Ezra Weeden,
who watched him closely, sneered cynically at all this outward activity; and freely swore
it was no more than a mask for some nameless traffick with the blackest gulfs of
Tartarus. The revengeful youth began a systematic study of the man and his doings
whenever he was in port; spending hours at night by the wharves with a dory in readiness
when he saw lights in the Curwen warehouses, and following the small boat which would
sometimes steal quietly off and down the bay. He also kept as close a watch as possible
on the Pawtuxet farm, and was once severely bitten by the dogs the old Indian couple
loosed upon him.
3
In 1766 came the final change in Joseph Curwen. It was very sudden, and gained wide
notice amongst the curious townsfolk; for the air of suspense and expectancy dropped
like an old cloak, giving instant place to an ill-concealed exaltation of perfect triumph.
Curwen seemed to have difficulty in restraining himself from public harangues on what
he had found or learned or made; but apparently the need of secrecy was greater than the
longing to share his rejoicing, for no explanation was ever offered by him. It was after
this transition, which appears to have come early in July, that the sinister scholar began to
astonish people by his possession of information which only their long-dead ancestors
would seem to be able to impart.
But Curwen's feverish secret activities by no means ceased with this change. On the
contrary, they tended rather to increase; so that more and more of his shipping business
was handled by the captains whom he now bound to him by ties of fear as potent as those
of bankruptcy had been. He altogether abandoned the slave trade, alleging that its profits
were constantly decreasing. Every possible moment was spent at the Pawtuxet farm;
although there were rumours now and then of his presence in places which, though not
actually near graveyards, were yet so situated in relation to graveyards that thoughtful
people wondered just how thorough the old merchant's change of habits really was. Ezra
Weeden, though his periods of espionage were necessarily brief and intermittent on
account of his sea voyaging, had a vindictive persistence which the bulk of the practical
townsfolk and farmers lacked; and subjected Curwen's affairs to a scrutiny such as they
had never had before.
Many of the odd manoeuvres of the strange merchant's vessels had been taken for granted
on account of the unrest of the times, when every colonist seemed determined to resist the
provisions of the Sugar Act which hampered a prominent traffick. Smuggling and
evasion were the rule in Narragansett Bay, and nocturnal landings of illicit cargoes were
continuous commonplaces. But Weeden, night after night following the lighters or small
sloops which he saw steal off from the Curwen warehouses at the Town Street docks,
soon felt assured that it was not merely His Majesty's armed ships which the sinister
skulker was anxious to avoid. Prior to the change in 1766 these boats had for the most
part contained chained negroes, who were carried down and across the bay and landed at
an obscure point on the shore just north of Pawtuxet; being afterward driven up the bluff
and across country to the Curwen farm, where they were locked in that enormous stone
outbuilding which had only five high narrow slits for windows. After that change,
however, the whole programme was altered. Importation of slaves ceased at once, and for
a time Curwen abandoned his midnight sailings. Then, about the spring of 1767, a new
policy appeared. Once more the lighters grew wont to put out from the black, silent
docks, and this time they would go down the bay some distance, perhaps as far as
Namquit Point, where they would meet and receive cargo from strange ships of
considerable size and widely varied appearance. Curwen's sailors would then deposit this
cargo at the usual point on the shore, and transport it overland to the farm; locking it in
the same cryptical stone building which had formerly received the negroes. The cargo
consisted almost wholly of boxes and cases, of which a large proportion were oblong and
heavy and disturbingly suggestive of coffins.
Weeden always watched the farm with unremitting assiduity; visiting it each night for
long periods, and seldom letting a week go by without a sight except when the ground
bore a footprint-revealing snow. Even then he would often walk as close as possible in
the travelled road or on the ice of the neighbouring river to see what tracks others might
have left. Finding his own vigils interrupted by nautical duties, he hired a tavern
companion named Eleazar Smith to continue the survey during his absence; and between
them the two could have set in motion some extraordinary rumours. That they did not do
so was only because they knew the effect of publicity would be to warn their quarry and
make further progress impossible. Instead, they wished to learn something definite before
taking any action. What they did learn must have been startling indeed, and Charles Ward
spoke many times to his parents of his regret at Weeden's later burning of his notebooks.
All that can be told of their discoveries is what Eleazar Smith jotted down in a non too
coherent diary, and what other diarists and letter-writers have timidly repeated from the
statements which they finally made - and according to which the farm was only the outer
shell of some vast and revolting menace, of a scope and depth too profound and
intangible for more than shadowy comprehension.
It is gathered that Weeden and Smith became early convinced that a great series of
tunnels and catacombs, inhabited by a very sizeable staff of persons besides the old
Indian and his wife, underlay the farm. The house was an old peaked relic of the middle
seventeenth century with enormous stack chimney and diamond-paned lattice windows,
the laboratory being in a lean-to toward the north, where the roof came nearly to the
ground. This building stood clear of any other; yet judging by the different voices heard
at odd times within, it must have been accessible through secret passages beneath. These
voices, before 1766, were mere mumblings and negro whisperings and frenzied screams,
coupled with curious chants or invocations. After that date, however, they assumed a very
singular and terrible cast as they ran the gamut betwixt dronings of dull acquiescence and
explosions of frantic pain or fury, rumblings of conversations and whines of entreaty,
pantings of eagerness and shouts of protest. They appeared to be in different languages,
all known to Curwen, whose rasping accents were frequently distinguishable in reply,
reproof, or threatening. Sometimes it seemed that several persons must be in the house;
Curwen, certain captives, and the guards of those captives. There were voices of a sort
that neither Weeden nor Smith had ever heard before despite their wide knowledge of
foreign parts, and many that they did seem to place as belonging to this or that
nationality. The nature of the conversations seemed always a kind of catechism, as if
Curwen were extorting some sort of information from terrified or rebellious prisoners.
Weeden had many verbatim reports of overheard scraps in his notebook, for English,
French, and Spanish, which he knew, were frequently used; but of these nothing has
survived. He did, however, say that besides a few ghoulish dialogues in which the past
affairs of Providence families were concerned, most of the questions and answers he
could understand were historical or scientific; occasionally pertaining to very remote
places and ages. Once, for example, an alternately raging and sullen figure was
questioned in French about the Black Prince's massacre at Limoges in 1370, as if there
were some hidden reason which he ought to know. Curwen asked the prisoner - if
prisoner he were - whether the order to slay was given because of the Sign of the Goat
found on the altar in the ancient Roman crypt beneath the Cathedral, or whether the Dark
Man of the Haute Vienne had spoken the Three Words. Failing to obtain replies, the
inquisitor had seemingly resorted to extreme means; for there was a terrific shriek
followed by silence and muttering and a bumping sound.
None of these colloquies was ever ocularly witnessed, since the windows were always
heavily draped. Once, though, during a discourse in an unknown tongue, a shadow was
seen on the curtain which startled Weeden exceedingly; reminding him of one of the
puppets in a show he had seen in the autumn of 1764 in Hacher's Hall, when a man from
Germantown, Pennsylvania, had given a clever mechanical spectacle advertised as
'A View of the Famous City of Jerusalem, in which are represented
Jerusalem, the Temple of Solomon, his Royal Throne, the noted Towers,
and Hills, likewise the Suffering of Our Saviour from the Garden of
Gethsemane to the Cross on the Hill of Golgotha; an artful piece of
Statuary, Worthy to be seen by the Curious.'
It was on this occasion that the listener, who had crept close to the window of the front
room whence the speaking proceeded, gave a start which roused the old Indian pair and
caused them to loose the dogs on him. After that no more conversations were ever heard
in the house, and Weeden and Smith concluded that Curwen had transferred his field of
action to regions below.
That such regions in truth existed, seemed amply clear from many things. Faint cries and
groans unmistakably came up now and then from what appeared to be the solid earth in
places far from any structure; whilst hidden in the bushes along the river-bank in the rear,
where the high ground sloped steeply down to the valley of the Pawtuxet, there was
found an arched oaken door in a frame of heavy masonry, which was obviously an
entrance to caverns within the hill. When or how these catacombs could have been
constructed, Weeden was unable to say; but he frequently pointed out how easily the
place might have been reached by bands of unseen workmen from the river. Joseph
Curwen put his mongrel seamen to diverse uses indeed! During the heavy spring rains of
1769 the two watchers kept a sharp eye on the steep river-bank to see if any subterrene
secrets might be washed to light, and were rewarded by the sight of a profusion of both
human and animal bones in places where deep gullies had been worn in the banks.
Naturally there might be many explanations of such things in the rear of a stock farm, and
a locality where old Indian bury-grounds were common, but Weeden and Smith drew
their own inferences.
It was in January 1770, whilst Weeden and Smith were still debating vainly on what, if
anything, to think or do about the whole bewildering business, that the incident of the
Fortaleza occurred. Exasperated by the burning of the revenue sloop Liberty at Newport
during the previous summer, the customs fleet under Admiral Wallace had adopted an
increased vigilance concerning strange vessels; and on this occasion His Majesty's armed
schooner Cygnet, under Capt. Charles Leslie, captured after a short pursuit one early
morning the scow Fortaleza of Barcelona, Spain, under Capt. Manuel Arruda, bound
according to its log from Grand Cairo, Egypt, to Providence. When searched for
contraband material, this ship revealed the astonishing fact that its cargo consisted
exclusively of Egyptian mummies, consigned to "Sailor A. B. C.", who would come to
remove his goods in a lighter just off Namquit Point and whose identity Capt. Arruda felt
himself in honour bound not to reveal. The Vice-Admiralty at Newport, at a loss what to
do in view of the non-contraband nature of the cargo on the one hand and of the unlawful
secrecy of the entry on the other hand, compromised on Collector Robinson's
recommendation by freeing the ship but forbidding it a port in Rhode Island waters.
There were later rumours of its having been seen in Boston Harbour, though it never
openly entered the Port of Boston.
This extraordinary incident did not fail of wide remark in Providence, and there were not
many who doubted the existence of some connexion between the cargo of mummies and
the sinister Joseph Curwen. His exotic studies and his curious chemical importations
being common knowledge, and his fondness for graveyards being common suspicion; it
did not take much imagination to link him with a freakish importation which could not
conceivably have been destined for anyone else in the town. As if conscious of this
natural belief, Curwen took care to speak casually on several occasions of the chemical
value of the balsams found in mummies; thinking perhaps that he might make the affair
seem less unnatural, yet stopping just short of admitting his participation. Weeden and
Smith, of course, felt no doubt whatsoever of the significance of the thing; and indulged
in the wildest theories concerning Curwen and his monstrous labours.
The following spring, like that of the year before, had heavy rains; and the watchers kept
careful track of the river-bank behind the Curwen farm. Large sections were washed
away, and a certain number of bones discovered; but no glimpse was afforded of any
actual subterranean chambers or burrows. Something was rumoured, however, at the
village of Pawtuxet about a mile below, where the river flows in falls over a rocky terrace
to join the placed landlocked cove. There, where quaint old cottages climbed the hill from
the rustic bridge, and fishing-smacks lay anchored at their sleepy docks, a vague report
went round of things that were floating down the river and flashing into sight for a minute
as they went over the falls. Of course the Pawtuxet in a long river which winds through
many settled regions abounding in graveyards, and of course the spring rains had been
very heavy; but the fisherfolk about the bridge did not like the wild way that one of the
things stared as it shot down to the still waters below, or the way that another half cried
out although its condition had greatly departed from that of objects which normally cried
out. That rumour sent Smith - for Weeden was just then at sea - in haste to the river-bank
behind the farm; where surely enough there remained the evidence of an extensive cave-
in. There was, however, no trace of a passage into the steep bank; for the miniature
avalanche had left behind a solid wall of mixed earth and shrubbery from aloft. Smith
went to the extent of some experimental digging, but was deterred by lack of success - or
perhaps by fear of possible success. It is interesting to speculate on what the persistent
and revengeful Weeden would have done had he been ashore at the time.
4
By the autumn of 1770 Weeden decided that the time was ripe to tell others of his
discoveries; for he had a large number of facts to link together, and a second eye-witness
to refute the possible charge that jealousy and vindictiveness had spurred his fancy. As
his first confidant he selected Capt. James Mathewson of the Enterprise, who on the one
hand knew him well enough not to doubt his veracity, and on the other hand was
sufficiently influential in the town to be heard in turn with respect. The colloquy took
place in an upper room of Sabin's Tavern near the docks, with Smith present to
corroborate virtually every statement; and it could be seen that Capt. Mathewson was
tremendously impressed. Like nearly everyone else in the town, he had had black
suspicions of his own anent Joseph Curwen; hence it needed only this confirmation and
enlargement of data to convince him absolutely. At the end of the conference he was very
grave, and enjoined strict silence upon the two younger men. He would, he said, transmit
the information separately to some ten or so of the most learned and prominent citizens of
Providence; ascertaining their views and following whatever advice they might have to
offer. Secrecy would probably be essential in any case, for this was no matter that the
town constables or militia could cope with; and above all else the excitable crowd must
be kept in ignorance, lest there be enacted in these already troublous times a repetition of
that frightful Salem panic of less than a century before which had first brought Curwen
hither.
The right persons to tell, he believed, would be Dr. Benjamin West, whose pamphlet on
the late transit of Venus proved him a scholar and keen thinker; Rev. James Manning,
President of the College which had just moved up from Warren and was temporarily
housed in the new King Street schoolhouse awaiting the completion of its building on the
hill above Presbyterian-Lane; ex-Governor Stephen Hopkins, who had been a member of
the Philosophical Society at Newport, and was a man of very broad perceptions; John
Carter, publisher of the Gazette; all four of the Brown brothers, John, Joseph, Nicholas,
and Moses, who formed the recognised local magnates, and of whom Joseph was an
amateur scientist of parts; old Dr. Jabez Bowen, whose erudition was considerable, and
who had much first-hand knowledge of Curwen's odd purchases; and Capt. Abraham
Whipple, a privateersman of phenomenal boldness and energy who could be counted on
to lead in any active measures needed. These men, if favourable, might eventually be
brought together for collective deliberation; and with them would rest the responsibility
of deciding whether or not to inform the Governor of the Colony, Joseph Wanton of
Newport, before taking action.
The mission of Capt. Mathewson prospered beyond his highest expectations; for whilst
he found one or two of the chosen confidants somewhat sceptical of the possible ghastly
side of Weeden's tale, there was not one who did not think it necessary to take some sort
of secret and coördinated action. Curwen, it was clear, formed a vague potential menace
to the welfare of the town and Colony; and must be eliminated at any cost. Late in
December 1770 a group of eminent townsmen met at the home of Stephen Hopkins and
debated tentative measures. Weeden's notes, which he had given to Capt. Mathewson,
were carefully read; and he and Smith were summoned to give testimony anent details.
Something very like fear seized the whole assemblage before the meeting was over,
though there ran through that fear a grim determination which Capt. Whipple's bluff and
resonant profanity best expressed. They would not notify the Governor, because a more
than legal course seemed necessary. With hidden powers of uncertain extent apparently at
his disposal, Curwen was not a man who could safely be warned to leave town. Nameless
reprisals might ensue, and even if the sinister creature complied, the removal would be no
more than the shifting of an unclean burden to another place. The times were lawless, and
men who had flouted the King's revenue forces for years were not the ones to balk at
sterner things when duty impelled. Curwen must be surprised at his Pawtuxet farm by a
large raiding-party of seasoned privateersmen and given one decisive chance to explain
himself. If he proved a madman, amusing himself with shrieks and imaginary
conversations in different voices, he would be properly confined. If something graver
appeared, and if the underground horrors indeed turned out to be real, he and all with him
must die. It could be done quietly, and even the widow and her father need not be told
how it came about.
While these serious steps were under discussion there occurred in the town an incident so
terrible and inexplicable that for a time little else was mentioned for miles around. In the
middle of a moon-light January night with heavy snow underfoot there resounded over
the river and up the hill a shocking series of cries which brought sleepy heads to every
window; and people around Weybosset Point saw a great white thing plunging frantically
along the badly cleared space in front of the Turk's Head. There was a baying of dogs in
the distance, but this subsided as soon as the clamour of the awakened town became
audible. Parties of men with lanterns and muskets hurried out to see what was happening,
but nothing rewarded their search. The next morning, however, a giant, muscular body,
stark naked, was found on the jams of ice around the southern piers of the Great Bridge,
where the Long Dock stretched out beside Abbott's distil-house, and the identity of this
object became a theme for endless speculation and whispering. It was not so much the
younger as the older folk who whispered, for only in the patriarchs did that rigid face
with horror-bulging eyes strike any chord of memory. They, shaking as they did so,
exchanged furtive murmurs of wonder and fear; for in those stiff, hideous features lay a
resemblance so marvellous as to be almost an identity - and that identity was with a man
who had died full fifty years before.
Ezra Weeden was present at the finding; and remembering the baying of the night before,
set out along Weybosset Street and across Muddy Dock Bridge whence the sound had
come. He had a curious expectancy, and was not surprised when, reaching the edge of the
settled district where the street merged into the Pawtuxet Road, he came upon some very
curious tracks in the snow. The naked giant had been pursued by dogs and many booted
men, and the returning tracks of the hounds and their masters could be easily traced. They
had given up the chase upon coming too near the town. Weeden smiled grimly, and as a
perfunctory detail traced the footprints back to their source. It was the Pawtuxet farm of
Joseph Curwen, as he well knew it would be; and he would have given much had the yard
been less confusingly trampled. As it was, he dared not seem too interested in full
daylight. Dr. Bowen, to whom Weeden went at once with his report, performed an
autopsy on the strange corpse, and discovered peculiarities which baffled him utterly. The
digestive tracts of the huge man seemed never to have been in use, whilst the whole skin
had a coarse, loosely knit texture impossible to account for. Impressed by what the old
men whispered of this body's likeness to the long-dead blacksmith Daniel Green, whose
great-grandson Aaron Hoppin was a supercargo in Curwen's employ, Weeden asked
casual questions till he found where Green was buried. That night a party of ten visited
the old North Burying Ground opposite Herrenden's Lane and opened a grave. They
found it vacant, precisely as they had expected.
Meanwhile arrangements had been made with the post riders to intercept Joseph
Curwen's mail, and shortly before the incident of the naked body there was found a letter
from one Jedediah Orne of Salem which made the coöperating citizens think deeply.
Parts of it, copied and preserved in the private archives of the Smith family where
Charles Ward found it, ran as follows.
I delight that you continue in ye Gett'g at Olde Matters in your Way, and doe
not think better was done at Mr. Hutchinson's in Salem-Village. Certainely,
there was Noth'g but ye liveliest Awfulness in that which H. rais'd upp from
What he cou'd gather onlie a part of. What you sente, did not Worke,
whether because of Any Thing miss'g, or because ye Wordes were not
Righte from my Speak'g or yr Copy'g. I alone am at a Loss. I have not ye
Chymicall art to followe Borellus, and owne my Self confounded by ye VII.
Booke of ye Necronomicon that you recommende. But I wou'd have you
Observe what was told to us aboute tak'g Care whom to calle upp, for you
are Sensible what Mr. Mather writ in ye Magnalia of ------, and can judge
how truely that Horrendous thing is reported. I say to you againe, doe not
call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that
can in Turne call up Somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest
Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shal not wish
to Answer, and shal commande more than you. I was frighted when I read
of your know'g what Ben Zariatnatmik hadde in his ebony Boxe, for I was
conscious who must have tolde you. And againe I ask that you shalle write
me as Jedediah and not Simon. In this Community a Man may not live too
long, and you knowe my Plan by which I came back as my Son. I am
desirous you will Acquaint me with what ye Black Man learnt from
Sylvanus Cocidius in ye Vault, under ye Roman Wall, and will be oblig'd for
ye lend'g of ye MS. you speak of.
Another and unsigned letter from Philadelphia provoked equal thought, especially for the
following passage:
I will observe what you say respecting the sending of Accounts only by yr
Vessels, but can not always be certain when to expect them. In the Matter
spoke of, I require onlie one more thing; but wish to be sure I apprehend
you exactly. You inform me, that no Part must be missing if the finest
Effects are to be had, but you can not but know how hard it is to be sure. It
seems a great Hazard and Burthen to take away the whole Box, and in
Town (i.e. St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Mary's or Christ Church) it can scarce
be done at all. But I know what Imperfections were in the one I rais'd up
October last, and how many live Specimens you were forc'd to imploy
before you hit upon the right Mode in the year 1766; so will be guided by
you in all Matters. I am impatient for yr Brig, and inquire daily at Mr.
Biddle's Wharf.
A third suspicious letter was in an unknown tongue and even an unknown alphabet. In the
Smith diary found by Charles Ward a single oft-repeated combination of characters is
clumsily copied; and authorities at Brown University have pronounced the alphabet
Amharic or Abyssinian, although they do not recognise the word. None of these epistles
was ever delivered to Curwen, though the disappearance of Jedediah Orne from Salem as
recorded shortly afterward shewed that the Providence men took certain quiet steps. The
Pennsylvania Historical Society also has some curious letters received by Dr. Shippen
regarding the presence of an unwholesome character in Philadelphia. But more decisive
steps were in the air, and it is in the secret assemblages of sworn and tested sailors and
faithful old privateersmen in the Brown warehouses by night that we must look for the
main fruits of Weeden's disclosures. Slowly and surely a plan of campaign was under
development which would leave no trace of Joseph Curwen's noxious mysteries.
Curwen, despite all precautions, apparently felt that something was in the wind; for he
was now remarked to wear an unusually worried look. His coach was seen at all hours in
the town and on the Pawtuxet Road, and he dropped little by little the air of forced
geniality with which he had latterly sought to combat the town's prejudice. The nearest
neighbours to his farm, the Fenners, one night remarked a great shaft of light shooting
into the sky from some aperture in the roof of that cryptical stone building with the high,
excessively narrow windows; an event which they quickly communicated to John Brown
in Providence. Mr. Brown had become the executive leader of the select group bent on
Curwen's extirpation, and had informed the Fenners that some action was about to be
taken. This he deemed needful because of the impossibility of their not witnessing the
final raid; and he explained his course by saying that Curwen was known to be a spy of
the customs officers at Newport, against whom the hand of every Providence skipper,
merchant, and farmer was openly or clandestinely raised. Whether the ruse was wholly
believed by neighbours who had seen so many queer things is not certain; but at any rate
the Fenners were willing to connect any evil with a man of such queer ways. To them Mr.
Brown had entrusted the duty of watching the Curwen farmhouse, and of regularly
reporting every incident which took place there.
5
The probability that Curwen was on guard and attempting unusual things, as suggested by
the odd shaft of light, precipitated at last the action so carefully devised by the band of
serious citizens. According to the Smith diary a company of about 100 men met at 10
p.m. on Friday, April 12th, 1771, in the great room of Thurston's Tavern at the Sign of
the Golden Lion on Weybosset Point across the Bridge. Of the guiding group of
prominent men in addition to the leader John Brown there were present Dr. Bowen, with
his case of surgical instruments, President Manning without the great periwig (the largest
in the Colonies) for which he was noted, Governor Hopkins, wrapped in his dark cloak
and accompanied by his seafaring brother Esek, whom he had initiated at the last moment
with the permission of the rest, John Carter, Capt. Mathewson, and Capt. Whipple, who
was to lead the actual raiding party. These chiefs conferred apart in a rear chamber, after
which Capt. Whipple emerged to the great room and gave the gathered seamen their last
oaths and instructions. Eleazar Smith was with the leaders as they sat in the rear
apartment awaiting the arrival of Ezra Weeden, whose duty was to keep track of Curwen
and report the departure of his coach for the farm.
About 10:30 a heavy rumble was heard on the Great Bridge, followed by the sound of a
coach in the street outside; and at that hour there was no need of waiting for Weeden in
order to know that the doomed man had set out for his last night of unhallowed wizardry.
A moment later, as the receding coach clattered faintly over the Muddy Dock Bridge,
Weeden appeared; and the raiders fell silently into military order in the street,
shouldering the firelocks, fowling-pieces, or whaling harpoons which they had with them.
Weeden and Smith were with the party, and of the deliberating citizens there were
present for active service Capt. Whipple, the leader, Capt. Esek Hopkins, John Carter,
President Manning, Capt. Mathewson, and Dr. Bowen; together with Moses Brown, who
had come up at the eleventh hour though absent from the preliminary session in the
tavern. All these freemen and their hundred sailors began the long march without delay,
grim and a trifle apprehensive as they left the Muddy Dock behind and mounted the
gentle rise of Broad Street toward the Pawtuxet Road. Just beyond Elder Snow's church
some of the men turned back to take a parting look at Providence lying outspread under
the early spring stars. Steeples and gables rose dark and shapely, and salt breezes swept
up gently from the cove north of the Bridge. Vega was climbing above the great hill
across the water, whose crest of trees was broken by the roof-line of the unfinished
College edifice. At the foot of that hill, and along the narrow mounting lanes of its side,
the old town dreamed; Old Providence, for whose safety and sanity so monstrous and
colossal a blasphemy was about to be wiped out.
An hour and a quarter later the raiders arrived, as previously agreed, at the Fenner
farmhouse; where they heard a final report on their intended victim. He had reached his
farm over half an hour before, and the strange light had soon afterward shot once more
into the sky, but there were no lights in any visible windows. This was always the case of
late. Even as this news was given another great glare arose toward the south, and the
party realised that they had indeed come close to the scene of awesome and unnatural
wonders. Capt. Whipple now ordered his force to separate into three divisions; one of
twenty men under Eleazar Smith to strike across to the shore and guard the landing-place
against possible reinforcements for Curwen until summoned by a messenger for
desperate service, a second of twenty men under Capt. Esek Hopkins to steal down into
the river valley behind the Curwen farm and demolish with axes or gunpowder the oaken
door in the high, steep bank, and the third to close in on the house and adjacent buildings
themselves. Of this division one third was to be led by Capt. Mathewson to the cryptical
stone edifice with high narrow windows, another third to follow Capt. Whipple himself to
the main farmhouse, and the remaining third to preserve a circle around the whole group
of buildings until summoned by a final emergency signal.
The river party would break down the hillside door at the sound of a single whistle-blast,
then wait and capture anything which might issue from the regions within. At the sound
of two whistle-blasts it would advance through the aperture to oppose the enemy or join
the rest of the raiding contingent. The party at the stone building would accept these
respective signals in an analogous manner; forcing an entrance at the first, and at the
second descending whatever passage into the ground might be discovered, and joining
the general or focal warfare expected to take place within the caverns. A third or
emergency signal of three blasts would summon the immediate reserve from its general
guard duty; its twenty men dividing equally and entering the unknown depths through
both farmhouse and stone building. Capt. Whipple's belief in the existence of catacombs
was absolute, and he took no alternative into consideration when making his plans. He
had with him a whistle of great power and shrillness, and did not fear any upsetting or
misunderstanding of signals. The final reserve at the landing, of course, was nearly out of
the whistle's range; hence would require a special messenger if needed for help. Moses
Brown and John Carter went with Capt. Hopkins to the river-bank, while President
Manning was detailed with Capt. Mathewson to the stone building. Dr. Bowen, with Ezra
Weeden, remained in Capt. Whipple's party which was to storm the farmhouse itself. The
attack was to begin as soon as a messenger from Capt. Hopkins had joined Capt. Whipple
to notify him of the river party's readiness. The leader would then deliver the loud single
blast, and the various advance parties would commence their simultaneous attack on
three points. Shortly before 1 a.m. the three divisions left the Fenner farmhouse; one to
guard the landing, another to seek the river valley and the hillside door, and the third to
subdivide and attend to teh actual buildings of the Curwen farm.
Eleazar Smith, who accompanied the shore-guarding party, records in his diary an
uneventful march and a long wait on the bluff by the bay; broken once by what seemed to
be the distant sound of the signal whistle and again by a peculiar muffled blend of roaring
and crying and a powder blast which seemed to come from the same direction. Later on
one man thought he caught some distant gunshots, and still later Smith himself felt the
throb of titanic and thunderous words resounding in upper air. It was just before dawn
that a single haggard messenger with wild eyes and a hideous unknown odour about his
clothing appeared and told the detachment to disperse quietly to their homes and never
again think or speak of the night's doings or of him who had been Joseph Curwen.
Something about the bearing of the messenger carried a conviction which his mere words
could never have conveyed; for though he was a seaman well known to many of them,
there was something obscurely lost or gained in his soul which set him for evermore
apart. It was the same later on when they met other old companions who had gone into
that zone of horror. Most of them had lost or gained something imponderable and
indescribable. They had seen or heard or felt something which was not for human
creatures, and could not forget it. From them there was never any gossip, for to even the
commonest of mortal instincts there are terrible boundaries. And from that single
messenger the party at the shore caught a nameless awe which almost sealed their own
lips. Very few are the rumours which ever came from any of them, and Eleazar Smith's
diary is the only written record which has survived from that whole expedition which set
forth from the Sign of the Golden Lion under the stars.
Charles Ward, however, discovered another vague sidelight in some Fenner
correspondence which he found in New London, where he knew another branch of the
family had lived. It seems that the Fenners, from whose house the doomed farm was
distantly visible, had watched the departing columns of raiders; and had heard very
clearly the angry barking of the Curwen dogs, followed by the first shrill blast which
precipitated the attack. This blast had been followed by a repetition of the great shaft of
light from the stone building, and in another moment, after a quick sounding of the
second signal ordering a general invasion, there had come a subdued prattle of musketry
followed by a horrible roaring cry which the correspondent Luke Fenner had represented
in his epistle by the characters 'Waaaahrrrrr-R'waaahrrr.'
This cry, however, had possessed a quality which no mere writing could convey, and the
correspondent mentions that his mother fainted completely at the sound. It was later
repeated less loudly, and further but more muffled evidences of gunfire ensued; together
with a loud explosion of powder from the direction of the river. About an hour afterward
all the dogs began to bark frightfully, and there were vague ground rumblings so marked
that the candlesticks tottered on the mantelpiece. A strong smell of sulphur was noted;
and Luke Fenner's father declared that he heard the third or emergency whistle signal,
though the others failed to detect it. Muffled musketry sounded again, followed by a deep
scream less piercing but even more horrible than the those which had preceded it; a kind
of throaty, nastily plastic cough or gurgle whose quality as a scream must have come
more from its continuity and psychological import than from its actual acoustic value.
Then the flaming thing burst into sight at a point where the Curwen farm ought to lie, and
the human cries of desperate and frightened men were heard. Muskets flashed and
cracked, and the flaming thing fell to the ground. A second flaming thing appeared, and a
shriek of human origin was plainly distinguished. Fenner wrote that he could even gather
a few words belched in frenzy: Almighty, protect thy lamb! Then there were more shots,
and the second flaming thing fell. After that came silence for about three-quarters of an
hour; at the end of which time little Arthur Fenner, Luke's brother, exclaimed that he saw
"a red fog" going up to the stars from the accursed farm in the distance. No one but the
child can testify to this, but Luke admits the significant coincidence implied by the panic
of almost convulsive fright which at the same moment arched the backs and stiffened the
fur of the three cats then within the room.
Five minutes later a chill wind blew up, and the air became suffused with an intolerable
stench that only the strong freshness of the sea could have prevented its being notice by
the shore party or by any wakeful souls in the Pawtuxet village. This stench was nothing
which any of the Fenners had ever encountered before, and produced a kind of clutching,
amorphous fear beyond that of the tomb or the charnel-house. Close upon it came the
awful voice which no hapless hearer will ever be able to forget. It thundered out of the
sky like a doom, and windows rattled as its echoes died away. It was deep and musical;
powerful as a bass organ, but evil as the forbidden books of the Arabs. What it said no
man can tell, for it spoke in an unknown tongue, but this is the writing Luke Fenner set
down to portray the daemoniac intonations: 'DEESMEES JESHET BONE DOSEFE
DUVEMA ENITEMOSS.' Not till the year 1919 did any soul link this crude transcript
with anything else in mortal knowledge, but Charles Ward paled as he recognised what
Mirandola had denounced in shudders as the ultimate horror among black magic's
incantations.
An unmistakable human shout or deep chorused scream seemed to answer this malign
wonder from the Curwen farm, after which the unknown stench grew complex with an
added odour equally intolerable. A wailing distinctly different from the scream now burst
out, and was protracted ululantly in rising and falling paroxysms. At times it became
almost articulate, though no auditor could trace any definite words; and at one point it
seemed to verge toward the confines of diabolic and hysterical laughter. Then a yell of
utter, ultimate fright and stark madness wrenched from scores of human throats - a yell
which came strong and clear despite the depth from which it must have burst; after which
darkness and silence ruled all things. Spirals of acrid smoke ascended to blot out the
stars, though no flames appeared and no buildings were observed to be gone or injured on
the following day.
Toward dawn two frightened messengers with monstrous and unplaceable odours
saturating their clothing knocked at the Fenner door and requested a keg of rum, for
which they paid very well indeed. One of them told the family that the affair of Joseph
Curwen was over, and that the events of the night were not to be mentioned again.
Arrogant as the order seemed, the aspect of him who gave it took away all resentment
and lent it a fearsome authority; so that only these furtive letters of Luke Fenner, which
he urged his Connecticut relative to destroy, remain to tell what was seen and heard. The
non-compliance of that relative, whereby the letters were saved after all, has alone kept
the matter from a merciful oblivion. Charles Ward had one detail to add as a result of a
long canvass of Pawtuxet residents for ancestral traditions. Old Charles Slocum of that
village said that there was known to his grandfather a queer rumour concerning a charred,
distorted body found in the fields a week after the death of Joseph Curwen was
announced. What kept the talk alive was the notion that this body, so far as could be seen
in its burnt and twisted condition, was neither thoroughly human nor wholly allied to any
animal which Pawtuxet folk had ever seen or read about.
6
Not one man who participated in that terrible raid could ever be induced to say a word
concerning it, and every fragment of the vague data which survives comes from those
outside the final fighting party. There is something frightful in the care with which these
actual raiders destroyed each scrap which bore the least allusion to the matter. Eight
sailors had been killed, but although their bodies were not produced their families were
satisfied with the statement that a clash with customs officers had occurred. The same
statement also covered the numerous cases of wounds, all of which were extensively
bandaged and treated only by Dr. Jabez Bowen, who had accompanied the party. Hardest
to explain was the nameless odour clinging to all the raiders, a thing which was discussed
for weeks. Of the citizen leaders, Capt. Whipple and Moses Brown were most severely
hurt, and letters of their wives testify the bewilderment which their reticence and close
guarding of their bandages produced. Psychologically every participant was aged,
sobered, and shaken. It is fortunate that they were all strong men of action and simple,
orthodox religionists, for with more subtle introspectiveness and mental complexity they
would have fared ill indeed. President Manning was the most disturbed; but even he
outgrew the darkest shadow, and smothered memories in prayers. Every man of those
leaders had a stirring part to play in later years, and it is perhaps fortunate that this is so.
Little more than a twelvemonth afterward Capt. Whipple led the mob who burnt the
revenue ship Gaspee, and in this bold act we may trace one step in the blotting out of
unwholesome images.
There was delivered to the widow of Joseph Curwen a sealed leaden coffin of curious
design, obviously found ready on the spot when needed, in which she was told her
husband's body lay. He had, it was explained, been killed in a customs battle about which
it was not politic to give details. More than this no tongue ever uttered of Joseph
Curwen's end, and Charles Ward had only a single hint wherewith to construct a theory.
This hint was the merest thread - a shaky underscoring of a passage in Jedediah Orne's
confiscated letter to Curwen, as partly copied in Ezra Weeden's handwriting. The copy
was found in the possession of Smith's descendants; and we are left to decide whether
Weeden gave it to his companion after the end, as a mute clue to the abnormality which
had occurred, or whether, as is more probable, Smith had it before, and added the
underscoring himself from what he had managed to extract from his friend by shrewd
guessing and adroit cross-questioning. The underlined passage is merely this:
I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in
Turne call up Somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the
Lesser, lest the Greater shal not wish to Answer, and shal commande more than you.
In the light of this passage, and reflecting on what last unmentionable allies a beaten man
might try to summon in his direst extremity, Charles Ward may well have wondered
whether any citizen of Providence killed Joseph Curwen.
The deliberate effacement of every memory of the dead man from Providence life and
annals was vastly aided by the influence of the raiding leaders. They had not at first
meant to be so thorough, and had allowed the widow and her father and child to remain in
ignorance of the true conditions; but Capt. Tillinghast was an astute man, and soon
uncovered enough rumours to whet his horror and cause him to demand that the daughter
and granddaughter change their name, burn the library and all remaining papers, and
chisel the inscription from the slate slab above Joseph Curwen's grave. He knew Capt.
Whipple well, and probably extracted more hints from that bluff mariner and anyone else
ever gained repecting the end of the accursed sorcerer.
From that time on the obliteration of Curwen's memory became increasingly rigid,
extending at last by common consent even to the town records and files of the Gazette. It
can be compared in spirit only to the hush that lay on Oscar Wilde's name for a decade
after his disgrace, and in extent only to the fate of that sinful King of Runazar in Lord
Dunsany's tale, whom the Gods decided must not only cease to be, but must cease ever to
have been.
Mrs. Tillinghast, as the widow became known after 1772, sold the house in Olney Court
and resided with her father in Power's Lane till her death in 1817. The farm at Pawtuxet,
shunned by every living soul, remained to moulder through the years; and seemed to
decay with unaccountable rapidity. By 1780 only the stone and brickwork were standing,
and by 1800 even these had fallen to shapeless heaps. None ventured to pierce the tangled
shrubbery on the river-bank behind which the hillside door may have lain, nor did any try
to frame a definite image of the scenes amidst which Joseph Curwen departed from the
horrors he had wrought.
Only robust old Capt. Whipple was heard by alert listeners to mutter once in a while to
himself, "Pox on that ------, but he had no business to laugh while he screamed. 'Twas as
though the damn'd ------ had some'at up his sleeve. For half a crown I'd burn his ------
home.'
III. A Search and an Evocation
1
Charles Ward, as we have seen, first learned in 1918 of his descent from Joseph Curwen.
That he at once took an intense interest in everything pertaining to the bygone mystery is
not to be wondered at; for every vague rumour that he had heard of Curwen now became
something vital to himself, in whom flowed Curwen's blood. No spirited and imaginative
genealogist could have done otherwise than begin forthwith an avid and systematic
collection of Curwen data.
In his first delvings there was not the slightest attempt at secrecy; so that even Dr. Lyman
hesitates to date the youth's madness from any period before the close of 1919. He talked
freely with his family - though his mother was not particularly pleased to own an ancestor
like Curwen - and with the officials of the various museums and libraries he visited. In
applying to private families for records thought to be in their possession he made no
concealment of his object, and shared the somewhat amused scepticism with which the
accounts of the old diarists and letter-writers were regarded. He often expressed a keen
wonder as to what really had taken place a century and a half before at the Pawtuxet
farmhouse whose site he vainly tried to find, and what Joseph Curwen really had been.
When he came across the Smith diary and archives and encountered the letter from
Jedediah Orne he decided to visit Salem and look up Curwen's early activities and
connexions there, which he did during the Easter vacation of 1919. At the Essex Institute,
which was well known to him from former sojourns in the glamorous old town of
crumbling Puritan gables and clustered gambrel roofs, he was very kindly received, and
unearthed there a considerable amount of Curwen data. He found that his ancestor was
born in Salem-Village, now Danvers, seven miles from town, on the eighteenth of
February (O.S.) 1662-3; and that he had run away to sea at the age of fifteen, not
appearing again for nine years, when he returned with the speech, dress, and manners of a
native Englishman and settled in Salem proper. At that time he had little to do with his
family, but spent most of his hours with the curious books he had brought from Europe,
and the strange chemicals which came for him on ships from England, France, and
Holland. Certain trips of his into the country were the objects of much local
inquisitiveness, and were whisperingly associated with vague rumours of fires on the hills
at night.
Curwen's only close friends had been one Edward Hutchinson of Salem-Village and one
Simon Orne of Salem. With these men he was often seen in conference about the
Common, and visits among them were by no means infrequent. Hutchinson had a house
well out toward the woods, and it was not altogether liked by sensitive people because of
the sounds heard there at night. He was said to entertain strange visitors, and the lights
seen from his windows were not always of the same colour. The knowledge he displayed
concerning long-dead persons and long-forgotten events was considered distinctly
unwholesome, and he disappeared about the time the witchcraft panic began, never to be
heard from again. At that time Joseph Curwen also departed, but his settlement in
Providence was soon learned of. Simon Orne lived in Salem until 1720, when his failure
to grow visibly old began to excite attention. He thereafter disappeared, though thirty
years later his precise counterpart and self-styled son turned up to claim his property. The
claim was allowed on the strength of documents in Simon Orne's known hand, and
Jedediah Orne continued to dwell in Salem till 1771, when certain letters from
Providence citizens to the Rev. Thomas Barnard and others brought about his quiet
removal to parts unknown.
Certain documents by and about all of the strange characters were available at teh Essex
Institute, the Court House, and the Registry of Deeds, and included both harmless
commonplaces such as land titles and bills of sale, and furtive fragments of a more
provocative nature. There were four or five unmistakable allusions to them on the
witchcraft trial records; as when one Hepzibah Lawson swore on July 10, 1692, at the
Court of Oyer and Terminer under Judge Hathorne, that: 'fortie Witches and the Blacke
Man were wont to meete in the Woodes behind Mr. Hutchinson's house', and one Amity
How declared at a session of August 8th before Judge Gedney that:'Mr. G. B. (Rev.
George Burroughs) on that Nighte putt ye Divell his Marke upon Bridget S., Jonathan A.,
Simon O., Deliverance W., Joseph C., Susan P., Mehitable C., and Deborah B.'
Then there was a catalogue of Hutchinson's uncanny library as found after his
disappearance, and an unfinished manuscript in his handwriting, couched in a cipher none
could read. Ward had a photostatic copy of this manuscript made, and began to work
casually on the cipher as soon as it was delivered to him. After the following August his
labours on the cipher became intense and feverish, and there is reason to believe from his
speech and conduct that he hit upon the key before October or November. He never
stated, though, whether or not he had succeeded.
But of greatest immediate interest was the Orne material. It took Ward only a short time
to prove from identity of penmanship a thing he had already considered established from
the text of the letter to Curwen; namely, that Simon Orne and his supposed son were one
and the same person. As Orne had said to his correspondent, it was hardly safe to live too
long in Salem, hence he resorted to a thirty-year sojourn abroad, and did not return to
claim his lands except as a representative of a new generation. Orne had apparently been
careful to destroy most of his correspondence, but the citizens who took action in 1771
found and preserved a few letters and papers which excited their wonder. There were
cryptic formulae and diagrams in his and other hands which Ward now either copied with
care or had photographed, and one extremely mysterious letter in a chirography that the
searcher recognised from items in the Registry of Deeds as positively Joseph Curwen's.
This Curwen letter, though undated as to the year, was evidently not the one in answer to
which Orne had written the confiscated missive; and from internal evidence Ward placed
it not much later than 1750. It may not be amiss to give the text in full, as a sample of the
style of one whose history was so dark and terrible. The recipient is addressed as
"Simon", but a line (whether drawn by Curwen or Orne Ward could not tell) is run
through the word.
Providence, 1. May
Brother:-
My honour'd Antient Friende, due Respects and earnest Wishes to Him
whom we serue for yr eternall Power. I am just come upon That which
you ought to knowe, concern'g the Matter of the Laste Extremitie and
what to doe regard'g yt. I am not dispos'd to followe you in go'g Away on
acct. of my Yeares, for Prouidence hath not ye Sharpeness of ye Bay in
hunt'g oute uncommon Things and bringinge to Tryall. I am ty'd up in
Shippes and Goodes, and cou'd not doe as you did, besides the Whiche my
Farme at Patuxet hath under it What you Knowe, and wou'd not waite for
my com'g Backe as an Other.
But I am unreadie for harde Fortunes, as I haue tolde you, and haue longe
work'd upon ye Way of get'g Backe after ye Laste. I laste Night strucke on
ye Wordes that bringe up YOGGE-SOTHOTHE, and sawe for ye first
Time that Face spoke of by Ibn Schacabao in ye ------. And IT said, that ye
III Psalme in ye Liber-Damnatus holdes ye Clauicle. With Sunne in V
House, Saturne in Trine, drawe ye Pentagram of Fire, and saye ye ninth
Uerse thrice. This Uerse repeate eache Roodemas and Hallow's Eue; and
ye Thing will breede in ye Outside Spheres.
And of ye Seede of Olde shal One be borne who shal looke Backe, tho'
know'g not what he seekes.
Yett will this auaile Nothing if there be no Heir, and if the Saltes, or the
Way to make the Saltes, bee not Readie for his Hande; and here I will
owne, I haue not taken needed Stepps nor founde Much. Ye Process is
plaguy harde to come neare; and it used up such a Store of Specimens, I
am harde putte to it to get Enough, notwithstand'g the Sailors I haue from
ye Indies. Ye People aboute are become curious, but I can stande them off.
Ye Gentry are worse that the Populace, be'g more Circumstantiall in their
Accts. and more belieu'd in what they tell. That Parson and Mr. Merritt
haue talk'd Some, I am fearfull, but no Thing soe far is Dangerous. Ye
Chymical Substances are easie of get'g, there be'g II. goode Chymists in
Towne, Dr, Bowen and Sam: Carew. I am foll'g oute what Borellus saith,
and haue Helpe in Abdool Al-Hazred his VII. Booke. Whateuer I gette,
you shal haue. And in ye meane while, do not neglect to make use of ye
Wordes I haue here giuen. I haue them Righte, but if you Desire to see
HIM, imploy the Writings on ye Piece of ------ that I am putt'g in this
Packet. Saye ye Uerses euery Roodmas and Hallow's Eue; and if ye Line
runn out not, one shal bee in yeares to come that shal looke backe and use
what Saltes or Stuff for Saltes you shal leaue him. Job XIV. XIV.
I rejoice you are again at Salem, and hope I may see you not longe hence.
I haue a goode Stallion, and am think'g of get'g a Coach, there be'g one
(Mr. Merritt's) in Prouidence already, tho' ye Roades are bad. If you are
dispos'd to Trauel, doe not pass me bye. From Boston take ye Post Rd.
thro' Dedham, Wrentham, and Attleborough, goode Tauerns be'g at all
these Townes. Stop at Mr. Balcom's in Wrentham, where ye Beddes are
finer than Mr. Hatch's, but eate at ye other House for their Cooke is better.
Turne into Prou. by Patucket Falls, and ye Rd. past Mr. Sayles's Tauern.
My House opp. Mr. Epenetus Olney's Tauern off ye Towne Street, Ist on
ye N. side of Olney's Court. Distance from Boston Stone abt. XLIV Miles.
Sir, I am ye olde and true Friend and Serut. in Almonsin-Metraton.
Josephus C.
To Mr. Simon Orne,
William's-Lane, in Salem.
This letter, oddly enough, was what first gave Ward the exact location of Curwen's
Providence home; for none of the records encountered up to that time had been at all
specific. The discovery was doubly striking because it indicated as the newer Curwen
house, built in 1761 on the site of the old, a dilapidated building still standing in Olney
Court and well known to Ward in his antiquarian rambles over Stampers' Hill. The place
was indeed only a few squares from his own home on the great hill's higher ground, and
was now the abode of a negro family much esteemed for occasional washing,
housecleaning, and furnace-tending services. To find, in distant Salem, such sudden proof
of the significance of this familiar rookery in his own family history, was a highly
impressive thing to Ward; and he resolved to explore the place immediately upon his
return. The more mystical phases of the letter, which he took to be some extravagant kind
of symbolism, frankly baffled him; though he noted with a thrill of curiousity that the
Biblical passage referred to - Job 14,14 - was the familiar verse, 'If a man die, shall he
live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, until my change come.'
2
Young Ward came home in a state of pleasant excitement, and spent the following
Saturday in a long and exhaustive study of the house in Olney Court. The place, now
crumbling with age, had never been a mansion; but was a modest two-and-a-half story
wooden town house of the familiar Providence colonial type, with plain peaked roof,
large central chimney, and artistically carved doorway with rayed fanlight, triangular
pediment, and trim Doric pilasters. It had suffered but little alteration externally, and
Ward felt he was gazing on something very close to the sinister matters of his quest.
The present negro inhabitants were known to him, and he was very courteously shewn
about the interior by old Asa and his stout wife Hannah. Here there was more change
than the outside indicated, and Ward saw with regret that fully half of the fine scroll-and-
urn overmantels and shell-carved cupboard linings were gone, whilst most of the fine
wainscotting and bolection moulding was marked, hacked, and gouged, or covered up
altogether with cheap wall-paper. In general, the survey did not yield as much as Ward
had somehow expected; but it was at least exciting to stand within the ancestral walls
which had housed such a man of horror as Joseph Curwen. He saw with a thrill that a
monogram had been very carefully effaced from the ancient brass knocker.
From then until after the close of school Ward spent his time on the photostatic copy of
the Hutchinson cipher and the accumulation of local Curwen data. The former still
proved unyielding; but of the latter he obtained so much, and so many clues to similar
data elsewhere, that he was ready by July to make a trip to New London and New York
to consult old letters whose presence in those places was indicated. This trip was very
fruitful, for it brought him the Fenner letters with their terrible description of the
Pawtuxet farmhouse raid, and the Nightingale-Talbot letters in which he learned of the
portrait painted on a panel of the Curwen library. This matter of the portrait interested
him particularly, since he would have given much to know just what Joseph Curwen
looked like; and he decided to make a second search of the house in Olney Court to see if
there might not be some trace of the ancient features beneath peeling coats of later paint
or layers of mouldy wall-paper.
Early in August that search took place, and Ward went carefully over the walls of every
room sizeable enough to have been by any possibility the library of the evil builder. He
paid especial attention to the large panels of such overmantels as still remained; and was
keenly excited after about an hour, when on a broad area above the fireplace in a spacious
ground-floor room he became certain that the surface brought out by the peeling of
several coats of paint was sensibly darker than any ordinary interior paint or the wood
beneath it was likely to have been. A few more careful tests with a thin knife, and he
knew that he had come upon an oil portrait of great extent. With truly scholarly restraint
the youth did not risk the damage which an immediate attempt to uncover the hidden
picture with the knife might have been, but just retired from the scene of his discovery to
enlist expert help. In three days he returned with an artist of long experience, Mr. Walter
C. Dwight, whose studio is near the foot of College Hill; and that accomplished restorer
of paintings set to work at once with proper methods and chemical substances. Old Asa
and his wife were duly excited over their strange visitors, and were properly reimbursed
for this invasion of their domestic hearth.
As day by the day the work of restoration progressed, Charles Ward looked on with
growing interest at the lines and shades gradually unveiled after their long oblivion.
Dwight had begun at the bottom; hence since the picture was a three-quarter-length one,
the face did not come out for some time. It was meanwhile seen that the subject was a
spare, well-shaped man with dark-blue coat, embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-
clothes, and white silk stockings, seated in a carved chair against the background of a
window with wharves and ships beyond. When the head came out it was observed to bear
a neat Albemarle wig, and to possess a thin, calm, undistinguished face which seemed
somehow familiar to both Ward and the artist. Only at the very last, though, did the
restorer and his client begin to grasp with astonishment at the details of that lean, pallid
visage, and to recognise with a touch of awe the dramatic trick which heredity had
played. For it took the final bath of oil and the final stroke of the delicate scraper to bring
out fully the expression which centuries had hidden; and to confront the bewildered
Charles Dexter Ward, dweller in the past, with his own living features in the countenance
of his horrible great-great-great-grandfather.
Ward brought his parents to see the marvel he had uncovered, and his father at once
determined to purchase the picture despite its execution on stationary panelling. The
resemblance to the boy, despite an appearance of rather great age, was marvellous; and it
could be seen that through some trick of atavism the physical contours of Joseph Curwen
had found precise duplication after a century and a half. Mrs. Ward's resemblance to her
ancestor was not at all marked, though she could recall relatives who had some of the
facial characteristics shared by her son and by the bygone Curwen. She did not relish the
discovery, and told her husband that he had better burn the picture instead of bringing it
home. There was, she averred, something unwholesome about it; not only intrinsically,
but in its very resemblance to Charles. Mr. Ward, however, was a practical man of power
and affairs - a cotton manufacturer with extensive mills at Riverpoint in the Pawtuxet
Valley - and not one to listen to feminine scruples. The picture impressed him mightily
with its likeness to his son, and he believed the boy deserved it as a present. In this
opinion, it is needless to say, Charles most heartily concurred; and a few days later Mr.
Ward located the owner of the house - a small rodent-featured person with a guttural
accent - and obtained the whole mantel and overmantel bearing the picture at a curtly
fixed price which cut short the impending torrent of unctuous haggling.
It now remained to take off the panelling and remove it to the Ward home, where
provisions were made for its thorough restoration and installation with an electric mock-
fireplace in Charles's third-floor study or library. To Charles was left the task of
superintending this removal, and on the twenty-eighth of August he accompanied two
expert workmen from the Crooker decorating firm to the house in Olney Court, where the
mantel and portrait-bearing overmantel were detached with great care and precision for
transportation in the company's motor truck. There was left a space of exposed brickwork
marking the chimney's course, and in this young Ward observed a cubical recess about a
foot square, which must have lain directly behind the head of the portrait. Curious as to
what such a space might mean or contain, the youth approached and looked within;
finding beneath the deep coatings of dust and soot some loose yellowed papers, a crude,
thick copybook, and a few mouldering textile shreds which may have formed the ribbon
binding the rest together. Blowing away the bulk of the dirt and cinders, he took up the
book and looked at the bold inscription on its cover. It was in a hand which he had
learned to recognise at the Essex Institute, and proclaimed the volume as the 'Journall
and Notes of Jos: Curwen, Gent. of Prouidence-Plantations, Late of Salem.'
Excited beyond measure by his discovery, Ward shewed the book to the two curious
workmen beside him. Their testimony is absolute as to the nature and genuineness of the
finding, and Dr. Willett relies on them to help establish his theory that the youth was not
mad when he began his major eccentricities. All the other papers were likewise in
Curwen's handwriting, and one of them seemed especially portentous because of its
inscription: 'To Him Who Shal Come After, & How He May Gett Beyonde Time & Ye
Spheres.'
Another was in a cipher; the same, Ward hoped, as the Hutchinson cipher which had
hitherto baffled him. A third, and here the searcher rejoiced, seemed to be a key to the
cipher; whilst the fourth and fifth were addressed respectively to:'Edw: Hutchinson,
Armiger' and Jedediah Orne, esq.', 'or Their Heir or Heirs, or Those Represent'g Them.'
The sixth and last was inscribed: 'Joseph Curwen his Life and Travells Bet'n ye yeares
1678 and 1687: Of Whither He Voyag'd, Where He Stay'd, Whom He Sawe, and What He
Learnt.'
3
We have now reached the point from which the more academic school of alienists date
Charles Ward's madness. Upon his discovery the youth had looked immediately at a few
of the inner pages of the book and manuscripts, and had evidently seen something which
impressed him tremendously. Indeed, in shewing the titles to the workmen, he appeared
to guard the text itself with peculiar care, and to labour under a perturbation for which
even the antiquarian and genealogical significance of the find could hardly account. Upon
returning home he broke the news with an almost embarrassed air, as if he wished to
convey an idea of its supreme importance without having to exhibit the evidence itself.
He did not even shew the titles to his parents, but simply told them that he had found
some documents in Joseph Curwen's handwriting, 'mostly in cipher', which would have to
be studied very carefully before yielding up their true meaning. It is unlikely that he
would have shewn what he did to the workmen, had it not been for their unconcealed
curiousity. As it was he doubtless wished to avoid any display of peculiar reticence which
would increase their discussion of the matter.
That night Charles Ward sat up in his room reading the new-found book and papers, and
when day came he did not desist. His meals, on his urgent request when his mother called
to see what was amiss, were sent up to him; and in the afternoon he appeared only briefly
when the men came to install the Curwen picture and mantelpiece in his study. The next
night he slept in snatches in his clothes, meanwhile wrestling feverishly with the
unravelling of the cipher manuscript. In the morning his mother saw that he was at work
on the photostatic copy of the Hutchinson cipher, which he had frequently shewn her
before; but in response to her query he said that the Curwen key could not be applied to
it. That afternoon he abandoned his work and watched the men fascinatedly as they
finished their installation of the picture with its woodwork above a cleverly realistic
electric log, setting the mock-fireplace and overmantel a little out from the north wall as
if a chimney existed, and boxing in the sides with panelling to match the room's. The
front panel holding the picture was sawn and hinged to allow cupboard space behind it.
After the workmen went he moved his work into the study and sat down before it with his
eyes half on the cipher and half on the portrait which stared back at him like a year-
adding and century-recalling mirror.
His parents, subsequently recalling his conduct at this period, give interesting details
anent the policy of concealment which he practised. Before servants he seldom hid any
paper which he might by studying, since he rightly assumed that Curwen's intricate and
archaic chirography would be too much for them. With his parents, however, he was
more circumspect; and unless the manuscript in question were a cipher, or a mere mass of
cryptic symbols and unknown ideographs (as that entitled 'To Him Who Shal Come After,
etc.' seemed to be), he would cover it with some convenient paper until his caller had
departed. At night he kept the papers under lock and key in an antique cabinet of his,
where he also placed them whenever he left the room. He soon resumed fairly regular
hours and habits, except that his long walks and other outside interests seemed to cease.
The opening of school, where he now began his senior year, seemed a great bore to him;
and he frequently asserted his determination never to bother with college. He had, he
said, important special investigations to make, which would provide him with more
avenues toward knowledge and the humanities than any university which the world could
boast.
Naturally, only one who had always been more or less studious, eccentric, and solitary
could have pursued this course for many days without attracting notice. Ward, however,
was constitutionally a scholar and a hermit; hence his parents were less surprised than
regretful at the close confinement and secrecy he adopted. At the same time, both his
father and mother thought it odd that he would shew them no scrap of his treasure-trove,
nor give any connected account of such data as he had deciphered. This reticence he
explained away as due to a wish to wait until he might announce some connected
revelation, but as the weeks passed without further disclosures there began to grow up
between the youth and his family a kind of constraint; intensified in his mother's case by
her manifest disapproval of all Curwen delvings.
During October Ward began visiting the libraries again, but no longer for the antiquarian
matter of his former days. Witchcraft and magic, occultism and daemonology, were what
he sought now; and when Providence sources proved unfruitful he would take the train
for Boston and tap the wealth of the great library in Copley Square, the Widener Library
at Harvard, or the Zion Research Library in Brookline, where certain rare works on
Biblical subjects are available. He bought extensively, and fitted up a whole additional
set of shelves in his study for newly acquired works on uncanny subjects; while during
the Christmas holidays he made a round of out-of-town trips including one to Salem to
consult certain records at the Essex Institute.
About the middle of January, 1920, there entered Ward's bearing an element of triumph
which he did not explain, and he was no more found at work upon the Hutchinson cipher.
Instead, he inaugurated a dual policy of chemical research and record-scanning; fitting up
for the one a laboratory in the unused attic of the house, and for the latter haunting all the
sources of vital statistics in Providence. Local dealers in drugs and scientific supplies,
later questioned, gave astonishingly queer and meaningless catalogues of the substances
and instruments he purchased; but clerks at the State House, the City Hall, and the
various libraries agree as to the definite object of his second interest. He was searching
intensely and feverishly for the grave of Joseph Curwen, from whose slate slab an older
generation had so wisely blotted the name.
Little by little there grew upon the Ward family the conviction that something was
wrong. Charles had had freaks and changes of minor interests before, but this growing
secrecy and absorption in strange pursuits was unlike even him. His school work was the
merest pretence; and although he failed in no test, it could be seen that the older
application had all vanished. He had other concernments now; and when not in his new
laboratory with a score of obsolete alchemical books, could be found either poring over
old burial records down town or glued to his volumes of occult lore in his study, where
the startlingly - one almost fancied increasingly - similar features of Joseph Curwen
stared blandly at him from the great overmantel on the North wall.
Late in March Ward added to his archive-searching a ghoulish series of rambles about the
various ancient cemeteries of the city. The cause appeared later, when it was learned from
City Hall clerks that he had probably found an important clue. His quest had suddenly
shifted from the grave of Joseph Curwen to that of one Naphthali Field; and this shift was
explained when, upon going over the files that he had been over, the investigators
actually found a fragmentary record of Curwen's burial which had escaped the general
obliteration, and which stated that the curious leaden coffin had been interred '10 ft. S.
and 5 ft. W. of Naphthali Field's grave in y-.' The lack of a specified burying-ground in
the surviving entry greatly complicated the search, and Naphthali Field's grave seemed as
elusive as that of Curwen; but here no systematic effacement had existed, and one might
reasonably be expected to stumble on the stone itself even if its record had perished.
Hence the rambles - from which St. John's (the former King's) Churchyard and the
ancient Congregational burying-ground in the midst of Swan Point Cemetery were
excluded, since other statistics had shewn that the only Naphthali Field (obiit 1729)
whose grave could have been meant had been a Baptist.
4
It was toward May when Dr. Willett, at the request of the senior Ward, and fortified with
all the Curwen data which the family had gleaned from Charles in his non-secretive days,
talked with the young man. The interview was of little value or conclusiveness, for
Willett felt at every moment that Charles was thorough master of himself and in touch
with matters of real importance; but it at least force the secretive youth to offer some
rational explanation of his recent demeanour. Of a pallid, impassive type not easily
shewing embarrassment, Ward seemed quite ready to discuss his pursuits, though not to
reveal their object. He stated that the papers of his ancestor had contained some
remarkable secrets of early scientific knowledge, for the most part in cipher, of an
apparent scope comparable only to the discoveries of Friar Bacon and perhaps surpassing
even those. They were, however, meaningless except when correlated with a body of
learning now wholly obsolete; so that their immediate presentation to a world equipped
only with modern science would rob them of all impressiveness and dramatic
significance. To take their vivid place in the history of human thought they must first be
correlated by one familiar with the background out of which they evolved, and to this
task of correlation Ward was now devoting himself. He was seeking to acquire as fast as
possible those neglected arts of old which a true interpreter of the Curwen data must
possess, and hoped in time to made a full announcement and presentation of the utmost
interest to mankind and to the world of thought. Not even Einstein, he declared, could
more profoundly revolutionise the current conception of things.
As to his graveyard search, whose object he freely admitted, but the details of whose
progress he did not relate, he said he had reason to think that Joseph Curwen's mutilated
headstone bore certain mystic symbols - carved from directions in his will and ignorantly
spared by those who had effaced the name - which were absolutely essential to the final
solution of his cryptic system. Curwen, he believed, had wish to guard his secret with
care; and had consequently distributed the data in an exceedingly curious fashion. When
Dr. Willett asked to see the mystic documents, Ward displayed much reluctance and tried
to put him off with such things as photostatic copies of the Hutchinson cipher and Orne
formulae and diagrams; but finally shewed him the exteriors of some of the real Curwen
finds - the 'Journall and Notes', the cipher (title in cipher also), and the formula-filled
message 'To Him Who Shal Come After' - and let him glance inside such as were in
obscure characters.
He also opened the diary at a page carefully selected for its innocuousness and gave
Willett a glimpse of Curwen's connected handwriting in English. The doctor noted very
closely the crabbed and complicated letters, and the general aura of the seventeenth
century which clung round both penmanship and style despite the writer's survival into
the eighteenth century, and became quickly certain that the document was genuine. The
text itself was relatively trivial, and Willett recalled only a fragment:
'Wedn. 16 Octr. 1754. My Sloope the Wakeful this Day putt in from
London with XX newe Men pick'd up in ye Indies, Spaniards from
Martineco and 2 Dutch Men from Surinam. Ye Dutch Men are like to
Desert from have'g hearde Somewhat ill of these Ventures, but I will see
to ye Inducing of them to Staye. For Mr. Knight Dexter of ye Bay and
Book 120 Pieces Camblets, 100 Pieces Assrtd. Cambleteens, 20 Pieces
blue Duffles, 100 Pieces Shalloons, 50 Pieces Calamancoes, 300 Pieces
each, Shendsoy and Humhums. For Mr. Green at ye Elephant 50 Gallon
Cyttles, 20 Warm'g Pannes, 15 Bake Cyttles, 10 pr. Smoke'g Tonges. For
Mr. Perrigo 1 Sett of Awles. For Mr. Nightingale 50 Reames prime
Foolscap. Say'd ye SABAOTH thrice last Nighte but None appear'd. I
must heare more from Mr. H. in Transylvania, tho' it is Harde reach'g him
and exceeding strange he can not give me the Use of What he hath so well
us'd these hundred Yeares. Simon hath not writ these V. Weekes, but I
expecte soon hear'g from Him.'
When upon reaching this point Dr. Willett turned the leaf he was quickly checked by
Ward, who almost snatched the book from his grasp. All that the doctor had a chance to
see on the newly opened page was a brief pair of sentences; but these, strangely enough,
lingered tenacious in his memory. They ran: 'Ye Verse from Liber-Damnatus be'g spoke
V Roodmasses and IV Hallows-Eves, I am Hopeful ye Thing is breed'g Outside ye
Spheres. It will drawe One who is to Come, if I can make sure he shal Bee, and he shal
think on Past Thinges and look back thro' all ye Yeares, against ye Which I must have
ready ye Saltes or That to make 'em with.'
Willett saw no more, but somehow this small glimpse gave a new and vague terror to the
painted features of Joseph Curwen which stared blandly down from the overmantel. Even
after that he entertained the odd fancy - which his medical skill of course assured him
was only a fancy - that the eyes of the portrait had a sort of wish, if not an actual
tendency, to follow young Charles Ward as he move about the room. He stopped before
leaving to study the picture closely, marvelling at its resemblance to Charles and
memorising every minute detail of the cryptical, colourless face, even down to a slight
scar or pit in the smooth brow above the right eye. Cosmo Alexander, he decided, was a
painter worthy of the Scotland that produced Raeburn, and a teacher worthy of his
illustrious pupil Gilbert Stuart.
Assured by the doctor that Charles's mental health was in no danger, but that on the other
hand he was engaged in researches which might prove of real importance, the Wards
were more lenient than they might otherwise have been when during the following June
the youth made positive his refusal to attend college. He had, he declared, studies of
much more vital importance to pursue; and intimated a wish to go abroad the following
year in order to avail himself of certain sources of data not existing in America. The
senior Ward, while denying this latter wish as absurd for a boy of only eighteen,
acquiesced regarding the university; so that after a none too brilliant graduation from the
Moses Brown School there ensued for Charles a three-year period of intensive occult
study and graveyard searching. He became recognised as an eccentric, and dropped even
more completely from the sight of his family's friends than he had been before; keeping
close to his work and only occasionally making trips to other cities to consult obscure
records. Once he went south to talk to a strange mulatto who dwelt in a swamp and about
whom a newspaper hand printed a curious article. Again he sought a small village in the
Adirondacks whence reports of certain odd ceremonial practices had come. But still his
parents forbade him the trip to the Old World which he desired.
Coming of age in April, 1923, and having previously inherited a small competence from
his maternal grandfather, Ward determined at last to take the European trip hitherto
denied him. Of his proposed itinerary he would say nothing save that the needs of his
studies would carry him to many places, but he promised to write his parents fully and
faithfully. When they saw he could not be dissuaded, they ceased all opposition and
helped as best they could; so that in June the young man sailed for Liverpool with the
farewell blessings of his father and mother, who accompanied him to Boston and waved
him out of sight from the White Star pier in Charlestown. Letters soon told of his safe
arrival, and of his securing good quarters in Great Russell Street, London; where he
proposed to stay, shunning all family friends, till he had exhausted the resources of the
British Museum in a certain direction. Of his daily life he wrote by little, for there was
little to write. Study and experiment consumed all his time, and he mentioned a
laboratory which he had established in one of his rooms. That he said nothing of
antiquarian rambles in the glamorous old city with its luring skyline of ancient domes and
steeples and its tangles of roads and alleys whose mystic convolutions and sudden vistas
alternately beckon and surprise, was taken by his parents as a good index of the degree to
which his new interests had engrossed his mind.
In June, 1924, a brief note told of his departure for Paris, to which he had before made
one or two flying trips for material in the Bibliothèque Nationale. For three months
thereafter he sent only postal cards, giving an address in the Rue St. Jacques and referring
to a special search among rare manuscripts in the library of an unnamed private collector.
He avoided acquaintances, and no tourists brought back reports of having seen him. Then
came a silence, and in October the Wards received a picture card from Prague, Czecho-
Slovakia, stating that Charles was in that ancient town for the purpose of conferring with
a certain very aged man supposed to be the last living possessor of some very curious
mediaeval information. He gave an address in the Neustadt, and announced no move till
the following January; when he dropped several cards from Vienna telling of his passage
through that city on the way toward a more easterly region whither one of his
correspondents and fellow-delvers into the occult had invited him.
The next card was from Klausenburg in Transylvania, and told of Ward's progress toward
his destination. He was going to visit a Baron Ferenczy, whose estate lay in the
mountains east of Rakus; and was to be addressed at Rakus in the care of that nobleman.
Another card from Rakus a week later, saying that his host's carriage had met him and
that he was leaving the village for the mountains, was his last message for a considerable
time; indeed, he did reply to his parents' frequent letters until May, when he wrote to
discourage the plan of his mother for a meeting in London, Paris, or Rome during the
summer, when the elder Wards were planning to travel to Europe. His researches, he said,
were such that he could not leave his present quarters; while the situation of Baron
Ferenczy's castle did not favour visits. It was on a crag in the dark wooded mountains,
and the region was so shunned by the country folk that normal people could not help
feeling ill at ease. Moreover, the Baron was not a person likely to appeal to correct and
conservative New England gentlefolk. His aspect and manners had idiosyncrasies, and
his age was so great as to be disquieting. It would be better, Charles said, if his parents
would wait for his return to Providence; which could scarcely be far distant.
That return did not, however, take place until May 1926, when after a few heralding cards
the young wanderer quietly slipped into New York on the Homeric and traversed the long
miles to Providence by motor-coach, eagerly drinking in the green rolling hills, and
fragrant, blossoming orchards, and the white steepled towns of vernal Connecticut; his
first taste of ancient New England in nearly four years. When the coach crossed the
Pawcatuck and entered Rhode Island amidst the faery goldenness of a late spring
afternoon his heart beat with quickened force, and the entry to Providence along
Reservoir and Elmwood Avenues was a breathless and wonderful thing despite the depths
of forbidden lore to which he had delved. At the high square where Broad, Weybosset,
and Empire Streets join, he saw before and below him in the fire of sunset the pleasant,
remembered houses and domes and steeples of the old town; and his head swam
curiously as the vehicle rolled down to the terminal behind the Biltmore, bringing into
view the great dome and soft, roof-pierced greenery of the ancient hill across the river,
and the tall colonial spire of the First Baptist Church limned pink in the magic evening
against the fresh springtime verdure of its precipitous background.
Old Providence! It was this place and the mysterious forces of its long, continuous
history which had brought him into being, and which had drawn him back toward
marvels and secrets whose boundaries no prophet might fix. Here lay the arcana,
wondrous or dreadful as the case may be, for which all his years of travel and application
had been preparing him. A taxicab whirled him through Post Office Square with its
glimpse of the river, the old Market House, and the head of the bay, and up the steep
curved slope of Waterman Street to Prospect, where the vast gleaming dome and sunset-
flushed Ionic columns of the Christian Science Church beckoned northward. Then eight
squares past the fine old estates his childish eyes had known, and the quaint brick
sidewalks so often trodden by his youthful feet. And at last the little white overtaken
farmhouse on the right, on the left the classic Adam porch and stately facade of the great
brick house where he was born. It was twilight, and Charles Dexter Ward had come
home.
5
A school of alienists slightly less academic than Dr. Lyman's assign to Ward's European
trip the beginning of his true madness. Admitting that he was sane when he started, they
believe that his conduct upon returning implies a disastrous change. But even to this
claim Dr. Willett refuses to concede. There was, he insists, something later; and the
queerness of the youth at this stage he attributes to the practice of rituals learned abroad -
odd enough things, to be sure, but by no means implying mental aberration on the part of
their celebrant. Ward himself, though visibly aged and hardened, was still normal in his
general reactions; and in several talks with Dr. Willett displayed a balance which no
madman - even an incipient one - could feign continuously for long. What elicited the
notion of insanity at this period were the sounds heard at all hours from Ward's attic
laboratory, in which he kept himself most of the time. There were chantings and
repetitions, and thunderous declamations in uncanny rhythms; and although these sounds
were always in Ward's own voice, there was something in the quality of that voice, and in
the accents of the formulae it pronounced, which could not by chill the blood of every
hearer. It was noticed that Nig, the venerable and beloved black cat of the household,
bristled and arched his back perceptibly when certain of the tones were heard.
The odours occasionally wafted from the laboratory were likewise exceedingly strange.
Sometimes they were very noxious, but more often they were aromatic, with a haunting,
elusive quality which seemed to have the power of inducing fantastic images. People who
smelled them had a tendency to glimpse momentary mirages of enormous vistas, with
strange hills or endless avenues of sphinxes and hippogriffs stretching off into infinite
distance. Ward did not resume his old-time rambles, but applied himself diligently to the
strange books he had brought home, and to equally strange delvings within his quarters;
explaining that European sources had greatly enlarged the possibilities of his work, and
promising great revelations in the years to come. His older aspect increased to a startling
degree his resemblance to the Curwen portrait in his library; and Dr. Willett would often
pause by the latter after a call, marvelling at the virtual identity, and reflecting that only
the small pit above the picture's right eye now remained to differentiate the long-dead
wizard from the living youth. These calls of Willett's, undertaken at the request of teh
senior Wards, were curious affairs. Ward at no time repulsed the doctor, but the latter saw
that he could never reach the young man's inner psychology. Frequently he noted peculiar
things about; little wax images of grotesque design on the shelves or tables, and the half-
erased remnants of circles, triangles, and pentagrams in chalk or charcoal on the cleared
central space of the large room. And always in the night those rhythms and incantations
thundered, till it became very difficult to keep servants or suppress furtive talk of
Charles's madness.
In January, 1927, a peculiar incident occurred. One night about midnight, as Charles was
chanting a ritual whose weird cadence echoed unpleasantly through the house below,
there came a sudden gust of chill wind from the bay, and a faint, obscure trembling of the
earth which everyone in the neighbourhood noted. At the same time the cat exhibited
phenomenal traces of fright, while dogs bayed for as much as a mile around. This was the
prelude to a sharp thunderstorm, anomalous for the season, which brought with it such a
crash that Mr. and Mrs. Ward believed the house had been struck. They rushed upstairs to
see what damage had been done, but Charles met them at the door to the attic; pale,
resolute, and portentous, with an almost fearsome combination of triumph and
seriousness on his face. He assured them that the house had not really been struck, and
that the storm would soon be over. They paused, and looking through a window saw that
he was indeed right; for the lightning flashed farther and farther off, whilst the trees
ceased to bend in the strange frigid gust from the water. The thunder sank to a sort of dull
mumbling chuckle and finally died away. Stars came out, and the stamp of triumph on
Charles Ward's face crystallised into a very singular expression.
For two months or more after this incident Ward was less confined than usual to his
laboratory. He exhibited a curious interest in the weather, and made odd inquires about
the date of the spring thawing of the ground. One night late in March he left the house
after midnight, and did not return till almost morning; when his mother, being wakeful,
heard a rumbling motor draw up to the carriage entrance. Muffled oaths could be
distinguished, and Mrs. Ward, rising and going to the window, saw four dark figures
removing a long, heavy box from a truck at Charles's direction and carrying it within by
the side door. She heard laboured breathing and ponderous footfalls on the stairs, and
finally a dull thumping in the attic; after which the footfalls descended again, and the four
reappeared outside and drove off in their truck.
The next day Charles resumed his strict attic seclusion, drawing down the dark shades of
his laboratory windows and appearing to be working on some metal substance. He would
open the door to no one, and steadfastly refused all proffered food. About noon a
wrenching sound followed by a terrible cry and a fall were heard, but when Mrs. Ward
rapped at the door her son at length answered faintly, and told her that nothing had gone
amiss. The hideous and indescribable stench now welling out was absolutely harmless
and unfortunately necessary. Solitude was the one prime essential, and he would appear
later for dinner. That afternoon, after the conclusion of some odd hissing sounds which
came from behind the locked portal, he did finally appear; wearing an extremely haggard
aspect and forbidding anyone to enter the laboratory upon any pretext. This, indeed,
proved the beginning of a new policy of secrecy; for never afterward was any other
person permitted to visit either the mysterious garret workroom or the adjacent storeroom
which he cleaned out, furnished roughly, and added to his inviolable private domain as a
sleeping apartment. Here he lived, with books brought up from his library beneath, till the
time he purchased the Pawtuxet bungalow and moved to it all his scientific effects.
In the evening Charles secured the paper before the rest of the family and damaged part
of it through an apparent accident. Later on Dr. Willett, having fixed the date from
statements by various members of the household, looked up an intact copy at the Journal
office and found that in the destroyed section the following small item had occurred:
Nocturnal Diggers Surprised in North Burial Ground
Robert Hart, night watchman at the North Burial Ground, this morning
discovered a party of several men with a motor truck in the oldest part of
the cemetery, but apparently frightened them off before they had
accomplished whatever their object may have been.
The discovery took place at about four o'clock, when Hart's attention was
attracted by the sound of a motor outside his shelter. Investigating, he saw
a large truck on the main drive several rods away; but could not reach it
before the noise of his feet on the gravel had revealed his approach. The
men hastily placed a large box in the truck and drove away toward the
street before they could be overtaken; and since no known grave was
disturbed, Hart believes that this box was an object which they wished to
bury.
The diggers must have been at work for a long while before detection, for
Hart found an enormous hold dug at a considerable distance back from the
roadway in the lot of Amasa Field, where most of the old stones have long
ago disappeared. The hole, a place as large and deep as a grave, was
empty; and did not coincide with any interment mentioned in the cemetery
records.
Sergt. Riley of the Second Station viewed the spot and gave the opinion
that the hole was dug by bootleggers rather gruesomely and ingeniously
seeking a safe cache for liquor in a place not likely to be disturbed. In
reply to questions Hart said he though the escaping truck had headed up
Rochambeau Avenue, though he could not be sure.
During the next few days Charles Ward was seldom seen by his family. Having added
sleeping quarters to his attic realm, he kept closely to himself there, ordering food
brought to the door and not taking it in until after the servant had gone away. The droning
of monotonous formulae and the chanting of bizarre rhythms recurred at intervals, while
at other times occasional listeners could detect the sound of tinkling glass, hissing
chemicals, running water, or roaring gas flames. Odours of the most unplaceable quality,
wholly unlike any before noted, hung at times around the door; and the air of tension
observable in the young recluse whenever he did venture briefly forth was such as to
excite the keenest speculation. Once he made a hasty trip to the Athenaeum for a book he
required, and again he hired a messenger to fetch him a highly obscure volume from
Boston. Suspense was written portentously over the whole situation, and both the family
and Dr. Willett confessed themselves wholly at a loss what to do or think about it.
6
Then on the fifteenth of April a strange development occurred. While nothing appeared to
grow different in kind, there was certainly a very terrible difference in degree; and Dr.
Willett somehow attaches great significance to the change. The day was Good Friday, a
circumstance of which the servants made much, but which others quite naturally dismiss
as an irrelevant coincidence. Late in the afternoon young Ward began repeating a certain
formula in a singularly loud voice, at the same time burning some substance so pungent
that its fumes escaped over the entire house. The formula was so plainly audible in the
hall outside the locked door that Mrs. Ward could not help memorising it as she waited
and listened anxiously, and later on she was able to write it down at Dr. Willett's request.
It ran as follows, and experts have told Dr. Willett that its very close analogue can be
found in the mystic writings of "Eliphas Levi", that cryptic soul who crept through a
crack in the forbidden door and glimpsed the frightful vistas of the void beyond:
'Per Adonai Eloim, Adonai Jehova,
Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Mathon,
verbum pythonicum, mysterium salamandrae,
conventus sylvorum, antra gnomorum,
daemonia Coeli God, Almonsin, Gibor, Jehosua,
Evam, Zariatnatmik, veni, veni, veni.'
This had been going on for two hours without change or intermission when over all the
neighbourhood a pandaemoniac howling of dogs set in. The extent of this howling can be
judged from the space it received in the papers the next day, but to those in the Ward
household it was overshadowed by the odour which instantly followed it; a hideous, all-
pervasive odour which non of them had ever smelt before or have ever smelt since. In the
midst of this mephitic flood there came a very perceptible flash like that of lightning,
which would have been blinding and impressive but for the daylight around; and then
was heard the voice that no listener can ever forget because of its thunderous remoteness,
its incredible depth, and its eldritch dissimilarity to Charles Ward's voice. It shook the
house, and was clearly heard by at least two neighbours above the howling of the dogs.
Mrs. Ward, who had been listening in despair outside her son's locked laboratory,
shivered as she recognised its hellish imports; for Charles had told of its evil fame in dark
books, and of the manner in which it had thundered, according to the Fenner letter, above
the doomed Pawtuxet farmhouse on the night of Joseph Curwen's annihilation. There was
no mistaking that nightmare phrase, for Charles had described it too vividly in the old
days when he had talked frankly of his Curwen investigations. And yet it was only this
fragment of an archaic and forgotten language: 'DIES MIES JESCHET BOENE
DOESEF DOUVEMA ENITEMAUS.'
Close upon this thundering there came a momentary darkening of the daylight, though
sunset was still an hour distant, and then a puff of added odour different from the first but
equally unknown and intolerable. Charles was chanting again now and his mother could
hear syllables that sounded like 'Yi nash Yog Sothoth he lgeb throdag' - ending in a 'Yah!'
whose maniacal force mounted in an ear-splitting crescendo. A second later all previous
memories were effaced by the wailing scream which burst out with frantic explosiveness
and gradually changed form to a paroxysm of diabolic and hysterical laughter. Mrs.
Ward, with the mingled fear and blind courage of maternity, advanced and knocked
affrightedly at the concealing panels, but obtained no sign of recognition. She knocked
again, but paused nervelessly as a second shriek arose, this one unmistakably in the
familiar voice of her son, and sounding concurrently with the still bursting cachinnations
of that other voice. Presently she fainted, although she is still unable to recall the precise
and immediate cause. Memory sometimes makes merciful deletions.
Mr. Ward returned from the business section at about quarter past six; and not finding his
wife downstairs, was told by the frightened servants that she was probably watching at
Charles's door, from which the sounds had been far stranger than ever before. Mounting
the stairs at once, he saw Mrs. Ward stretched out at full length on the floor of the
corridor outside the laboratory; and realising that she had fainted, hastened to fetch a
glass of water from a set bowl in a neighbouring alcove. Dashing the cold fluid in her
face, he was heartened to observe an immediate response on her part, and was watching
the bewildered opening of her eyes when a chill shot through him and threatened to
reduce him to the very state from which she was emerging. For the seemingly silent
laboratory was not as silent as it had appeared to be, but held the murmurs of a tense,
muffled conversation in tones too low for comprehension, yet of a quality profoundly
disturbing to the soul.
It was not, of course, new for Charles to mutter formulae; but this muttering was
definitely different. It was so palpably a dialogue, or imitation of a dialogue, with the
regular alteration of inflections suggesting question and answer, statement and response.
One voice was undisguisedly that of Charles, but the other had a depth and hollowness
which the youth's best powers of ceremonial mimicry had scarcely approached before.
There was something hideous, blasphemous, and abnormal about it, and but for a cry
from his recovering wife which cleared his mind by arousing his protective instincts it is
not likely that Theodore Howland Ward could have maintained for nearly a year more his
old boast that he had never fainted. As it was, he seized his wife in his arms and bore her
quickly downstairs before she could notice the voices which had so horribly disturbed
him. Even so, however, he was not quick enough to escape catching something himself
which caused him to stagger dangerously with his burden. For Mrs. Ward's cry had
evidently been heard by others than he, and there had come in response to it from behind
the locked door the first distinguishable words which that masked and terrible colloquy
had yielded. They were merely an excited caution in Charles's own voice, but somehow
their implications held a nameless fright for the father who overheard them. The phrase
was just this: 'Sshh!-write!'
Mr. and Mrs. Ward conferred at some length after dinner, and the former resolved to have
a firm and serious talk with Charles that very night. No matter how important the object,
such conduct could no longer be permitted; for these latest developments transcended
every limit of sanity and formed a menace to the order and nervous well-being of the
entire household. The youth must indeed have taken complete leave of his senses, since
only downright madness could have prompted the wild screams and imaginary
conversations in assumed voices which the present day had brought forth. All this must
be stopped, or Mrs. Ward would be made ill and the keeping of servants become an
impossibility.
Mr. Ward rose at the close of the meal and started upstairs for Charles's laboratory. On
the third floor, however, he paused at the sounds which he heard proceeding from the
now disused library of his son. Books were apparently being flung about and papers
wildly rustled, and upon stepping to the door Mr. Ward beheld the youth within,
excitedly assembling a vast armful of literary matter of every size and shape. Charles's
aspect was very drawn and haggard, and he dropped his entire load with a start at the
sound of his father's voice. At the elder man's command he sat down, and for some time
listened to the admonitions he had so long deserved. There was no scene. At the end of
the lecture he agreed that his father was right, and that his noises, mutterings,
incantations, and chemical odours were indeed inexcusable nuisances. He agreed to a
policy of great quiet, though insisting on a prolongation of his extreme privacy. Much of
his future work, he said, was in any case purely book research; and he could obtain
quarters elsewhere for any such vocal rituals as might be necessary at a later stage. For
the fright and fainting of his mother he expressed the keenest contrition, and explained
that the conversation later heard was part of an elaborate symbolism designed to create a
certain mental atmosphere. His use of abstruse technical terms somewhat bewildered Mr.
Ward, but the parting impression was one of undeniable sanity and poise despite a
mysterious tension of the utmost gravity. The interview was really quite inconclusive,
and as Charles picked up his armful and left the room Mr. Ward hardly knew what to
make of the entire business. It was as mysterious as the death of poor old Nig, whose
stiffening form had been found an hour before in the basement, with staring eyes and
fear-distorted mouth.
Driven by some vague detective instinct, the bewildered parent now glanced curiously at
the vacant shelves to see what his son had taken up to the attic. The youth's library was
plainly and rigidly classified, so that one might tell at a glance the books or at least the
kind of books which had been withdrawn. On this occasion Mr. Ward was astonished to
find that nothing of the occult or the antiquarian, beyond what had been previously
removed, was missing. These new withdrawals were all modern items; histories,
scientific treatises, geographies, manuals of literature, philosophic works, and certain
contemporary newspapers and magazines. It was a very curious shift from Charles
Ward's recent run of reading, and the father paused in a growing vortex of perplexity and
an engulfing sense of strangeness. The strangeness was a very poignant sensation, and
almost clawed at his chest as he strove to see just what was wrong around him.
Something was indeed wrong, and tangibly as well as spiritually so. Ever since he had
been in this room he had known that something was amiss, and at last it dawned upon
him what it was.
On the north wall rose still the ancient carved overmantel from the house in Olney Court,
but to the cracked and precariously restored oils of the large Curwen portrait disaster had
come. Time and unequal heating had done their work at last, and at some time since the
room's last cleaning the worst had happened. Peeling clear of the wood, curling tighter
and tighter, and finally crumbling into small bits with what must have been malignly
silent suddenness, the portrait of Joseph Curwen had resigned forever its staring
surveillance of the youth it so strangely resembled, and now lay scattered on the floor as
a thin coating of fine blue-grey dust.
IV. A Mutation and a Madness
1
In the week following that memorable Good Friday Charles Ward was seen more often
than usual, and was continually carrying books between his library and the attic
laboratory. His actions were quiet and rational, but he had a furtive, hunted look which
his mother did not like, and developed an incredibly ravenous appetite as gauged by his
demands upon the cook. Dr. Willett had been told of those Friday noises and happenings,
and on the following Tuesday had a long conversation with the youth in the library where
the picture stared no more. The interview was, as always, inconclusive; but Willett is still
ready to swear that the youth was sane and himself at the time. He held out promises of
an early revelation, and spoke of the need of securing a laboratory elsewhere. At the loss
of the portrait he grieved singularly little considering his first enthusiasm over it, but
seemed to find something of positive humour in its sudden crumbling.
About the second week Charles began to be absent from the house for long periods, and
one day when good old black Hannah came to help with the spring cleaning she
mentioned his frequent visits to the old house in Olney Court, where he would come with
a large valise and perform curious delvings in the cellar. He was always very liberal to
her and to old Asa, but seemed more worried than he used to be; which grieved her very
much, since she had watched him grow up from birth. Another report of his doings came
from Pawtuxet, where some friends of the family saw him at a distance a surprising
number of times. He seemed to haunt the resort and canoe-house of Rhodes-on-the-
Pawtuxet, and subsequent inquiries by Dr. Willett at that place brought out the fact that
his purpose was always to secure access to the rather hedged-in river-bank, along which
he would walk toward the north, usually not reappearing for a very long while.
Late in May came a momentary revival of ritualistic sounds in the attic laboratory which
brought a stern reproof from Mr. Ward and a somewhat distracted promise of amendment
from Charles. It occurred one morning, and seemed to form a resumption of the
imaginary conversation noted on that turbulent Good Friday. The youth was arguing or
remonstrating hotly with himself, for there suddenly burst forth a perfectly
distinguishable series of clashing shouts in differentiated tones like alternate demands
and denials which caused Mrs. Ward to run upstairs and listen at the door. She could hear
no more than a fragment whose only plain words were 'must have it red for three months',
and upon her knocking all sounds ceased at once. When Charles was later questioned by
his father he said that there were certain conflicts of spheres of consciousness which only
great skill could avoid, but which he would try to transfer to other realms.
About the middle of June a queer nocturnal incident occurred. In the early evening there
had been some noise and thumping in the laboratory upstairs, and Mr. Ward was on the
point of investigating when it suddenly quieted down. That midnight, after the family had
retired, the butler was nightlocking the front door when according to his statement
Charles appeared somewhat blunderingly and uncertainly at the foot of the stairs with a
large suitcase and made signs that he wished egress. The youth spoke no word, but the
worthy Yorkshireman caught one sight of his fevered eyes and trembled causelessly. He
opened the door and young Ward went out, but in the morning he presented his
resignation to Mrs. Ward. There was, he said, something unholy in the glance Charles
had fixed on him. It was no way for a young gentleman to look at an honest person, and
he could not possibly stay another night. Mrs. Ward allowed the man to depart, but she
did not value his statement highly. To fancy Charles in a savage state that night was quite
ridiculous, for as long as she had remained awake she had heard faint sounds from the
laboratory above; sounds as if of sobbing and pacing, and of a sighing which told only of
despair's profoundest depths. Mrs. Ward had grown used to listening for sounds in the
night, for the mystery of her son was fast driving all else from her mind.
The next evening, much as on another evening nearly three months before, Charles Ward
seized the newspaper very early and accidentally lost the main section. This matter was
not recalled till later, when Dr. Willett began checking up loose ends and searching out
missing links here and there. In the Journal office he found the section which Charles had
lost, and marked two items as of possible significance. They were as follows:
More Cemetery Delving
It was this morning discovered by Robert Hart, night watchman at the
North Burial Ground, that ghouls were again at work in the ancient portion
of the cemetery. The grave of Ezra Weeden, who was born in 1740 and
died in 1824 according to his uprooted and savagely splintered slate
headstone, was found excavated and rifled, the work being evidently done
with a spade stolen from an adjacent tool-shed.
Whatever the contents may have been after more than a century of burial,
all was gone except a few slivers of decayed wood. There were no wheel
tracks, but the police have measured a single set of footprints which they
found in the vicinity, and which indicate the boots of a man of refinement.
Hart is inclined to link this incident with the digging discovered last
March, when a party in a motor truck were frightened away after making a
deep excavation; but Sergt. Riley of the Second Station discounts this
theory and points to vital differences in the two cases. In March the
digging had been in a spot where no grave was known; but this time a
well-marked and cared-for grave had been rifled with every evidence of
deliberate purpose, and with a conscious malignity expressed in the
splintering of the slab which had been intact up to the day before.
Members of the Weeden family, notified of the happening, expressed their
astonishment and regret; and were wholly unable to think of any enemy
who would care to violate the grave of their ancestor. Hazard Weeden of
598 Angell Street recalls a family legend according to which Ezra Weeden
was involved in some very peculiar circumstances, not dishonourable to
himself, shortly before the Revolution; but of any modern feud or mystery
he is frankly ignorant. Inspector Cunningham has been assigned to the
case, and hopes to uncover some valuable clues in the near future.
Dogs Noisy in Pawtuxet
Residents of Pawtuxet were aroused about 3 a.m. today by a phenomenal
baying of dogs which seemed to centre near the river just north of Rhodes-
on-the-Pawtuxet. The volume and quality of the howling were unusually
odd, according to most who heart it; and Fred Lemdin, night watchman at
Rhodes, declares it was mixed with something very like the shrieks of a
man in mortal terror and agony. A sharp and very brief thunderstorm,
which seemed to strike somewhere near the bank of the river, put an end
to the disturbance. Strange and unpleasant odours, probably from the oil
tanks along the bay, are popularly linked with this incident; and may have
had their share in exciting the dogs.
The aspect of Charles now became very haggard and hunted, and all agreed in retrospect
that he may have wished at this period to make some statement or confession from which
sheer terror withheld him. The morbid listening of his mother in the night brought out the
fact that he made frequent sallies abroad under cover of darkness, and most of the more
academic alienists unite at present in charging him with the revolting cases of vampirism
which the press so sensationally reported about this time, but which have not yet been
definitely traced to any known perpetrator. These cases, too recent and celebrated to need
detailed mention, involved victims of every age and type and seemed to cluster around
two distinct localities; the residential hill and the North End, near the Ward home, and the
suburban districts across the Cranston line near Pawtuxet. Both late wayfarers and
sleepers with open windows were attacked, and those who lived to tell the tale spoke
unanimously of a lean, lithe, leaping monster with burning eyes which fastened its teeth
in the throat or upper arm and feasted ravenously.
Dr. Willett, who refuses to date the madness of Charles Ward as far back as even this, is
cautious in attempting to explain these horrors. He has, he declares, certain theories of his
own; and limits his positive statements to a peculiar kind of negation: 'I will not,' he says,
'state who or what I believe perpetrated these attacks and murders, but I will declare that
Charles Ward was innocent of them. I have reason to be sure he was ignorant of the taste
of blood, as indeed his continued anaemic decline and increasing pallor prove better than
any verbal argument. Ward meddled with terrible things, but he has paid for it, and he
was never a monster or a villain. As for now - I don't like to think. A change came, and
I'm content to believe that the old Charles Ward died with it. His soul did, anyhow, for
that mad flesh that vanished from Waite's hospital had another.'
Willett speaks with authority, for he was often at the Ward home attending Mrs. Ward,
whose nerves had begun to snap under the strain. Her nocturnal listening had bred some
morbid hallucinations which she confided to the doctor with hesitancy, and which he
ridiculed in talking to her, although they made him ponder deeply when alone. These
delusions always concerning the faint sounds which she fancied she heard in the attic
laboratory and bedroom, and emphasised the occurrence of muffled sighs and sobbings at
the most impossible times. Early in July Willett ordered Mrs. Ward to Atlantic City for
an indefinite recuperative sojourn, and cautioned both Mr. Ward and the haggard and
elusive Charles to write her only cheering letters. It is probably to this enforced and
reluctant escape that she owes her life and continued sanity.
2
Not long after his mother's departure, Charles Ward began negotiating for the Pawtuxet
bungalow. It was a squalid little wooden edifice with a concrete garage, perched high on
the sparsely settled bank of the river slightly above Rhodes, but for some odd reason the
youth would have nothing else. He gave the real-estate agencies no peace till one of them
secured it for him at an exorbitant price from a somewhat reluctant owner, and as soon as
it was vacant he took possession under cover of darkness,, transporting in a great closed
van the entire contents of his attic laboratory, including the books both weird and modern
which he had borrowed from his study. He had this van loaded in the black small hours,
and his father recalls only a drowsy realisation of stifled oaths and stamping feet on the
night the goods were taken away. After that Charles moved back to his own old quarters
on the third floor, and never haunted the attic again.
To the Pawtuxet bungalow Charles transferred all the secrecy with which he had
surrounded his attic realm, save that he now appeared to have two sharers of his
mysteries; a villainous-looking Portuguese half-caste from the South Main St. waterfront
who acted as a servant, and a thin, scholarly stranger with dark glasses and a stubbly full
beard of dyed aspect whose status was evidently that of a colleague. Neighbours vainly
tried to engage these odd persons in conversation. The mulatto Gomes spoke very little
English, and the bearded man, who gave his name as Dr. Allen, voluntarily followed his
example. Ward himself tried to be more affable, but succeeded only in provoking
curiousity with his rambling accounts of chemical research. Before long queer tales
began to circulate regarding the all-night burning of lights; and somewhat later, after this
burning had suddenly ceased, there rose still queerer tales of disproportionate orders of
meat from the butcher's and of the muffled shouting, declamation, rhythmic chanting, and
screaming supposed to come from some very cellar below the place. Most distinctly the
new and strange household was bitterly disliked by the honest bourgeoisie of the vicinity,
and it is not remarkable that dark hints were advanced connecting the hated establishment
with the current epidemic of vampiristic attacks and murders; especially since the radius
of that plague seemed now confined wholly to Pawtuxet and the adjacent streets of
Edgewood.
Ward spent most of his time at the bungalow, but slept occasionally at home and was still
reckoned a dweller beneath his father's roof. Twice he was absent from the city on week-
long trips, whose destinations have not yet been discovered. He grew steadily paler and
more emaciated even than before, and lacked some of his former assurance when
repeating to Dr. Willett his old, old story of vital research and future revelations. Willett
often waylaid him at his father's house, for the elder Ward was deeply worried and
perplexed, and wished his son to get as much sound oversight as could be managed in the
case of so secretive and independent an adult. The doctor still insists that the youth was
sane even as late as this, and adduces many a conversation to prove his point.
About September the vampirism declined, but in the following January almost became
involved in serious trouble. For some time the nocturnal arrival and departure of motor
trucks at the Pawtuxet bungalow had been commented upon, and at this juncture an
unforeseen hitch exposed the nature of at least one item of their contents. In a lonely spot
near Hope Valley had occurred one of the frequent sordid waylaying of trucks by "hi-
jackers" in quest of liquor shipments, but this time the robbers had been destined to
receive the greater shock. For the long cases they seized proved upon opening to contain
some exceedingly gruesome things; so gruesome, in fact, that the matter could not be
kept quiet amongst the denizens of the underworld. The thieves had hastily buried what
they discovered, but when the State Police got wind of the matter a careful search was
made. A recently arrived vagrant, under promise of immunity from prosecution on any
additional charge, at last consented to guide a party of troopers to the spot; and there was
found in that hasty cache a very hideous and shameful thing. It would not be well for the
national - or even the international - sense of decorum if the public were ever to know
what was uncovered by that awestruck party. There was no mistaking it, even by those
far from studious officers; and telegrams to Washington ensued with feverish rapidity.
The cases were addressed to Charles Ward at his Pawtuxet bungalow, and State and
Federal officials at once paid him a very forceful and serious call. They found him pallid
and worried with his two odd companions, and received from him what seemed to be a
valid explanation and evidence of innocence. He had needed certain anatomical
specimens as part of a programme of research whose depth and genuineness anyone who
had known him in the last decade could prove, and had ordered the required kind and
number from agencies which he had thought as reasonably legitimate as such things can
be. Of the identity of the specimens he had known absolutely nothing, and was properly
shocked when the inspectors hinted at the monstrous effect on public sentiment and
national dignity which a knowledge of the matter would produce. In this statement he
was firmly sustained by his bearded colleague Dr. Allen, whose oddly hollow voice
carried even more conviction than his own nervous tones; so that in the end the officials
took no action, but carefully set down the New York name and address which Ward gave
them a basis for a search which came to nothing. It is only fair to add that the specimens
were quickly and quietly restored to their proper places, and that the general public will
never know of their blasphemous disturbance.
On February 9, 1928, Dr. Willett received a letter from Charles Ward which he considers
of extraordinary importance, and about which he has frequently quarrelled with Dr.
Lyman. Lyman believes that this note contains positive proof of a well-developed case of
dementia praecox, but Willett on the other hand regards it as the last perfectly sane
utterance of the hapless youth. He calls especial attention to the normal character of the
penmanship; which though shewing traces of shattered nerves, is nevertheless distinctly
Ward's own. The text in full is as follows:
100 Prospect St.
Providence, R.I.,
February 8, 1928.
Dear Dr. Willett:-
I feel that at last the time has come for me to make the disclosures which I
have so long promised you, and for which you have pressed me so often.
The patience you have shewn in waiting, and the confidence you have
shewn in my mind and integrity, are things I shall never cease to
appreciate.
And now that I am ready to speak, I must own with humiliation that no
triumph such as I dreamed of can ever by mine. Instead of triumph I have
found terror, and my talk with you will not be a boast of victory but a plea
for help and advice in saving both myself and the world from a horror
beyond all human conception or calculation. You recall what those Fenner
letters said of the old raiding party at Pawtuxet. That must all be done
again, and quickly. Upon us depends more than can be put into words - all
civilisation, all natural law, perhaps even the fate of the solar system and
the universe. I have brought to light a monstrous abnormality, but I did it
for the sake of knowledge. Now for the sake of all life and Nature you
must help me thrust it back into the dark again.
I have left that Pawtuxet place forever, and we must extirpate everything
existing there, alive or dead. I shall not go there again, and you must not
believe it if you ever hear that I am there. I will tell you why I say this
when I see you. I have come home for good, and wish you would call on
me at the very first moment that you can spare five or six hours
continuously to hear what I have to say. It will take that long - and believe
me when I tell you that you never had a more genuine professional duty
than this. My life and reason are the very least things which hang in the
balance.
I dare not tell my father, for he could not grasp the whole thing. But I have
told him of my danger, and he has four men from a detective agency
watching the house. I don't know how much good they can do, for they
have against them forces which even you could scarcely envisage or
acknowledge. So come quickly if you wish to see me alive and hear how
you may help to save the cosmos from stark hell.
Any time will do - I shall not be out of the house. Don't telephone ahead,
for there is no telling who or what may try to intercept you. And let us
pray to whatever gods there be that nothing may prevent this meeting.
In utmost gravity and desperation,
Charles Dexter Ward.
P.S. Shoot Dr. Allen on sight and dissolve his body in acid. Don't burn it.
Dr. Willett received this note about 10:30 a.m., and immediately arranged to spare the
whole late afternoon and evening for the momentous talk, letting it extend on into the
night as long as might be necessary. He planned to arrive about four o'clock, and through
all the intervening hours was so engulfed in every sort of wild speculation that most of
his tasks were very mechanically performed. Maniacal as the letter would have sounded
to a stranger, Willett had seen too much of Charles Ward's oddities to dismiss it as sheer
raving. That something very subtle, ancient, and horrible was hovering about he felt quite
sure, and the reference to Dr. Allen could almost be comprehended in view of what
Pawtuxet gossip said of Ward's enigmatical colleague. Willett had never seen the man,
but had heard much of his aspect and bearing, and could not but wonder what sort of eyes
those much-discussed dark glasses might conceal.
Promptly at four Dr. Willett presented himself at the Ward residence, but found to his
annoyance that Charles had not adhered to his determination to remain indoors. The
guards were there, but said that the young man seemed to have lost part of his timidity.
He had that morning done much apparently frightened arguing and protesting over the
telephone, one of the detectives said, replying to some unknown voice with phrases such
as 'I am very tired and must rest a while', 'I can't receive anyone for some time', 'you'll
have to excuse me', 'Please postpone decisive action till we can arrange some sort of
compromise', or 'I am very sorry, but I must take a complete vacation from everything;
I'll talk with you later.' Then, apparently gaining boldness through meditation, he had
slipped out so quietly that no one had seen him depart or knew that he had gone until he
returned about one o'clock and entered the house without a word. He had gone upstairs,
where a bit of his fear must have surged back; for he was heard to cry out in a highly
terrified fashion upon entering his library, afterward trailing off into a kind of choking
gasp. When, however, the butler had gone to inquire what the trouble was, he had
appeared at the door with a great show of boldness, and had silently gestured the man
away in a manner that terrified him unaccountably. Then he had evidently done some
rearranging of his shelves, for a great clattering and thumping and creaking ensued; after
which he had reappeared and left at once. Willett inquired whether or not any message
had been left, but was told that there was no none. The butler seemed queerly disturbed
about something in Charles's appearance and manner, and asked solicitously if there was
much hope for a cure of his disordered nerves.
For almost two hours Dr. Willett waited vainly in Charles Ward's library, watching the
dusty shelves with their wide gaps where books had been removed, and smiling grimly at
the panelled overmantel on the north wall, whence a year before the suave features of old
Joseph Curwen had looked mildly down. After a time the shadows began to gather, and
the sunset cheer gave place to a vague growing terror which flew shadow-like before the
night. Mr. Ward finally arrived, and shewed much surprise and anger at his son's absence
after all the pains which had been taken to guard him. He had not known of Charles's
appointment, and promised to notify Willett when the youth returned. In bidding the
doctor goodnight he expressed his utter perplexity at his son's condition, and urged his
caller to do all he could to restore the boy to normal poise. Willett was glad to escape
from that library, for something frightful and unholy seemed to haunt it; as if the
vanished picture had left behind a legacy of evil. He had never liked that picture; and
even now, strong-nerved though he was, there lurked a quality in its vacant panel which
made him feel an urgent need to get out into the pure air as soon as possible.
3
The next morning Willett received a message from the senior Ward, saying that Charles
was still absent. Mr. Ward mentioned that Dr. Allen had telephoned him to say that
Charles would remain at Pawtuxet for some time, and that he must not be disturbed. This
was necessary because Allen himself was suddenly called away for an indefinite period,
leaving the researches in need of Charles's constant oversight. Charles sent his best
wishes, and regretted any bother his abrupt change of plans might have caused. It
listening to this message Mr. Ward heard Dr. Allen's voice for the first time, and it
seemed to excite some vague and elusive memory which could not be actually placed, but
which was disturbing to the point of fearfulness.
Faced by these baffling and contradictory reports, Dr. Willett was frankly at a loss what
to do. The frantic earnestness of Charles's note was not to be denied, yet what could one
think of its writer's immediate violation of his own expressed policy? Young Ward had
written that his delvings had become blasphemous and menacing, that they and his
bearded colleague must be extirpated at any cost, and that he himself would never return
to their final scene; yet according to latest advices he had forgotten all this and was back
in the thick of the mystery. Common sense bade one leave the youth alone with his
freakishness, yet some deeper instinct would not permit the impression of that frenzied
letter to subside. Willett read it over again, and could not make its essence sound as
empty and insane as both its bombastic verbiage and its lack of fulfilment would seem to
imply. Its terror was too profound and real, and in conjunction with what the doctor
already knew evoked too vivid hints of monstrosities from beyond time and space to
permit of any cynical explanation. There were nameless horrors abroad; and no matter
how little one might be able to get at them, one ought to stand prepared for any sort of
action at any time.
For over a week Dr. Willett pondered on the dilemma which seemed thrust upon him, and
became more and more inclined to pay Charles a call at the Pawtuxet bungalow. No
friend of the youth had ever ventured to storm this forbidden retreat, and even his father
knew of its interior only from such descriptions as he chose to give; but Willett felt that
some direct conversation with his patient was necessary. Mr. Ward had been receiving
brief and non-committal typed notes from his son, and said that Mrs. Ward in her Atlantic
City retirement had had no better word. So at length the doctor resolved to act; and
despite a curious sensation inspired by old legends of Joseph Curwen, and by more recent
revelations and warnings from Charles Ward, set boldly out for the bungalow on the bluff
above the river.
Willett had visited the spot before through sheer curiousity, though of course never
entering the house or proclaiming his presence; hence knew exactly the route to take.
Driving out Broad Street one early afternoon toward the end of February in his small
motor, he thought oddly of the grim party which had taken that selfsame road a hundred
and fifty-seven years before on a terrible errand which none might ever comprehend.
The ride through the city's decaying fringe was short, and trim Edgewood and sleepy
Pawtuxet presently spread out ahead. Willett turned to the right down Lockwood Street
and drove his car as far along that rural road as he could, then alighted and walked north
to where the bluff towered above the lovely bends of the river and the sweep of misty
downlands beyond. Houses were still few here, and there was no mistaking the isolated
bungalow with its concrete garage on a high point of land at his left. Stepping briskly up
the neglected gravel walk he rapped at the door with a firm hand, and spoke without a
tremor to the evil Portuguese mulatto who opened it to the width of a crack.
He must, he said, see Charles Ward at once on vitally important business. No excuse
would be accepted, and a repulse would mean only a full report of the matter to the elder
Ward. The mulatto still hesitated, and pushed against the door when Willett attempted to
open it; but the doctor merely raised his voice and renewed his demands. Then there
came from the dark interior a husky whisper which somehow chilled the hearer through
and through though he did not know why he feared it. 'Let him in, Tony,' it said, 'we may
as well talk now as ever.' But disturbing as was the whisper, the greater fear was that
which immediately followed. The floor creaked and the speaker hove in sight - and the
owner of those strange and resonant tones was seen to be no other than Charles Dexter
Ward.
The minuteness with which Dr. Willett recalled and recorded his conversation of that
afternoon is due to the importance he assigns to this particular period. For at last he
concedes a vital change in Charles Dexter Ward's mentality, and believes that the youth
now spoke from a brain hopelessly alien to the brain whose growth he had watched for
six and twenty years. Controversy with Dr. Lyman has compelled him to be very specific,
and he definitely dates the madness of Charles Ward from the time the typewritten notes
began to reach his parents. Those notes are not in Ward's normal style; not even in the
style of that last frantic letter to Willett. Instead, they are strange and archaic, as if the
snapping of the writer's mind had released a flood of tendencies and impressions picked
up unconsciously through boyhood antiquarianism. There is an obvious effort to be
modern, but the spirit and occasionally the language are those of the past.
The past, too, was evident in Ward's every tone and gesture as he received the doctor in
that shadowy bungalow. He bowed, motioned Willett to a seat, and began to speak
abruptly in that strange whisper which he sought to explain at the very outset.
'I am grown phthisical,' he began, 'from this cursed river air. You must excuse my speech.
I suppose you are come from my father to see what ails me, and I hope you will say
nothing to alarm him.'
Willett was studying these scraping tones with extreme care, but studying even more
closely the face of the speaker. Something, he felt, was wrong; and he thought of what
the family had told him about the fright of that Yorkshire butler one night. He wished it
were not so dark, but did not request that the blind be opened. Instead, he merely asked
Ward why he had so belied the frantic note of little more than a week before.
'I was coming to that,' the host replied. 'You must know, I am in a very bad state of
nerves, and do and say queer things I cannot account for. As I have told you often, I am
on the edge of great matters; and the bigness of them has a way of making me light-
headed. Any man might well be frighted of what I have found, but I am not to be put off
for long. I was a dunce to have that guard and stick at home; for having gone this far, my
place is here. I am not well spoke of my prying neighbours, and perhaps I was led by
weakness to believe myself what they say of me. There is no evil to any in what I do, so
long as I do it rightly. Have the goodness to wait six months, and I'll shew you what will
pay your patience well.'
'You may as well know I have a way of learning old matters from things surer than
books, and I'll leave you to judge the importance of what I can give to history,
philosophy, and the arts by reason of the doors I have access to. My ancestor had all this
when those witless peeping Toms came and murdered him. I now have it again, or am
coming very imperfectly to have a part of it. This time nothing must happen, and least of
all though any idiot fears of my own. Pray forget all I writ you, Sir, and have no fear of
this place or any in it. Dr. Allen is a man of fine parts, and I own him an apology for
anything ill I have said of him. I wish I had no need to spare him, but there were things he
had to do elsewhere. His zeal is equal to mine in all those matters, and I suppose that
when I feared the work I feared him too as my greatest helper in it.'
Ward paused, and the doctor hardly knew what to say or think. He felt almost foolish in
the face of this calm repudiation of the letter; and yet there clung to him the fact that
while the present discourse was strange and alien and indubitably mad, the note itself had
been tragic in its naturalness and likeness to the Charles Ward he knew. Willett now tried
to turn the talk on early matters, and recall to the youth some past events which would
restore a familiar mood; but in this process he obtained only the most grotesque results. It
was the same with all the alienists later on. Important sections of Charles Ward's store of
mental images, mainly those touching modern times and his own personal life, had been
unaccountably expunged; whilst all the massed antiquarianism of his youth had welled up
from some profound subconsciousness to engulf the contemporary and the individual.
The youth's intimate knowledge of elder things was abnormal and unholy, and he tried
his best to hide it. When Willett would mention some favourite object of his boyhood
archaistic studies he often shed by pure accident such a light as no normal mortal could
conceivably be expected to possess, and the doctor shuddered as the glib allusion glided
by.
It was not wholesome to know so much about the way the fat sheriff's wig fell off as he
leaned over at the play in Mr. Douglass's Histrionick Academy in King Street on the
eleventh of February, 1762, which fell on a Thursday; or about how the actors cut the text
of Steele's Conscious Lover so badly that one was almost glad the Baptist-ridden
legislature closed the theatre a fortnight later. That Thomas Sabin's Boston coach was
"damn'd uncomfortable" old letters may well have told; but what healthy antiquarian
could recall how the creaking of Epenetus Olney's new signboard (the gaudy crown he
set up after he took to calling his tavern the Crown Coffee House) was exactly like the
first few notes of the new jazz piece all the radios in Pawtuxet were playing?
Ward, however, would not be quizzed long in this vein. Modern and personal topics he
waved aside quite summarily, whilst regarding antique affairs he soon shewed the
plainest boredom. What he wished clearly enough was only to satisfy his visitor enough
to make him depart without the intention of returning. To this end he offered to shew
Willett the entire house, and at once proceeded to lead the doctor through every room
from cellar to attic. Willett looked sharply, but noted that the visible books were far too
few and trivial to have ever filled the wide gaps on Ward's shelves at home, and that the
meagre so-called "laboratory" was the flimsiest sort of a blind. Clearly, there were a
library and a laboratory elsewhere; but just where, it was impossible to say. Essentially
defeated in his quest for something he could not name, Willett returned to town before
evening and told the senior Ward everything which had occurred. They agreed that the
youth must be definitely out of his mind, but decided that nothing drastic need be done
just then. Above all, Mrs. Ward must be kept in as complete an ignorance as her son's
own strange typed notes would permit.
Mr. Ward now determined to call in person upon his son, making it wholly a surprise
visit. Dr. Willett took him in his car one evening, guiding him to within sight of the
bungalow and waiting patiently for his return. The session was a long one, and the father
emerged in a very saddened and perplexed state. His reception had developed much like
Willett's, save that Charles had been an excessively long time in appearing after the
visitor had forced his way into the hall and sent the Portuguese away with an imperative
demand; and in the bearing of the altered son there was no trace of filial affection. The
lights had been dim, yet even so the youth had complained that they dazzled him
outrageously. He had not spoken out loud at all, averring that his throat was in very poor
condition; but in his hoarse whisper there was a quality so vaguely disturbing that Mr.
Ward could not banish it from his mind.
Now definitely leagued together to do all they could toward the youth's mental salvation,
Mr. Ward and Dr. Willett set about collecting every scrap of data which the case might
afford. Pawtuxet gossip was the first item they studied, and this was relatively easy to
glean since both had friends in that region. Dr. Willett obtained the most rumours because
people talked more frankly to him than to a parent of the central figure, and from all he
heard he could tell that young Ward's life had become indeed a strange one. Common
tongues would not dissociate his household from the vampirism of the previous summer,
while the nocturnal comings and goings of the motor trucks provided their share of dark
speculations. Local tradesmen spoke of the queerness of the orders brought them by the
evil-looking mulatto, and in particular of the inordinate amounts of mean and fresh blood
secured from the two butcher shops in the immediate neighbourhood. For a household of
only three, these quantities were quite absurd.
Then there was the matter of the sounds beneath the earth. Reports of these things were
harder to point down, but all the vague hints tallied in certain basic essentials. Noises of a
ritual nature positively existed, and at times when the bungalow was dark. They might, of
course, have come from the known cellar; but rumour insisted that there were deeper and
more spreading crypts. Recalling the ancient tales of Joseph Curwen's catacombs, and
assuming for granted that the present bungalow had been selected because of its situation
on the old Curwen site as revealed in one of another of the documents found behind the
picture, Willett and Mr. Ward gave this phase of the gossip much attention; and searched
many times without success for the door in the river-bank which old manuscripts
mentioned. As to popular opinions of the bungalow's various inhabitants, it was soon
plain that the Brava Portuguese was loathed, the bearded and spectacled Dr. Allen feared,
and the pallid young scholar disliked to a profound degree. During the last week or two
Ward had obviously changed much, abandoning his attempts at affability and speaking
only in hoarse but oddly repellent whispers on the few occasions that he ventured forth.
Such were the shreds and fragments gathered here and there; and over these Mr. Ward
and Dr. Willett held many long and serious conferences. They strove to exercise
deduction, induction, and constructive imagination to their utmost extent; and to correlate
every known fact of Charles's later life, including the frantic letter which the doctor now
shewed the father, with the meagre documentary evidence available concerning old
Joseph Curwen. They would have given much for a glimpse of the papers Charles had
found, for very clearly the key to the youth's madness lay in what he had learned of the
ancient wizard and his doings.
4
And yet, after all, it was from no step of Mr. Ward's or Dr. Willett's that the next move in
this singular case proceeded. The father and the physician, rebuffed and confused by a
shadow too shapeless and intangible to combat, had rested uneasily on their oars while
the typed notes of young Ward to his parents grew fewer and fewer. Then came the first
of the month with its customary financial adjustments, and the clerks at certain banks
began a peculiar shaking of heads and telephoning from one to the other. Officials who
knew Charles Ward by sight went down to the bungalow to ask why every cheque of his
appearing at this juncture was a clumsy forgery, and were reassured less than they ought
to have been when the youth hoarsely explained that he hand had lately been so much
affected by a nervous shock as to make normal writing impossible. He could, he said,
from no written characters at all except with great difficulty; and could prove it by the
fact that he had been forced to type all his recent letters, even those to his father and
mother, who would bear out the assertion.
What made the investigators pause in confusion was not this circumstance alone, for that
was nothing unprecedented or fundamentally suspicious, nor even the Pawtuxet gossip,
of which one or two of them had caught echoes. It was the muddled discourse of the
young man which nonplussed them, implying as it did a virtually total loss of memory
concerning important monetary matters which he had had at his fingertips only a month
or two before. Something was wrong; for despite the apparent coherence and rationality
of his speech, there could be no normal reason for this ill-concealed blankness on vital
points. Moreover, although none of these men knew Ward well, they could not help
observing the change in his language and manner. They had heard he was an antiquarian,
but even the most hopeless antiquarians do not make daily use of obsolete phraseology
and gestures. Altogether, this combination of hoarseness, palsied hands, bad memory, and
altered speech and bearing must represent some disturbance or malady of genuine
gravity, which no doubt formed the basis of the prevailing odd rumours; and after their
departure the party of officials decided that a talk with the senior Ward was imperative.
So on the sixth of March, 1928, there was a long and serious conference in Mr. Ward's
office, after which the utterly bewildered father summoned Dr. Willett in a kind of
helpless resignation. Willett looked over the strained and awkward signatures of the
cheque, and compared them in his mind with the penmanship of that last frantic note.
Certainly, the change was radical and profound, and yet there was something damnably
familiar about the new writing. It had crabbed and archaic tendencies of a very curious
sort, and seemed to result from a type of stroke utterly different from that which the
youth had always used. It was strange - but where had he seen it before? On the whole, it
was obvious that Charles was insane. Of that there could be no doubt. And since it
appeared unlikely that he could handle his property or continue to deal with the outside
world much longer, something must quickly be done toward his oversight and possible
cure. It was then that the alienists were called in, Drs. Peck and Waite of Providence and
Dr. Lyman of Boston, to whom Mr. Ward and Dr. Willett gave the most exhaustive
possible history of the case, and who conferred at length in the now unused library of
their young patient, examining what books and papers of his were left in order to gain
some further notion of his habitual mental cast. After scanning this material and
examining the ominous note to Willett they all agreed that Charles Ward's studies had
been enough to unseat or at least to warp any ordinary intellect, and wished most heartily
that they could see his more intimate volumes and documents; but this latter they knew
they could do, if at all, only after a scene at the bungalow itself. Willett now reviewed the
whole case with febrile energy; it being at this time that he obtained the statements of the
workmen who had seen Charles find the Curwen documents, and that he collated the
incidents of the destroyed newspaper items, looking up the latter at the Journal office.
On Thursday, the eighth of March, Drs. Willett, Peck, Lyman, and Waite, accompanied
by Mr. Ward, paid the youth their momentous call; making no concealment of their
object and questioning the now acknowledged patient with extreme minuteness. Charles,
although he was inordinately long in answering the summons and was still redolent of
strange and noxious laboratory odours when he did finally make his agitated appearance,
proved a far from recalcitrant subject; and admitted freely that his memory and balance
had suffered somewhat from close application to abstruse studies. He offered no
resistance when his removal to other quarters was insisted upon; and seemed, indeed, to
display a high degree of intelligence as apart from mere memory. His conduct would
have sent his interviewers away in bafflement had not the persistently archaic trend of his
speech and unmistakable replacement of modern by ancient ideas in his consciousness
marked him out as one definitely removed from the normal. Of his work he would say no
more to the group of doctors than he had formerly said to his family and to Dr. Willett,
and his frantic note of the previous month he dismissed as mere nerves and hysteria. He
insisted that this shadowy bungalow possessed no library possessed no library or
laboratory beyond the visible ones, and waxed abstruse in explaining the absence from
the house of such odours as now saturated all his clothing. Neighbourhood gossip he
attributed to nothing more than the cheap inventiveness of baffled curiousity. Of the
whereabouts of Dr. Allen he said he did not feel at liberty to speak definitely, but assured
his inquisitors that the bearded and spectacled man would return when needed. In paying
off the stolid Brava who resisted all questioning by the visitors, and in closing the
bungalow which still seemed to hold such nighted secrets, Ward shewed no signs of
nervousness save a barely noticed tendency to pause as though listening for something
very faint. He was apparently animated by a calmly philosophic resignation, as if he
removal were the merest transient incident which would cause the least trouble if
facilitated and disposed of once and for all. It was clear that he trusted to his obviously
unimpaired keenness of absolute mentality to overcome all the embarrassments into
which his twisted memory, his lost voice and handwriting, and his secretive and eccentric
behaviour had led him. His mother, it was agreed, was not to be told of the change; his
father supplying typed notes in his name. Ward was taken to the restfully and
picturesquely situated private hospital maintained by Dr. Waite on Conanicut Island in
the bay, and subjected to the closest scrutiny and questioning by all the physicians
connected with the case. It was then that the physical oddities were noticed; the slackened
metabolism, the altered skin, and the disproportionate neural reactions. Dr. Willett was
the most perturbed of the various examiners, for he had attended Ward all his life and
could appreciate with terrible keenness the extent of his physical disorganisation. Even
the familiar olive mark on his hip was gone, while on his chest was a great black mole or
cicatrice which had never been there before, and which made Willett wonder whether the
youth had ever submitted to any of the witch markings reputed to be inflicted at certain
unwholesome nocturnal meetings in wild and lonely places. The doctor could not keep
his mind off a certain transcribed witch-trial record from Salem which Charles had shewn
him in the old non-secretive days, and which read: 'Mr. G. B. on that Nighte putt ye
Divell his Marke upon Bridget S., Jonathan A., Simon O., Deliverance W., Joseph C.,
Susan P., Mehitable C., and Deborah B.' Ward's face, too, troubled him horribly, till at
length he suddenly discovered why he was horrified. For above the young man's right eye
was something which he had never previously noticed - a small scar or pit precisely like
that in the crumbled painting of old Joseph Curwen, and perhaps attesting some hideous
ritualistic inoculation to which both had submitted at a certain stage of their occult
careers.
While Ward himself was puzzling all the doctors at the hospital a very strict watch was
kept on all mail addressed either to him or to Dr. Allen, which Mr. Ward had ordered
delivered at the family home. Willett had predicted that very little would be found, since
any communications of a vital nature would probably have been exchanged by
messenger; but in the latter part of March there did come a letter from Prague for Dr.
Allen which gave both the doctor and the father deep thought. It was in a very crabbed
and archaic hand; and though clearly not the effort of a foreigner, shewed almost as
singular a departure from modern English as the speech of young Ward himself. It read:
Kleinstrasse 11,
Altstadt, Prague,
11th Feby. 1928.
Brother in Almonsin-Metraton:-
I this day receiv'd yr mention of what came up from the Saltes I sent you.
It was wrong, and meanes clearly that ye Headstones had been chang'd
when Barnabas gott me the Specimen. It is often so, as you must be
sensible of from the Thing you gott from ye Kings Chapell ground in 1769
and what H. gott from Olde Bury'g Point in 1690, that was like to ende
him. I gott such a Thing in Aegypt 75 yeares gone, from the which came
that Scar ye Boy saw on me here in 1924. As I told you longe ago, do not
calle up That which you can not put downe; either from dead Saltes or out
of ye Spheres beyond. Have ye Wordes for laying at all times readie, and
stopp not to be sure when there is any Doubte of Whom you have. Stones
are all chang'd now in Nine groundes out of 10. You are never sure till you
question. I this day heard from H., who has had Trouble with the Soldiers.
He is like to be sorry Transylvania is pass't from Hungary to Roumania,
and wou'd change his Seat if the Castel weren't so fulle of What we
Knowe. But of this he hath doubtless writ you. In my next Send'g there
will be Somewhat from a Hill tomb from ye East that will delight you
greatly. Meanwhile forget not I am desirous of B. F. if you can possibly
get him for me. You know G. in Philada. better than I. Have him upp firste
if you will, but doe not use him soe hard he will be Difficult, for I must
speake to him in ye End.
Yogg-Sothoth Neblod Zin
Simon O.
To Mr. J. C. in
Providence.
Mr. Ward and Dr. Willett paused in utter chaos before this apparent bit of unrelieved
insanity. Only by degrees did they absorb what it seemed to imply. So the absent Dr.
Allen, and not Charles Ward, had come to be the leading spirit at Pawtuxet? That must
explain the wild reference and denunciation in the youth's last frantic letter. And what of
this addressing of the bearded and spectacled stranger as "Mr. J. C."? There was no
escaping the inference, but there are limits to possible monstrosity. Who was "Simon O.";
the old man Ward had visited in Prague four years previously? Perhaps, but in the
centuries behind there had been another Simon O. - Simon Orne, alias Jedediah, of
Salem, who vanished in 1771, and whose peculiar handwriting Dr. Willett now
unmistakably recognised from the photostatic copies of the Orne formulae which Charles
had once shown him. What horrors and mysteries, what contradictions and contraventions
of Nature, had come back after a century and a half to harass Old Providence with her
clustered spires and domes?
The father and the old physician, virtually at a loss what to do or think, went to see
Charles at the hospital and questioned him as delicately as they could about Dr. Allen,
about the Prague visit, and about what he had learned of Simon or Jedediah Orne of
Salem. To all these enquiries the youth was politely non-committal, merely barking in his
hoarse whisper that he had found Dr. Allen to have a remarkable spiritual rapport with
certain souls from the past, and that any correspondent the bearded man might have in
Prague would probably be similarly gifted. When they left, Mr. Ward and Dr. Willett
realised to their chagrin that they had really been the ones under catechism; and that
without imparting anything vital himself, the confined youth had adroitly pumped them
of everything the Prague letter had contained.
Drs. Peck, Waite, and Lyman were not inclined to attach much importance to the strange
correspondence of young Ward's companion; for they knew the tendency of kindred
eccentrics and monomaniacs to band together, and believed that Charles or Allen had
merely unearthed an expatriated counterpart - perhaps one who had seen Orne's
handwriting and copied it in an attempt to pose as the bygone character's reincarnation.
Allen himself was perhaps a similar case, and may have persuaded the youth into
accepting him as an avatar of the long-dead Curwen. Such things had been known before,
and on the same basis the hard-headed doctors disposed of Willett's growing disquiet
about Charles Ward's present handwriting, as studied from unpremeditated specimens
obtained by various ruses. Willett thought he had placed its odd familiarity at last, and
that what it vaguely resembled was the bygone penmanship of old Joseph Curwen
himself; but this the other physicians regarded as a phase of imitativeness only to be
expected in a mania of this sort, and refused to grant it any importance either favourable
or unfavourable. Recognising this prosaic attitude in his colleagues, Willett advised Mr.
Ward to keep to himself the letter which arrived for Dr. Allen on the second of April
from Rakus, Transylvania, in a handwriting so intensely and fundamentally like that of
the Hutchinson cipher that both father and physician paused in awe before breaking the
seal. This read as follows:
Castle Ferenczy
7 March 1928.
Dear C.:-
Hadd a Squad of 20 Militia up to talk about what the Country Folk say.
Must digg deeper and have less Hearde. These Roumanians plague me
damnably, being officious and particular where you cou'd buy a Magyar
off with a Drinke and Food.
Last monthe M. got me ye Sarcophagus of ye Five Sphinxes from ye
Acropolis where He whome I call'd up say'd it wou'd be, and I have hadde
3 Talkes with What was therein inhum'd. It will go to S. O. in Prague
directly, and thence to you. It is stubborn but you know ye Way with
Such.
You shew Wisdom in having lesse about than Before; for there was no
Neede to keep the Guards in Shape and eat'g off their Heads, and it made
Much to be founde in Case of Trouble, as you too welle knowe. You can
now move and worke elsewhere with no Kill'g Trouble if needful, tho' I
hope no Thing will soon force you to so Bothersome a Course.
I rejoice that you traffick not so much with Those Outside; for there was
ever a Mortall Peril in it, and you are sensible what it did when you ask'd
Protection of One not dispos'd to give it.
You excel me in gett'g ye Formulae so another may saye them with
Success, but Borellus fancy'd it wou'd be so if just ye right Wordes were
hadd. Does ye Boy use 'em often? I regret that he growes squeamish, as I
fear'd he wou'd when I hadde him here nigh 15 Monthes, but am sensible
you knowe how to deal with him. You can't saye him down with ye
Formula, for that will Worke only upon such as ye other Formula hath
call'd up from Saltes; but you still have strong Handes and Knife and
Pistol, and Graves are not harde to digg, nor Acids loth to burne.
O. sayes you have promis'd him B. F. I must have him after. B. goes to
you soone, and may he give you what you wishe of that Darke Thing
belowe Memphis. Imploy care in what you calle up, and beware of ye
Boy.
It will be ripe in a yeare's time to have up ye Legions from Underneath,
and then there are no Boundes to what shal be oures. Have Confidence in
what I saye, for you knowe O. and I have hadd these 150 yeares more than
you to consulte these Matters in.
Nephreu - Ka nai Hadoth
Edw. H.
For J Curwen, Esq.
Providence.
But if Willett and Mr. Ward refrained from shewing this letter to the alienists, they did
not refrain from acting upon it themselves. No amount of learned sophistry could
controvert the fact that the strangely bearded and spectacled Dr. Allen, of whom Charles's
frantic letter had spoken as such a monstrous menace, was in close and sinister
correspondence with two inexplicable creatures whom Ward had visited in his travels and
who plainly claimed to be survivals or avatars of Curwen's old Salem colleagues; that he
was regarding himself as the reincarnation of Joseph Curwen, and that he entertained - or
was at least advised to entertain - murderous designs against a "boy" who could scarcely
be other than Charles Ward. There was organised horror afoot; and no matter who had
started it, the missing Allen was by this time at the bottom of it. Therefore, thanking
heaven that Charles was now safe in the hospital, Mr. Ward lost no time in engaging
detectives to learn all they could of the cryptic, bearded doctor; finding whence he had
come and what Pawtuxet knew of him, and if possible discovering his present
whereabouts. Supplying the men with one of the bungalow keys which Charles yielded
up, he urged them to explore Allen's vacant room which had been identified when the
patient's belongings had been packed; obtaining what clues they could from any effects
he might have left about. Mr. Ward talked with the detectives in his son's old library, and
they felt a marked relief when they left it at last; for there seemed to hover about the
place a vague aura of evil. Perhaps it was what they had heard of the infamous old wizard
whose picture had once stared from the panelled overmantel, and perhaps it was
something different and irrelevant; but in any case they all half sensed an intangible
miasma which centred in that carven vestige of an older dwelling and which at times
almost rose to the intensity of a material emanation.
V. A Nightmare and a Cataclysm
1
And now swiftly followed that hideous experience which has left its indelible mark of
fear on the soul of Marinus Bicknell Willett, and has added a decade to the visible age of
one whose youth was even then far behind. Dr. Willett had conferred at length with Mr.
Ward, and had come to an agreement with him on several points which both felt the
alienists would ridicule. There was, they conceded, a terrible movement alive in the
world, whose direct connexion with a necromancy even older than the Salem witchcraft
could not be doubted. That at least two living men - and one other of whom they dared
not think - were in absolute possession of minds or personalities which had functioned as
early as 1690 or before was likewise almost unassailably proved even in the face of all
known natural laws. What these horrible creatures - and Charles Ward as well - were
doing or trying to do seemed fairly clear from their letters and from every bit of light both
old and new which had filtered in upon the case. They were robbing the tombs of all the
ages, including those of the world's wisest and greatest men, in the hope of recovering
from the bygone ashes some vestige of the consciousness and lore which had once
animated and informed them.
A hideous traffic was going on among these nightmare ghouls, whereby illustrious bones
were bartered with the calm calculativeness of schoolboys swapping books; and from
what was extorted from this centuried dust there was anticipated a power and a wisdom
beyond anything which the cosmos had ever seen concentred in one man or group. They
had found unholy ways to keep their brains alive, either in the same body or different
bodies; and had evidently achieved a way of tapping the consciousness of the dead whom
they gathered together. There had, it seems, been some truth in chimerical old Borellus
when he wrote of preparing from even the most antique remains certain "Essential Saltes"
from which the shade of a long-dead living thing might be raised up. There was a formula
for evoking such a shade, and another for putting it down; and it had now been so
perfected that it could be taught successfully. One must be careful about evocations, for
the markers of old graves are not always accurate.
Willett and Mr. Ward shivered as they passed from conclusion to conclusion. Things -
presences or voices of some sort - could be drawn down from unknown places as well as
from the grave, and in this process also one must be careful. Joseph Curwen had
indubitably evoked many forbidden things, and as for Charles - what might one think of
him? What forces "outside the spheres" had reached him from Joseph Curwen's day and
turned his mind on forgotten things? He had been led to find certain directions, and he
had used them. He had talked with the man of horror in Prague and stayed long with the
creature in the mountains of Transylvania. And he must have found the grave of Joseph
Curwen at last. That newspaper item and what his mother had heard in the night were too
significant to overlook. Then he had summoned something, and it must have come. That
mighty voice aloft on Good Friday, and those different tones in the locked attic
laboratory. What were they like, with their depth and hollowness? Was there not here
some awful foreshadowing of the dreaded stranger Dr. Allen with his spectral bass? Yes,
that was what Mr. Ward had felt with vague horror in his single talk with the man - if
man it were - over the telephone!
What hellish consciousness or voice, what morbid shade or presence, had come to answer
Charles Ward's secret rites behind that locked door? Those voices heard in argument -
"must have it red for three months" - Good God! Was not that just before the vampirism
broke out? The rifling of Ezra Weeden's ancient grave, and the cries later at Pawtuxet -
whose mind had planned the vengeance and rediscovered the shunned seat of elder
blasphemies? And then the bungalow and the bearded stranger, and the gossip, and the
fear. The final madness of Charles neither father nor doctor could attempt to explain, but
they did feel sure that the mind of Joseph Curwen had come to earth again and was
following its ancient morbidities. Was daemoniac possession in truth a possibility? Allen
had something to do with it, and the detectives must find out more about one whose
existence menaced the young man's life. In the meantime, since the existence of some
vast crypt beneath the bungalow seemed virtually beyond dispute, some effort must be
made to find it. Willett and Mr. Ward, conscious of the sceptical attitude of the alienists,
resolved during their final conference to undertake a joint secret exploration of
unparalleled thoroughness; and agreed to meet at the bungalow on the following morning
with valises and with certain tools and accessories suited to architectural search and
underground exploration.
The morning of April 6th dawned clear, and both explorers were at the bungalow by ten
o'clock. Mr. Ward had the key, and an entry and cursory survey were made. From the
disordered condition of Dr. Allen's room it was obvious that the detectives had been there
before, and the later searchers hoped that they had found some clue which might prove of
value. Of course the main business lay in the cellar; so thither they descended without
much delay, again making the circuit which each had vainly made before in the presence
of the mad young owner. For a time everything seemed baffling, each inch of the earthen
floor and stone walls having so solid and innocuous an aspect that the thought of a
yearning aperture was scarcely to be entertained. Willett reflected that since the original
cellar was dug without knowledge of any catacombs beneath, the beginning of the
passage would represent the strictly modern delving of young Ward and his associates,
where they had probed for the ancient vaults whose rumour could have reached them by
no wholesome means.
The doctor tried to put himself in Charles's place to see how a delver would be likely to
start, but could not gain much inspiration from this method. Then he decided on
elimination as a policy, and went carefully over the whole subterranean surface both
vertical and horizontal, trying to account for every inch separately. He was soon
substantially narrowed down, and at last had nothing left but the small platform before
the washtubs, which he tried once before in vain. Now experimenting in every possible
way, and exerting a double strength, he finally found that the top did indeed turn and
slide horizontally on a corner pivot. Beneath it lay a trim concrete surface with an iron
manhole, to which Mr. Ward at once rushed with excited zeal. The cover was not hard to
lift, and the father had quite removed it when Willett noticed the queerness of his aspect.
He was swaying and nodding dizzily, and in the gust of noxious air which swept up from
the black pit beneath the doctor soon recognised ample cause.
In a moment Dr. Willett had his fainting companion on the floor above and was reviving
him with cold water. Mr. Ward responded feebly, but it could be seen that the mephitic
blast from the crypt had in some way gravely sickened him. Wishing to take no chances,
Willett hastened out to Broad Street for a taxicab and had soon dispatched the sufferer
home despite his weak-voiced protests; after which he produced an electric torch,
covered his nostrils with a band of sterile gauze, and descended once more to peer into
the new-found depths. The foul air had now slightly abated, and Willett was able to send
a beam of light down the Stygian hold. For about ten feet, he saw, it was a sheer
cylindrical drop with concrete walls and an iron ladder; after which the hole appeared to
strike a flight of old stone steps which must originally have emerged to earth somewhat
southwest of the present building.
2
Willett freely admits that for a moment the memory of the old Curwen legends kept him
from climbing down alone into that malodorous gulf. He could not help thinking of what
Like Fenner had reported on that last monstrous night. Then duty asserted itself and he
made the plunge, carrying a great valise for the removal of whatever papers might prove
of supreme importance. Slowly, as befitted one of his years, he descended the ladder and
reached the slimy steps below. This was ancient masonry, his torch told him; and upon
the dripping walls he saw the unwholesome moss of centuries. Down, down, ran the
steps; not spirally, but in three abrupt turns; and with such narrowness that two men could
have passed only with difficulty. He had counted about thirty when a sound reached him
very faintly; and after that he did not feel disposed to count any more.
It was a godless sound; one of those low-keyed, insidious outrages of Nature which are
not meant to be. To call it a dull wail, a doom-dragged whine, or a hopeless howl of
chorused anguish and stricken flesh without mind would be to miss its quintessential
loathsomeness and soul-sickening overtones. Was it for this that Ward had seemed to
listen on that day he was removed? It was the most shocking thing that Willett had ever
heard, and it continued from no determinate point as the doctor reached the bottom of the
steps and cast his torchlight around on lofty corridor walls surmounted by Cyclopean
vaulting and pierced by numberless black archways. The hall in which he stood was
perhaps fourteen feet high in the middle of the vaulting and ten or twelve feet broad. Its
pavement was of large chipped flagstone, and its walls and roof were of dressed masonry.
Its length he could not imagine, for it stretched ahead indefinitely into the blackness. Of
the archways, some had doors of the old six-panelled colonial type, whilst others had
none.
Overcoming the dread induced by the smell and the howling, Willett began to explore
these archways one by one; finding beyond them rooms with groined stone ceilings, each
of medium size and apparently of bizarre used. Most of them had fireplaces, the upper
courses of whose chimneys would have formed an interesting study in engineering.
Never before or since had he seen such instruments or suggestions of instruments as here
loomed up on every hand through the burying dust and cobwebs of a century and a half,
in many cases evidently shattered as if by the ancient raiders. For many of the chambers
seemed wholly untrodden by modern feet, and must have represented the earliest and
most obsolete phases of Joseph Curwen's experimentation. Finally there came a room of
obvious modernity, or at least of recent occupancy. There were oil heaters, bookshelves
and tables, chairs and cabinets, and a desk piled high with papers of varying antiquity and
contemporaneousness. Candlesticks and oil lamps stood about in several places; and
finding a match-safe handy, Willett lighted such as were ready for use.
In the fuller gleam it appeared that this apartment was nothing less than the latest study or
library of Charles Ward. Of the books the doctor had seen many before, and a good part
of the furniture had plainly come from the Prospect Street mansion. Here and there was a
piece well known to Willett, and the sense of familiarity became so great that he half
forgot the noisomness and the wailing, both of which were plainer here than they had
been at the foot of the steps. His first duty, as planned long ahead, was to find and seize
any papers which might seem of vital importance; especially those portentous documents
found by Charles so long ago behind the picture in Olney Court. As he search he
perceived how stupendous a task the final unravelling would be; for file on file was
stuffed with papers in curious hands and bearing curious designs, so that months or even
years might be needed for a thorough deciphering and editing. Once he found three large
packets of letters with Prague and Rakus postmarks, and in writing clearly recognisable
as Orne's and Hutchinson's; all of which he took with him as part of the bundle to be
removed in his valise.
At last, in a locked mahogany cabinet once gracing the Ward home, Willett found the
batch of old Curwen papers; recognising them from the reluctant glimpse Charles had
granted him so many years ago. The youth had evidently kept them together very much
as they had been when first he found them, since all the titles recalled by the workmen
were present except the papers addressed to Orne and Hutchinson, and the cipher with its
key. Willett placed the entire lot in his valise and continued his examination of the files.
Since young Ward's immediate condition was the greatest matter at stake, the closest
searching was done among the most obviously recent matter; and in this abundance of
contemporary manuscript one very baffling oddity was noted. The oddity was the slight
amount in Charles's normal writing, which indeed included nothing more recent than two
months before. On the other hand, there were literally reams of symbols and formulae,
historical notes and philosophical comment, in a crabbed penmanship absolutely identical
with the ancient script of Joseph Curwen, though of undeniably modern dating. Plainly, a
part of the latter-day programme had been a sedulous imitation of the old wizard's
writing, which Charles seemed to have carried to a marvellous state of perfection. Of any
third hand which might have been Allen's there was not a trace. If he had indeed come to
be the leader, he must have forced young Ward to act as his amanuensis.
In this new material one mystic formula, or rather pair of formulae, recurred so often that
Willett had it by heart before he had half finished his quest. It consisted of two parallel
columns, the left-hand one surmounted by the archaic symbol called "Dragon's Head"
and used in almanacs to indicate the ascending node, and the right-hand one headed by a
corresponding sign of "Dragon's Tail" or descending node. The appearance of the whole
was something like this, and almost unconsciously the doctor realised that the second half
was no more than the first written syllabically backward with the exception of the final
monosyllables and of the odd name Yog-Sothoth, which he had come to recognise under
various spellings from other things he had seen in connexion with this horrible matter.
The formulae were as follows - exactly so, as Willett is abundantly able to testify - and
the first one struck an odd note of uncomfortable latent memory in his brain, which he
recognised later when reviewing the events of that horrible Good Friday of the previous
year.
So haunting were these formulae, and so frequently did he come upon them, that before
the doctor knew it he was repeating them under his breath. Eventually, however, he felt
he had secured all the papers he could digest to advantage for the present; hence resolved
to examine no more till he could bring the sceptical alienists en masse for an ampler and
more systematic raid. He had still to find the hidden laboratory, so leaving his valise in
the lighted room he emerged again into the black noisome corridor whose vaulting
echoed ceaseless with that dull and hideous whine.
The next few rooms he tried were all abandoned, or filled only with crumbling boxes and
ominous-looking leaden coffins; but impressed him deeply with the magnitude of Joseph
Curwen's original operations. He thought of the slaves and seamen who had disappeared,
of the graves which had been violated in every part of the world, and of what that final
raiding party must have seen; and then he decided it was better not to think any more.
Once a great stone staircase mounted at his right, and he deduced that this must have
reached to one of the Curwen outbuildings - perhaps the famous stone edifice with the
high slit-like windows - provided the steps he had descended had led from the steep-
roofed farmhouse. Suddenly the walls seemed to fall away ahead, and the stench and the
wailing grew stronger. Willett saw that he had come upon a vast open space, so great that
his torchlight would not carry across it; and as he advanced he encountered occasional
stout pillars supporting the arches of the roof.
After a time he reached a circle of pillars grouped like the monoliths of Stonehenge, with
a large carved altar on a base of three steps in the centre; and so curious were the carvings
on that altar that he approached to study them with his electric light. But when he saw
what they were he shrank away shuddering, and did not stop to investigate the dark stains
which discoloured the upper surface and had spread down the sides in occasional thin
lines. Instead, he found the distant wall and traced it as it swept round in a gigantic circle
perforated by occasional black doorways and indented by a myriad of shallow cells with
iron gratings and wrist and ankle bonds on chains fastened to the stone of the concave
rear masonry. These cells were empty, but still the horrible odour and the dismal moaning
continued, more insistent now than ever, and seemingly varied at time by a sort of
slippery thumping.
3
From that frightful smell and that uncanny noise Willett's attention could no longer be
diverted. Both were plainer and more hideous in the great pillared hall than anywhere
else, and carried a vague impression of being far below, even in this dark nether world of
subterrene mystery. Before trying any of the black archways for steps leading further
down, the doctor cast his beam of light about the stone-flagged floor. It was very loosely
paved, and at irregular intervals there would occur a slab curiously pierced by small holes
in no definite arrangement, while at one point there lay a very long ladder carelessly
flung down. To this ladder, singularly enough, appeared to cling a particularly large
amount of the frightful odour which encompassed everything. As he walked slowly about
it suddenly occurred to Willett that both the noise and the odour seemed strongest above
the oddly pierced slabs, as if they might be crude trap-doors leading down to some still
deeper region of horror. Kneeling by one, he worked at it with his hands, and found that
with extreme difficulty he could budge it. At his touch the moaning beneath ascended to a
louder key, and only with vast trepidation did he persevere in the lifting of the heavy
stone. A stench unnameable now rose up from below, and the doctor's head reeled dizzily
as he laid back the slab and turned his torch upon the exposed square yard of gaping
blackness.
If he had expected a flight of steps to some wide gulf of ultimate abomination, Willett
was destined to be disappointed; for amidst that foetor and cracked whining he discerned
only the brick-faced top of a cylindrical well perhaps a yard and a half in diameter and
devoid of any ladder or other means of descent. As the light shone down, the wailing
changed suddenly to a series of horrible yelps; in conjunction with which there came
again that sound of blind, futile scrambling and slippery thumping. The explorer
trembled, unwilling even to imagine what noxious thing might be lurking in that abyss,
but in a moment mustered up the courage to peer over the rough-hewn brink; lying at full
length and holding the torch downward at arm's length to see what might lie below. For a
second he could distinguish nothing but the slimy, moss-grown brick walls sinking
illimitably into that half-tangible miasma of murk and foulness and anguished frenzy; and
then he saw that something dark was leaping clumsily and frantically up and down at the
bottom of the narrow shaft, which must have been from twenty to twenty-five feet below
the stone floor where he lay. The torch shook in his hand, but he looked again to see what
manner of living creature might be immured there in the darkness of that unnatural well;
left starving by young Ward through all the long month since the doctors had taken him
away, and clearly only one of a vast number prisoned in the kindred wells whose pierced
stone covers so thickly studded the floor of the great vaulted cavern. Whatever the things
were, they could not lie down in their cramped spaces; but must have crouched and
whined and waited and feebly leaped all those hideous weeks since their master had
abandoned them unheeded.
But Marinus Bicknell Willett was sorry that he looked again; for surgeon and veteran of
the dissecting-room though he was, he has not been the same since. It is hard to explain
just how a single sight of a tangible object with measurable dimensions could so shake
and change a man; and we may only say that there is about certain outlines and entities a
power of symbolism and suggestion which acts frightfully on a sensitive thinker's
perspective and whispers terrible hints of obscure cosmic relationships and unnameable
realities behind the protective illusions of common vision. In that second look Willett saw
such an outline or entity, for during the next few instants he was undoubtedly as stark
raving mad as any inmate of Dr. Waite's private hospital. He dropped the electric torch
from a hand drained of muscular power or nervous coördination, nor heeded the sound of
crunching teeth which told of its fate at the bottom of the pit. He screamed and screamed
and screamed in a voice whose falsetto panic no acquaintance of his would ever have
recognised; and though he could not rise to his feet he crawled and rolled desperately
away from the damp pavement where dozens of Tartarean wells poured forth their
exhausted whining and yelping to answer his own insane cries. He tore his hands on the
rough, loose stones, and many times bruised his head against the frequent pillars, but still
he kept on. Then at last he slowly came to himself in the utter blackness and stench, and
stopped his ears against the droning wail into which the burst of yelping had subsided. He
was drenched with perspiration and without means of producing a light; stricken and
unnerved in the abysmal blackness and horror, and crushed with a memory he never
could efface. Beneath him dozens of those things still lived, and from one of those shafts
the cover was removed. He knew that what he had seen could never climb up the slippery
walls, yet shuddered at the thought that some obscure foot-hold might exist.
What the thing was, he would never tell. It was like some of the carvings on the hellish
altar, but it was alive. Nature had never made it in this form, for it was too palpably
unfinished. The deficiencies were of the most surprising sort, and the abnormalities of
proportion could not be described. Willett consents only to say that this type of thing
must have represented entities which Ward called up from imperfect salts, and which he
kept for servile or ritualistic purposes. If it had not had a certain significance, its image
would not have been carved on that damnable stone. It was not the worst thing depicted
on that stone - but Willett never opened the other pits. At the time, the first connected
idea in his mind was an idle paragraph from some of the old Curwen data he had digested
long before; a phrase used by Simon or Jedediah Orne in that portentous confiscated
letter to the bygone sorcerer:
'Certainely, there was Noth'g but ye liveliest Awfulness in that which H.
rais'd upp from What he cou'd gather onlie a part of.'
Then, horribly supplementing rather than displacing this image, there came a recollection
of those ancient lingering rumours anent the burned, twisted thing found in the fields a
week after the Curwen raid. Charles Ward had once told the doctor what old Slocum said
of that object; that it was neither thoroughly human, nor wholly allied to any animal
which Pawtuxet folk had ever seen or read about.
These words hummed in the doctor's mind as he rocked to and fro, squatting on the
nitrous stone floor. He tried to drive them out, and repeated the Lord's Prayer to himself;
eventually trailing off into a mnemonic hodge-podge like the modernistic Waste Land of
Mr. T. S. Eliot, and finally reverting to the oft-repeated dual formula he had lately found
in Ward's underground library: 'Y'ai 'ng'ngah, Yog-Sothoth' and so on till the final
underlined Zhro.
It seemed to soothe him, and he staggered to his feet after a time; lamenting bitterly his
fright-lost torch and looking wildly about for any gleam of light in the clutching inkiness
of the chilly air. Think he would not; but he strained his eyes in every direction for some
faint glint or reflection of the bright illumination he had left in the library. After a while
he thought he detected a suspicion of a glow infinitely far away, and toward this he
crawled in agonised caution on hands and knees amidst the stench and howling, always
feeling ahead lest he collide with the numerous great pillars or stumble into the
abominable pit he had uncovered.
Once his shaking fingers touched something which he knew must be the steps leading to
the hellish altar, and from this spot he recoiled in loathing. At another time he
encountered the pierced slab he had removed, and here his caution became almost pitiful.
But he did not come upon the dread aperture after all, nor did anything issue from that
aperture to detain him. What had been down there made no sound nor stir. Evidently its
crunching of the fallen electric torch had not been good for it. Each time Willett's fingers
felt a perforated slab he trembled. His passage over it would sometimes increase the
groaning below, but generally it would produce no effect at all, since he moved very
noiselessly. Several times during his progress the glow ahead diminished perceptibly, and
he realised that the various candles and lamps he had left must be expiring one by one.
The thought of being lost in utter darkness without matches amidst this underground
world of nightmare labyrinths impelled him to rise to his feet and run, which he could
safely do now that he had passed the open pit; for he knew that once the light failed, his
only hope of rescue and survival would lie in whatever relief party Mr. Ward might send
after missing him for a sufficient period. Presently, however, he emerged from the open
space into the narrower corridor and definitely located the glow as coming from a door
on his right. In a moment he had reached it and was standing once more in young Ward's
secret library, trembling with relief, and watching the sputterings of that last lamp which
had brought him to safety.
4
In another moment he was hastily filling the burned-out lamps from an oil supply he had
previously noticed, and when the room was bright again he looked about to see if he
might find a lantern for further exploration. For racked though he was with horror, his
sense of grim purpose was still uppermost; and he was firmly determined to leave no
stone unturned in his search for the hideous facts behind Charles Ward's bizarre madness.
Failing to find a lantern, he chose the smallest of the lamps to carry; also filling his
pockets with candles and matches, and taking with him a gallon can of oil, which he
proposed to keep for reserve use in whatever hidden laboratory he might uncover beyond
the terrible open space with its unclean altar and nameless covered wells. To traverse that
space again would require his utmost fortitude, but he knew it must be done. Fortunately
neither the frightful altar nor the opened shaft was near the vast cell-indented wall which
bounded the cavern area, and whose black mysterious archways would form the next
goals of a logical search.
So Willett went back to that great pillared hall of stench and anguished howling; turning
down his lamp to avoid any distant glimpse of the hellish altar, or of the uncovered pit
with the pierced stone slab beside it. Most of the black doorways led merely to small
chambers, some vacant and some evidently used as storerooms; and in several of the
latter he saw some very curious accumulations of various objects. One was packed with
rotting and dust-draped bales of spare clothing, and the explorer thrilled when he saw that
it was unmistakably the clothing of a century and a half before. In another room he found
numerous odds and ends of modern clothing, as if gradual provisions were being made to
equip a large body of men. But what he disliked most of all were the huge copper vats
which occasionally appeared; these, and the sinister incrustations upon them. He liked
them even less than the weirdly figured leaden bowls whose rims retained such
obnoxious deposits and around which clung repellent odours perceptible above even the
general noisomness of the crypt. When he had completed about half the entire circuit of
the wall he found another corridor like that from which he had come, and out of which
many doors opened. This he proceeded to investigate; and after entering three rooms of
medium size and of no significant contents, he came at last to a large oblong apartment
whose business-like tanks and tables, furnaces and modern instruments, occasional books
and endless shelves of jars and bottles proclaimed it indeed the long-sought laboratory of
Charles Ward - and no doubt of old Joseph Curwen before him.
After lighting the three lamps which he found filled and ready, Dr. Willett examined the
place and all the appurtenances with the keenest interest; noting from the relative
quantities of various reagents on the shelves that young Ward's dominant concern must
have been with some branch of organic chemistry. On the whole, little could be learned
from the scientific ensemble, which included a gruesome-looking dissecting-table; so that
the room was really rather a disappointment. Among the books was a tattered old copy of
Borellus in black-letter, and it was weirdly interesting to note that Ward had underlined
the same passage whose marking had so perturbed good Mr. Merritt in Curwen's
farmhouse more than a century and half before. That old copy, of course, must have
perished along with the rest of Curwen's occult library in the final raid. Three archways
opened off the laboratory, and these the doctor proceeded to sample in turn. From his
cursory survey he saw that two led merely to small storerooms; but these he canvassed
with care, remarking the piles of coffins in various stages of damage and shuddering
violently at two or three of the few coffin-plates he could decipher. There was much
clothing also stored in these rooms, and several new and tightly nailed boxes which he
did not stop to investigate. Most interesting of all, perhaps, were some odd bits which he
judged to be fragments of old Joseph Curwen's laboratory appliances. These had suffered
damage at the hands of the raiders, but were still partly recognisable as the chemical
paraphernalia of the Georgian period.
The third archway led to a very sizeable chamber entirely lined with shelves and having
in the centre a table bearing two lamps. These lamps Willett lighted, and in their brilliant
glow studied the endless shelving which surrounded him. Some of the upper levels were
wholly vacant, but most of the space was filled with small odd-looking leaden jars of two
general types; one tall and without handles like a Grecian lekythos or oil-jug, and the
other with a single handle and proportioned like a Phaleron jug. All had metal stoppers,
and were covered with peculiar-looking symbols moulded in low relief. In a moment the
doctor noticed that these jugs were classified with great rigidity; all the lekythoi being on
one side of the room with a large wooden sign reading 'Custodes' above them, and all the
Phalerons on the other, correspondingly labelled with a sign reading 'Materia'.
Each of the jars of jugs, except some on the upper shelves that turned out to be vacant,
bore a cardboard tag with a number apparently referring to a catalogue; and Willett
resolved to look for the latter presently. For the moment, however, he was more
interested in the nature of the array as a whole, and experimentally opened several of the
lekythoi and Phalerons at random with a view to a rough generalisation. The result was
invariable. Both types of jar contained a small quantity of a single kind of substance; a
fine dusty powder of very light weight and of many shades of dull, neutral colour. To the
colours which formed the only point of variation there was no apparent method of
disposal; and no distinction between what occurred in the lekythoi and what occurred in
the Phalerons. A bluish-grey powder might be by the side of a pinkish-white one, and any
one in a Phaleron might have its exact counterpart in a lekythos. The most individual
feature about the powders was their non-adhesiveness. Willett would pour one into his
hand, and upon returning it to its jug would find that no residue whatever remained on his
palm.
The meaning of the two signs puzzled him, and he wondered why this battery of
chemicals was separated so radically from those in glass jars on the shelves of the
laboratory proper. "Custodes", "Materia"; that was the Latin for "Guards" and
"Materials", respectively - and then there came a flash of memory as to where he had
seen that word "Guards" before in connexion with this dreadful mystery. It was, of
course, in the recent letter to Dr. Allen purporting to be from old Edwin Hutchinson; and
the phrase had read: 'There was no Neede to keep the Guards in Shape and eat'g off their
Heads, and it made Much to be founde in Case of Trouble, as you too welle knowe.'
What did this signify? But wait - was there not still another reference to "guards" in this
matter which he had failed wholly to recall when reading the Hutchinson letter? Back in
the old non-secretive days Ward had told him of the Eleazar Smith diary recording the
spying of Smith and Weeden on the Curwen farm, and in that dreadful chronicle there
had been a mention of conversations overheard before the old wizard betook himself
wholly beneath the earth. There had been, Smith and Weeden insisted, terrible colloquies
wherein figured Curwen, certain captives of his, and the guards of those captives. Those
guards, according to Hutchinson or his avatar, had "eaten their heads off", so that now
Dr. Allen did not keep them in shape. And if not in shape, how save as the "salts" to
which it appears this wizard band was engaged in reducing as many human bodies or
skeletons as they could?
So that was what these lekythoi contained; the monstrous fruit of unhallowed rites and
deeds, presumably won or cowed to such submission as to help, when called up by some
hellish incantation, in the defence of their blasphemous master or the questioning of those
who were not so willing? Willett shuddered at the thought of what he had been pouring in
and out of his hands, and for a moment felt an impulse to flee in panic from that cavern of
hideous shelves with their silent and perhaps watching sentinels. Then he thought of the
"Materia" - in the myriad Phaleron jugs on the other side of the room. Salts too - and if
not the salts of "guards", then the salts of what? God! Could it be possible that here lay
the mortal relics of half the titan thinkers of all the ages; snatched by supreme ghouls
from crypts where the world thought them safe, and subject to the beck and call of
madmen who sought to drain their knowledge for some still wilder end whose ultimate
effect would concern, as poor Charles had hinted in his frantic note, "all civilisation, all
natural law, perhaps even the fate of the solar system and the universe"? And Marinus
Bicknell Willett had sifted their dust through his hands!
Then he noticed a small door at the further end of the room, and calmed himself enough
to approach it and examine the crude sign chiselled above. It was only a symbol, but it
filled him with vague spiritual dread; for a morbid, dreaming friend of his had once
drawn it on paper and told him a few of the things it means in the dark abyss of sleep. It
was the sign of Koth, that dreamers see fixed above the archway of a certain black tower
standing alone in twilight - and Willett did not like what his friend Randolph Carter had
said of its powers. But a moment later he forgot the sign as he recognised a new acrid
odour in the stench-filled air. This was a chemical rather than animal smell, and came
clearly from the room beyond the door. And it was, unmistakably, the same odour which
had saturated Charles Ward's clothing on the day the doctors had taken him away. So it
was here that the youth had been interrupted by the final summons? He was wiser that old
Joseph Curwen, for he had not resisted. Willett, boldly determined to penetrate every
wonder and nightmare this nether realm might contain, seized the small lamp and crossed
the threshold. A wave of nameless fright rolled out to meet him, but he yielded to no
whim and deferred to no intuition. There was nothing alive here to harm him, and he
would not be stayed in his piercing of the eldritch cloud which engulfed his patient.
The room beyond the door was of medium size, and had no furniture save a table, a
single chair, and two groups of curious machines with clamps and wheels, which Willett
recognised after a moment as mediaeval instruments of torture. On one side of the door
stood a rack of savage whips, above which were some shelves bearing empty rows of
shallow pedestalled cups of lead shaped like Grecian kylikes. On the other side was the
table; with a powerful Argand lamp, a pad and pencil, and two of the stoppered lekythoi
from the shelves outside set down at irregular places as if temporarily or in haste. Willett
lighted the lamp and looked carefully at the pad, to see what notes Ward might have been
jotting down when interrupted; but found nothing more intelligible than the following
disjointed fragments in that crabbed Curwen chirography, which shed no light on the case
as a whole:
'B. dy'd not. Escap'd into walls and founde Place below.'
'Sawe olde V. saye ye Sabaoth and learnt yee Way.'
'Rais'd Yog-Sothoth thrice and was ye nexte Day deliver'd.'
'F. soughte to wipe out all know'g howe to raise Those from Outside.'
As the strong Argand blaze lit up the entire chamber the doctor saw that the wall opposite
the door, between the two groups of torturing appliances in the corners, was covered with
pegs from which hung a set of shapeless-looking robes of a rather dismal yellowish-
white. But far more interesting were the two vacant walls, both of which were thickly
covered with mystic symbols and formulae roughly chiselled in the smooth dressed stone.
The damp floor also bore marks of carving; and with but little difficulty Willett
deciphered a huge pentagram in the centre, with a plain circle about three feet wide half
way between this and each corner. In one of these four circles, near where a yellowish
robe had been flung carelessly down, there stood a shallow kylix of the sort found on the
shelves above the whip-rack; and just outside the periphery was one of the Phaleron jugs
from the shelves in the other room, its tag numbered 118. This was unstoppered, and
proved upon inspection to be empty; but the explorer saw with a shiver that the kylix was
not. Within its shallow area, and saved from scattering only by the absence of wind in
this sequestered cavern, lay a small amount of a dry, dull-greenish efflorescent powder
which must have belonged in the jug; and Willett almost reeled at the implications that
came sweeping over him as he correlated little by little the several elements and
antecedents of the scene. The whips and the instruments of torture, the dust or salts from
the jug of "Materia", the two lekythoi from the "Custodes" shelf, the robes, the formulae
on the walls, the notes on the pad, the hints from letters and legends, and the thousand
glimpses, doubts, and suppositions which had come to torment the friends and parents of
Charles Ward - all these engulfed the doctor in a tidal wave of horror as he looked at that
dry greenish powder outspread in the pedestalled leaden kylix on the floor.
With an effort, however, Willett pulled himself together and began studying the formulae
chiselled on the walls. From the stained and incrusted letters it was obvious that they
were carved in Joseph Curwen's time, and their text was such as to be vaguely familiar to
one who had read much Curwen material or delved extensively into the history of magic.
One the doctor clearly recognised as what Mrs. Ward heard her son chanting on that
ominous Good Friday a year before, and what an authority had told him was a very
terrible invocation addressed to secret gods outside the normal spheres. It was not spelled
here exactly as Mrs. Ward had set it down from memory, nor yet as the authority had
shewn it to him in the forbidden pages of "Eliphas Levi"; but its identity was
unmistakable, and such words as Sabaoth, Metraton, Almonsin, and Zariatnatmik sent a
shudder of fright through the search who had seen and felt so much of cosmic
abomination just around the corner.
This was on the left-hand wall as one entered the room. The right-hand wall was no less
thickly inscribed, and Willett felt a start of recognition when he came up the pair of
formulae so frequently occurring in the recent notes in the library. They were, roughly
speaking, the same; with the ancient symbols of "Dragon's Head" and "Dragon's Tail"
heading them as in Ward's scribblings. But the spelling differed quite widely from that of
the modern versions, as if old Curwen had had a different way of recording sound, or as
if later study had evolved more powerful and perfected variants of the invocations in
question. The doctor tried to reconcile the chiselled version with the one which still ran
persistently in his head, and found it hard to do. Where the script he had memorised
began "Y'ai 'ng'ngah, Yog-Sothoth", this epigraph started out as "Aye, engengah, Yogge-
Sothotha"; which to his mind would seriously interfere with the syllabification of the
second word.
Ground as the later text was into his consciousness, the discrepancy disturbed him; and
he found himself chanting the first of the formulae aloud in an effort to square the sound
he conceived with the letters he found carved. Weird and menacing in that abyss of
antique blasphemy rang his voice; its accents keyed to a droning sing-song either through
the spell of the past and the unknown, or through the hellish example of that dull, godless
wail from the pits whose inhuman cadences rose and fell rhythmically in the distance
through the stench and the darkness.
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH,
YOG-SOTHOTH
H'EE-L'GEB
F'AI THRODOG
UAAAH!
But what was this cold wind which had sprung into life at the very outset of the chant?
The lamps were sputtering woefully, and the gloom grew so dense that the letters on the
wall nearly faded from sight. There was smoke, too, and an acrid odour which quite
drowned out the stench from the far-away wells; an odour like that he had smelt before,
yet infinitely stronger and more pungent. He turned from the inscriptions to face the room
with its bizarre contents, and saw that the kylix on the floor, in which the ominous
efflorescent powder had lain, was giving forth a cloud of thick, greenish-black vapour of
surprising volume and opacity. That powder - Great God! it had come from the shelf of
"Materia" - what was it doing now, and what had started it? The formula he had been
chanting - the first of the pair - Dragon's Head, ascending node - Blessed Saviour, could
it be ...
The doctor reeled, and through his head raced wildly disjointed scraps from all he had
seen, heard, and read of the frightful case of Joseph Curwen and Charles Dexter Ward. "I
say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe ... Have ye Wordes for
laying at all times readie, and stopp not to be sure when there is any Doubte of Whom
you have ... 3 Talkes with What was therein inhum'd ..." Mercy of Heaven, what is that
shape behind the parting smoke?
5
Marinus Bicknell Willett has not hope that any part of his tale will be believed except by
certain sympathetic friends, hence he has made no attempt to tell it beyond his most
intimate circle. Only a few outsiders have ever heard it repeated, and of these the
majority laugh and remark that the doctor surely is getting old. He has been advised to
take a long vacation and to shun future cases dealing with mental disturbance. But Mr.
Ward knows that the veteran physician speaks only a horrible truth. Did not he himself
see the noisome aperture in the bungalow cellar? Did not Willett send him home
overcome and ill at eleven o'clock that portentous morning? Did he not telephone the
doctor in vain that evening, and again the next day, and had he not driven to the
bungalow itself on that following noon, finding his friend unconscious but unharmed on
one of the beds upstairs? Willett had been breathing stertorously, and opened his eyes
slowly when Mr. Ward gave him some brandy fetched from the car. Then he shuddered
and screamed, crying out, 'That beard... those eyes... God, who are you?' A very strange
thing to say to a trim, blue-eyed, clean-shaven gentleman whom he had known from the
latter's boyhood.
In the bright noon sunlight the bungalow was unchanged since the previous morning.
Willett's clothing bore no disarrangement beyond certain smudges and worn places at the
knees, and only a faint acrid odour reminded Mr. Ward of what he had smelt on his son
that day he was taken to the hospital. The doctor's flashlight was missing, but his valise
was safely there, as empty as when he had brought it. Before indulging in any
explanations, and obviously with great moral effort, Willett staggered dizzily down to the
cellar and tried the fateful platform before the tubs. It was unyielding. Crossing to where
he had left his yet unused tool satchel the day before, he obtained a chisel and began to
pry up the stubborn planks one by one. Underneath the smooth concrete was still visible,
but of any opening or perforation there was no longer a trace. Nothing yawned this time
to sicken the mystified father who had followed the doctor downstairs; only the smooth
concrete underneath the planks - no noisome well, no world of subterrene horrors, no
secret library, no Curwen papers, no nightmare pits of stench and howling, no laboratory
or shelves or chiselled formulae, no... Dr. Willett turned pale, and clutched at the younger
man. 'Yesterday,' he asked softly, 'did you see it here ... and smell it?' And when Mr.
Ward, himself transfixed with dread and wonder, found strength to nod an affirmative,
the physician gave a sound half a sigh and half a gasp, and nodded in turn. 'Then I will
tell you', he said.
So for an hour, in the sunniest room they could find upstairs, the physician whispered his
frightful tale to the wondering father. There was nothing to relate beyond the looming up
of that form when the greenish-black vapour from the kylix parted, and Willett was too
tired to ask himself what had really occurred. There were futile, bewildered head-
shakings from both men, and once Mr. Ward ventured a hushed suggestion, 'Do you
suppose it would be of any use to dig?' The doctor was silent, for it seemed hardly fitting
for any human brain to answer when powers of unknown spheres had so vitally
encroached on this side of the Great Abyss. Again Mr. Ward asked, 'But where did it go?
It brought you here, you know, and it sealed up the hole somehow.' And Willett again let
silence answer for him.
But after all, this was not the final phase of the matter. Reaching for his handkerchief
before rising to leave, Dr. Willett's fingers closed upon a piece of paper in his pocket
which had not been there before, and which was companioned by the candles and
matches he had seized in the vanished vault. It was a common sheet, torn obviously from
the cheap pad in that fabulous room of horror somewhere underground, and the writing
upon it was that of an ordinary lead pencil - doubtless the one which had lain beside the
pad. It was folded very carelessly, and beyond the faint acrid scent of the cryptic chamber
bore no print or mark of any world but this. But in the text itself it did indeed reek with
wonder; for here was no script of any wholesome age, but the laboured strokes of
mediaeval darkness, scarcely legible to the laymen who now strained over it, yet having
combinations of symbols which seemed vaguely familiar. The briefly scrawled message
was this, and its mystery lent purpose to the shaken pair, who forthwith walked steadily
out to the Ward car and gave orders to be driven first to a quiet dining place and then to
the John Hay Library on the hill.
At the library it was easy to find good manuals of palaeography, and over these the two
men puzzled till the lights of evening shone out from the great chandelier. In the end they
found what was needed. The letters were indeed no fantastic invention, but the normal
script of a very dark period. They were the pointed Saxon minuscules of the eighth or
ninth century A.D., and brought with them memories of an uncouth time when under a
fresh Christian veneer ancient faiths and ancient rites stirred stealthily, and the pale moon
of Britain looked sometimes on strange deeds in the Roman ruins of Caerleon and
Hexham, and by the towers along Hadrian's crumbling wall. The words were in such
Latin as a barbarous age might remember - 'Corvinus necandus est. Cadaver aq(ua) forti
dissolvendum, nec aliq(ui)d retinendum. Tace ut potes.' - which may roughly be
translated, "Curwen must be killed. The body must be dissolved in aqua fortis, nor must
anything be retained. Keep silence as best you are able."
Willett and Mr. Ward were mute and baffled. They had met the unknown, and found that
they lacked emotions to respond to it as they vaguely believed they ought. With Willett,
especially, the capacity for receiving fresh impressions of awe was well-nigh exhausted;
and both men sat still and helpless till the closing of the library forced them to leave.
Then they drove listlessly to the Ward mansion in Prospect Street, and talked to no
purpose into the night. The doctor rested toward morning, but did not go home. And he
was still there Sunday noon when a telephone message came from the detectives who had
been assigned to look up Dr. Allen.
Mr. Ward, who was pacing nervously about in a dressing-gown, answered the call in
person; and told the men to come up early the next day when he heard their report was
almost ready. Both Willett and he were glad that this phase of the matter was taking form,
for whatever the origin of the strange minuscule message, it seemed certain the "Curwen"
who must be destroyed could be no other than the bearded and spectacled stranger.
Charles had feared this man, and had said in the frantic note that he must be killed and
dissolved in acid. Allen, moreover, had been receiving letters from the strange wizards in
Europe under the name of Curwen, and palpably regarded himself as an avatar of the
bygone necromancer. And now from a fresh and unknown source had come a message
saying that "Curwen" must be killed and dissolved in acid. The linkage was too
unmistakable to be factitious; and besides, was not Allen planning to murder young Ward
upon the advice of the creature called Hutchinson? Of course, the letter they had seen had
never reached the bearded stranger; but from its text they could see that Allen had already
formed plans for dealing with the youth if he grew too "squeamish". Without doubt,
Allen must be apprehended; and even if the most drastic directions were not carried out,
he must be placed where he could inflict no harm upon Charles Ward.
That afternoon, hoping against hope to extract some gleam of information anent the
inmost mysteries from the only available one capable of giving it, the father and the
doctor went down the bay and called on young Charles at the hospital. Simply and
gravely Willett told him all he had found, and noticed how pale he turned as each
description made certain the truth of the discovery. The physician employed as much
dramatic effect as he could, and watched for a wincing on Charles's part when he
approached the matter of the covered pits and the nameless hybrids within. But Ward did
not wince. Willett paused, and his voice grew indignant as he spoke of how the things
were starving. He taxed the youth with shocking inhumanity, and shivered when only a
sardonic laugh came in reply. For Charles, having dropped as useless his pretence that the
crypt did not exist, seemed to see some ghastly jest in this affair; and chucked hoarsely at
something which amused him. Then he whispered, in accents doubly terrible because of
the cracked voice he used, 'Damn 'em, they do eat, but they don't need to! That's the rare
part! A month, you say, without food? Lud, Sir, you be modest! D'ye know, that was the
joke on poor old Whipple with his virtuous bluster! Kill everything off, would he? Why,
damme, he was half-deaf with noise from Outside and never saw or heard aught from the
wells! He never dreamed they were there at all! Devil take ye, those cursed things have
been howling down there ever since Curwen was done for a hundred and fifty-seven
years gone!'
But no more than this could Willett get from the youth. Horrified, yet almost convinced
against his will, he went on with his tale in the hope that some incident might startle his
auditor out of the mad composure he maintained. Looking at the youth's face, the doctor
could not but feel a kind of terror at the changes which recent months had wrought.
Truly, the boy had drawn down nameless horrors from the skies. When the room with the
formulae and the greenish dust was mentioned, Charles shewed his first sign of
animation. A quizzical look overspread his face as he heard what Willett had read on the
pad, and he ventured the mild statement that those notes were old ones, of no possible
significance to anyone not deeply initiated in the history of magic. But, he added, 'had
you but known the words to bring up that which I had out in the cup, you had not been
here to tell me this. 'Twas Number 118, and I conceive you would have shook had you
looked it up in my list in t'other room. 'Twas never raised by me, but I meant to have it up
that day you came to invite me hither.'
Then Willett told of the formula he had spoken and of the greenish-black smoke which
had arisen; and as he did so he saw true fear dawn for the first time on Charles Ward's
face. 'It came, and you be here alive?' As Ward croaked the words his voice seemed
almost to burst free of its trammels and sink to cavernous abysses of uncanny resonance.
Willett, gifted with a flash of inspiration, believed he saw the situation, and wove into his
reply a caution from a letter he remembered. 'No. 118, you say? But don't forget that
stones are all changed now in nine grounds out of ten. You are never sure till you
question!' And then, without warning, he drew forth the minuscule message and flashed it
before the patient's eyes. He could have wished no stronger result, for Charles Ward
fainted forthwith.
All this conversation, of course, had been conducted with the greatest secrecy lest the
resident alienists accuse the father and the physician of encouraging a madman in his
delusions. Unaided, too, Dr. Willett and Mr. Ward picked up the stricken youth and
placed him on the couch. In reviving, the patient mumbled many times of some word
which he must get to Orne and Hutchinson at once; so when his consciousness seemed
fully back the doctor told him that of those strange creatures at least one was his bitter
enemy, and had given Dr. Allen advice for his assassination. This revelation produced no
visible effect, and before it was made the visitors could see that their host had already the
look of a hunted man. After that he would converse no more, so Willett and the father
departed presently; leaving behind a caution against the bearded Allen, to which the
youth only replied that this individual was very safely taken care of, and could do no one
any harm even if he wished. This was said with an almost evil chuckle very painful to
hear. They did not worry about any communications Charles might indite to that
monstrous pair in Europe, since they knew that the hospital authorities seized all outgoing
mail for censorship and would pass no wild or outré-looking missive.
There is, however, a curious sequel to the matter of Orne and Hutchinson, if such indeed
the exiled wizards were. Moved by some vague presentiment amidst the horrors of that
period, Willett arranged with an international press-cutting bureau for accounts of notable
current crimes and accidents in Prague and in eastern Transylvania; and after six months
believed that he had found two very significant things amongst the multifarious items he
received and had translated. One was the total wrecking of a house by night in the oldest
quarter of Prague, and the disappearance of the evil old man called Josef Nadek, who had
dwelt in it alone ever since anyone could remember. The other was a titan explosion in
the Transylvanian mountains east of Rakus, and the utter extirpation with all its inmates
of the ill-regarded Castle Ferenczy, whose master was so badly spoken of by peasants
and soldiery alike that he would shortly have been summoned to Bucharest for serious
questioning had not this incident cut off a career already so long as to antedate all
common memory. Willett maintains that the hand which wrote those minuscules was able
to wield stronger weapons as well; and that while Curwen was left to him to dispose of,
the writer felt able to find and deal with Orne and Hutchinson itself. If what their fate
may have been the doctor strives sedulously not to think.
6
The following morning Dr. Willett hastened to the Ward home to be present when the
detectives arrived. Allen's destruction or imprisonment - or Curwen's if one might regard
the tacit claim to reincarnation as valid - he felt must be accomplished at any cost, and he
communicated this conviction to Mr. Ward as they sat waiting for the men to come. They
were downstairs this time, for the upper parts of the house were beginning to be shunned
because of a particular nauseousness which hung indefinitely about; a nauseousness
which the older servants connected with some curse left by the vanished Curwen portrait.
At nine o'clock the three detectives presented themselves and immediately delivered all
that they had to say. They had not, regrettably enough, located the Brava Tony Gomes as
they had wished, nor had they found the least trace of Dr. Allen's source or present
whereabouts; but they had managed to unearth a considerable number of local
impressions and facts concerning the reticent stranger. Allen had struck Pawtuxet people
as a vaguely unnatural being, and there was a universal belief that his thick sandy beard
was either dyed or false - a belief conclusively upheld by the finding of such a false
beard, together with a pair of dark glasses, in his room at the fateful bungalow. His voice,
Mr. Ward could well testify from his one telephone conversation, had a depth and
hollowness that could not be forgotten; and his glanced seemed malign even through his
smoked and horn-rimmed glasses. One shopkeeper, in the course of negotiations, had
seen a specimen of his handwriting and declared it was very queer and crabbed; this
being confirmed by pencilled notes of no clear meaning found in his room and identified
by the merchant. In connexion with the vampirism rumours of the preceding summer, a
majority of the gossips believed that Allen rather than Ward was the actual vampire.
Statements were also obtained from the officials who had visited the bungalow after the
unpleasant incident of the motor truck robbery. They had felt less of the sinister in Dr.
Allen, but had recognised him as the dominant figure in the queer shadowy cottage. The
place had been too dark for them to observe him clearly, but they would know him again
if they saw him. His beard had looked odd, and they thought he had some slight scar
above his dark spectacled right eye. As for the detectives' search of Allen's room, it
yielded nothing definite save the beard and glasses, and several pencilled notes in a
crabbed writing which Willett at once saw was identical with that shared by the old
Curwen manuscripts and by the voluminous recent notes of young Ward found in the
vanished catacombs of horror.
Dr. Willett and Mr. Ward caught something of a profound, subtle, and insidious cosmic
fear from this data as it was gradually unfolded, and almost trembled in following up the
vague, mad thought which had simultaneously reached their minds. The false beard and
glasses - the crabbed Curwen penmanship - the old portrait and its tiny scar - and the
altered youth in the hospital with such a scar - that deep, hollow voice on the telephone -
was it not of this that Mr. Ward was reminded when his son barked forth those pitiable
tones to which he now claimed to be reduced? Who had ever seen Charles and Allen
together? Yes, the officials had once, but who later on? Was it not when Allen left that
Charles suddenly lost his growing fright and began to live wholly at the bungalow?
Curwen - Allen - Ward - in what blasphemous and abominable fusion had two ages and
two persons become involved? That damnable resemblance of the picture to Charles -
had it not used to stare and stare, and follow the boy around the room with its eyes? Why,
too, did both Allen and Charles copy Joseph Curwen's handwriting, even when alone and
off guard? And then the frightful work of those people - the lost crypt of horrors that had
aged the doctor overnight; the starving monsters in the noisome pits; the awful formula
which had yielded such nameless results; the message in minuscules found in Willett's
pocket; the papers and the letters and all the talk of graves and "salts" and discoveries -
whither did everything lead? In the end Mr. Ward did the most sensible thing. Steeling
himself against any realisation of why he did it, he gave the detectives an article to be
shewn to such Pawtuxet shopkeepers as had seen the portentous Dr. Allen. That article
was a photograph of his luckless son, on which he now carefully drew in ink the pair of
heavy glasses and the black pointed beard which the men had brought from Allen's room.
For two hours he waited with the doctor in the oppressive house where fear and miasma
were slowly gathering as the empty panel in the upstairs library leered and leered and
leered. Then the men returned. Yes. The altered photograph was a very passable likeness
of Dr. Allen. Mr. Ward turned pale, and Willett wiped a suddenly dampened brow with
his handkerchief. Allen - Ward - Curwen - it was becoming too hideous for coherent
thought. What had the boy called out of the void, and what had it done to him? What,
really, had happened from first to last? Who was this Allen who sought to kill Charles as
too "squeamish", and why had his destined victim said in the postscript to that frantic
letter that he must be so completely obliterated in acid? Why, too, had the minuscule
message, of whose origin no one dared think, said that "Curwen" must be likewise
obliterated? What was the change, and when had the final stage occurred? That day when
his frantic note was received - he had been nervous all the morning, then there was an
alteration. He had slipped out unseen and swaggered boldly in past the men hired to
guard him. That was the time, when he was out. But no - had he not cried out in terror as
he entered his study - this very room? What had he found there? Or wait - what had found
him? That simulacrum which brushed boldly in without having been seen to go - was that
an alien shadow and a horror forcing itself upon a trembling figure which had never gone
out at all? Had not the butler spoken of queer noises?
Willett rang for the man and asked him some low-toned questions. It had, surely enough,
been a bad business. There had been noises - a cry, a gasp, a choking, and a sort of
clattering or creaking or thumping, or all of these. And Mr. Charles was not the same
when he stalked out without a word. The butler shivered as he spoke, and sniffed at the
heavy air that blew down from some open window upstairs. Terror had settled definitely
upon the house, and only the business-like detectives failed to imbibe a full measure of it.
Even they were restless, for this case had held vague elements in the background which
pleased them not at all. Dr. Willett was thinking deeply and rapidly, and his thoughts
were terrible ones. Now and then he would almost break into muttering as he ran over in
his head a new, appalling, and increasingly conclusive chain of nightmare happenings.
Then Mr. Ward made a sign that the conference was over, and everyone save him and the
doctor left the room. It was noon now, but shadows as of coming night seemed to engulf
the phantom-haunted mansion. Willett began talking very seriously to his host, and urged
that he leave a great deal of the future investigation to him. There would be, he predicted,
certain obnoxious elements which a friend could bear better than a relative. As family
physician he must have a free hand, and the first thing he required was a period alone and
undisturbed in the abandoned library upstairs, where the ancient overmantel had gathered
about itself an aura of noisome horror more intense than when Joseph Curwen's features
themselves glanced slyly down from the painted panel.
Mr. Ward, dazed by the flood of grotesque morbidities and unthinkably maddening
suggestions that poured in upon him from every side, could only acquiesce; and half an
hour later the doctor was locked in the shunned room with the panelling from Olney
Court. The father, listening outside, heard fumbling sounds of moving and rummaging as
the moments passed; and finally a wrench and a creak, as if a tight cupboard door were
being opened. Then there was a muffled cry, a kind of snorting choke, and a hasty
slamming of whatever had been opened. Almost at once the key rattled and Willett
appeared in the hall, haggard and ghastly, and demanding wood for the real fireplace on
the south wall of the room. The furnace was not enough, he said; and the electric log had
little practical use. Longing yet not daring to ask questions, Mr. Ward gave the requisite
orders and a man brought some stout pine logs, shuddering as he entered the tainted air of
the library to place them in the grate. Willett meanwhile had gone up to the dismantled
laboratory and brought down a few odds and ends not included in the moving of the July
before. They were in a covered basket, and Mr. Ward never saw what they were.
Then the doctor locked himself in the library once more, and by the clouds of smoke
which rolled down past the windows from the chimney it was known that he had lighted
the fire. Later, after a great rustling of newspapers, that odd wrench and creaking were
heard again; followed by a thumping which none of the eavesdroppers liked. Thereafter
two suppressed cries of Willett's were heard, and hard upon these came a swishing rustle
of indefinable hatefulness. Finally the smoke that the wind beat down from the chimney
grew very dark and acrid, and everyone wished that the weather had spared them this
choking and venomous inundation of peculiar fumes. Mr. Ward's head reeled, and the
servants all clustered together in a knot to watch the horrible black smoke swoop down.
After an age of waiting the vapours seemed to lighted, and half-formless sounds of
scraping, sweeping, and other minor operations were heard behind the bolted door. And
at last, after the slamming of some cupboard within, Willett made his appearance - sad,
pale, and haggard, and bearing the cloth-draped basket he had taken from the upstairs
laboratory. He had left the window open, and into that once accursed room was pouring a
wealth of pure, wholesome air to mix with a queer new smell of disinfectants. The
ancient overmantel still lingered; but it seemed robbed of malignity now, and rose as
calm and stately in its white panelling as if it had never borne the picture of Joseph
Curwen. Night was coming on, yet this time its shadows held no latent fright, but only a
gentle melancholy. Of what he had done the doctor would never speak. To Mr. Ward he
said, 'I can answer no questions, but I will say that there are different kinds of magic. I
have made a great purgation, and those in this house will sleep the better for it.'
7
That Dr. Willett's "purgation" had been an ordeal almost as nerve-racking in its way as
his hideous wandering in the vanished crypt is shewn by the fact that the elderly
physician gave out completely as soon as he reached home that evening. For three days
he rested constantly in his room, though servants later muttered something about having
heard him after midnight on Wednesday, when the outer door softly opened and closed
with phenomenal softness. Servants' imaginations, fortunately, are limited, else comment
might have been excited by an item in Thursday's Evening Bulletin which ran as follows:
North End Ghouls Again Active
After a lull of ten months since the dastardly vandalism in the Weeden lot
at the North Burial Ground, a nocturnal prowler was glimpsed early this
morning in the same cemetery by Robert Hart, the night watchman.
Happening to glance for a moment from his shelter at about 2 a.m., Hart
observed the glow of a lantern or pocket torch not far to the northwest, and
upon opening the door detected the figure of a man with a trowel very
plainly silhouetted against a nearby electric light. At once starting in
pursuit, he saw the figure dart hurriedly toward the main entrance, gaining
the street and losing himself among the shadows before approach or
capture was possible.
Like the first of the ghouls active during the past year, this intruder had
done no real damage before detection. A vacant part of the Ward lot
shewed signs of a little superficial digging, but nothing even nearly the
size of a grave had been attempted, and no previous grave had been
disturbed.
Hart, who cannot describe the prowler except as a small man probably
having a full beard, inclines to the view that all three of the digging
incidents have a common source; but police from the Second Station think
otherwise on account of the savage nature of teh second incident, where an
ancient coffin was removed and its headstone violently shattered.
The first of the incidents, in which it is thought an attempt to bury
something was frustrated, occurred a year ago last March, and has been
attributed to bootleggers seeking a cache. It is possible, says Sergt. Riley,
that this third affair is of similar nature. Officers at the Second Station are
taking especial pains to capture the gang of miscreants responsible for
these repeated outrages.
All day Thursday Dr. Willett rested as if recuperating from something past or nerving
himself for something to come. In the evening he wrote a note to Mr. Ward, which was
delivered the next morning and which caused the half-dazed parent to ponder long and
deeply. Mr. Ward had not been able to go down to business since the shock of Monday
with its baffling reports and its sinister "purgation", but he found something calming
about the doctor's letter in spite of the despair it seemed to promise and the fresh
mysteries it seemed to evoke.
10 Barnes St.,
Providence, R. I.
April 12, 1928.
Dear Theodore:-
I feel that I must say a word to you before doing what I am going to do
tomorrow. It will conclude the terrible business we have been going
through (for I feel that no spade is ever likely to reach that monstrous
place we know of), but I'm afraid it won't set your mind at rest unless I
expressly assure you how very conclusive it is.
You have known me ever since you were a small boy, so I think you will
not distrust me when I hint that some matters are best left undecided and
unexplored. It is better that you attempt no further speculation as to
Charles's case, and almost imperative that you tell his mother nothing
more than she already suspects. When I call on you tomorrow Charles will
have escaped. That is all which need remain in anyone's mind. He was
mad, and he escaped. You can tell his mother gently and gradually about
the mad part when you stop sending the typed notes in his name. I'd advise
you to join her in Atlantic City and take a rest yourself. God knows you
need one after this shock, as I do myself. I am going South for a while to
calm down and brace up.
So don't ask me any questions when I call. It may be that something will
go wrong, but I'll tell you if it does. I don't think it will. There will be
nothing more to worry about, for Charles will be very, very safe. He is
now - safer than you dream. You need hold no fears about Allen, and who
or what he is. He forms as much a part of the past as Joseph Curwen's
picture, and when I ring your doorbell you may feel certain that there is no
such person. And what wrote that minuscule message will never trouble
you or yours.
But you must steel yourself to melancholy, and prepare your wife to do the
same. I must tell you frankly that Charles's escape will not mean his
restoration to you. He has been afflicted with a peculiar disease, as you
must realise from the subtle physical as well as mental changes in him,
and you must not hope to see him again. Have only this consolation - that
he was never a fiend or even truly a madman, but only an eager, studious,
and curious boy whose love of mystery and of the past was his undoing.
He stumbled on things no mortal ought ever to know, and reached back
through the years as no one ever should reach; and something came out of
those years to engulf him.
And now comes the matter in which I must ask you to trust me most of all.
For there will be, indeed, no uncertainty about Charles's fate. In about a
year, say, you can if you wish devise a suitable account of the end; for the
boy will be no more. You can put up a stone in your lot at the North Burial
Ground exactly ten feet west of your father's and facing the same way, and
that will mark the true resting-place of your son. Nor need you fear that it
will mark any abnormality or changeling. The ashes in that grave will be
those of your own unaltered bone and sinew - of the real Charles Dexter
Ward whose mind you watched from infancy - the real Charles with the
olive-mark on his hip and without the black witch-mark on his chest or the
pit on his forehead. The Charles who never did actual evil, and who will
have paid with his life for his "squeamishness".
That is all. Charles will have escaped, and a year from now you can put up
his stone. Do not question me tomorrow. And believe that the honour of
your ancient family remains untainted now, as it has been at all times in
the past.
With profoundest sympathy, and exhortations to fortitude, calmness, and
resignation, I am ever
Sincerely your friend,
Marinus B. Willett.
So on the morning of Friday, April 13, 1928, Marinus Bicknell Willett visited the room
of Charles Dexter Ward at Dr. Waite's private hospital on Conanicut Island. The youth,
though making no attempt to evade his caller, was in a sullen mood; and seemed
disinclined to open the conversation which Willett obviously desired. The doctor's
discovery of the crypt and his monstrous experience therein had of course created a new
source of embarrassment, so that both hesitated perceptibly after the interchange of a few
strained formalities. Then a new element of constraint crept in, as Ward seemed to read
behind the doctor's mask-like face a terrible purpose which had never been there before.
The patient quailed, conscious that since the last visit there had been a change whereby
the solicitous family physician had given place to the ruthless and implacable avenger.
Ward actually turned pale, and the doctor was the first to speak. 'More,' he said, 'has been
found out, and I must warn you fairly that a reckoning is due.'
'Digging again, and coming upon more poor starving pets?' was the ironic reply. It was
evident that the youth meant to shew bravado to the last.
'No,' Willett slowly rejoined, 'this time I did not have to dig. We have had men looking
up Dr. Allen, and they found the false beard and spectacles in the bungalow.'
'Excellent,' commented the disquieted host in an effort to be wittily insulting, 'and I trust
they proved more becoming than the beard and glasses you now have on!'
'They would become you very well,' came the even and studied response, 'as indeed they
seem to have done.'
As Willett said this, it almost seemed as though a cloud passed over the sun; though there
was no change in the shadows on the floor. Then Ward ventured:
'And is this what asks so hotly for a reckoning? Suppose a man does find it now and then
useful to be twofold?'
'No', said Willett gravely, 'again you are wrong. It is no business of mine if any man
seeks duality; provided he has any right to exist at all, and provided he does not destroy
what called him out of space.'
Ward now started violently. 'Well, Sir, what have ye found, and what d'ye want of me?'
The doctor let a little time elapse before replying, as if choosing his words for an
effective answer.
'I have found', he finally intoned, 'something in a cupboard behind an ancient overmantel
where a picture once was, and I have burned it and buried the ashes where the grave of
Charles Dexter Ward ought to be.'
The madman choked and sprang from the chair in which he had been sitting:
'Damn ye, who did ye tell - and who'll believe it was he after these two full months, with
me alive? What d'ye mean to do?'
Willett, though a small man, actually took on a kind of judicial majesty as he calmed the
patient with a gesture.
'I have told no one. This is no common case - it is a madness out of time and a horror
from beyond the spheres which no police or lawyers or courts or alienists could ever
fathom or grapple with. Thank God some chance has left inside me the spark of
imagination, that I might not go astray in thinking out this thing. You cannot deceive me,
Joseph Curwen, for I know that your accursed magic is true!'
'I know how you wove the spell that brooded outside the years and fastened on your
double and descendant; I know how you drew him into the past and got him to raise you
up from your detestable grave; I know how he kept you hidden in his laboratory while
you studied modern things and roved abroad as a vampire by night, and how you later
shewed yourself in beard and glasses that no one might wonder at your godless likeness
to him; I know what you resolved to do when he balked at your monstrous rifling of the
world's tombs, and at what you planned afterward , and I know how you did it.'
'You left off your beard and glasses and fooled the guards around the house. They
thought it was he who went in, and they thought it was he who came out when you had
strangled and hidden him. But you hadn't reckoned on the different contents of two
minds. You were a fool, Joseph Curwen, to fancy that a mere visual identity would be
enough. Why didn't you think of the speech and the voice and the handwriting? It hasn't
worked, you see, after all. You know better than I who or what wrote that message in
minuscules, but I will warn you it was not written in vain. There are abominations and
blasphemies which must be stamped out, and I believe that the writer of those words will
attend to Orne and Hutchinson. One of those creatures wrote you once, "do not call up
any that you can not put down". You were undone once before, perhaps in that very way,
and it may be that your own evil magic will undo you all again. Curwen, a man can't
tamper with Nature beyond certain limits, and every horror you have woven will rise up
to wipe you out.'
But here the doctor was cut short by a convulsive cry from the creature before him.
Hopelessly at bay, weaponless, and knowing that any show of physical violence would
bring a score of attendants to the doctor's rescue, Joseph Curwen had recourse to his one
ancient ally, and began a series of cabbalistic motions with his forefingers as his deep,
hollow voice, now unconcealed by feigned hoarseness, bellowed out the opening words
of a terrible formula.
'PER ADONAI ELOIM, ADONAI JEHOVA, ADONAI SABAOTH, METRATON ...'
But Willett was too quick for him. Even as the dogs in the yard outside began to howl,
and even as a chill wind sprang suddenly up from the bay, the doctor commenced the
solemn and measured intonation of that which he had meant all along to recite. An eye
for an eye - magic for magic - let the outcome shew how well the lesson of the abyss had
been learned! So in a clear voice Marinus Bicknell Willett began the second of that pair
of formulae whose first had raised the writer of those minuscules - the cryptic invocation
whose heading was the Dragon's Tail, sign of the descending node -
OGTHROD AI'F
GEB'L-EE'H
YOG-SOTHOTH
'NGAH'NG AI'Y
ZHRO!
At the very first word from Willett's mouth the previously commenced formula of the
patient stopped short. Unable to speak, the monster made wild motions with his arms
until they too were arrested. When the awful name of Yog-Sothoth was uttered, the
hideous change began. It was not merely a dissolution, but rather a transformation or
recapitulation; and Willett shut his eyes lest he faint before the rest of the incantation
could be pronounced.
But he did not faint, and that man of unholy centuries and forbidden secrets never
troubled the world again. The madness out of time had subsided, and the case of Charles
Dexter Ward was closed. Opening his eyes before staggering out of that room of horror,
Dr. Willett saw that what he had kept in memory had not been kept amiss. There had, as
he had predicted, been no need for acids. For like his accursed picture a year before,
Joseph Curwen now lay scattered on the floor as a thin coating of fine bluish-grey dust.
The Shadow Out of Time
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written Nov 1934-Mar 1935
Published June 1936 in Astounding Stories, Vol. 17, No. 4, p. 110-54.
I
After twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by a desperate conviction of
the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that
which I think I found in Western Australia on the night of 17-18 July 1935. There is
reason to hope that my experience was wholly or partly an hallucination - for which,
indeed, abundant causes existed. And yet, its realism was so hideous that I sometimes
find hope impossible.
If the thing did happen, then man must be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos, and
of his own place in the seething vortex of time, whose merest mention is paralysing. He
must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril which, though it will never
engulf the whole race, may impose monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain
venturesome members of it.
It is for this latter reason that I urge, with all the force of my being, final abandonment of
all the attempts at unearthing those fragments of unknown, primordial masonry which my
expedition set out to investigate.
Assuming that I was sane and awake, my experience on that night was such as has
befallen no man before. It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought to
dismiss as myth and dream. Mercifull there is no proof, for in my fright I lost the
awesome object which would - if real and brought out of that noxious abyss - have
formed irrefutable evidence.
When I came upon the horror I was alone - and I have up to now told no one about it. I
could not stop the others from digging in its direction, but chance and the shifting sand
have so far saved them from finding it. Now I must formulate some definite statement -
not only for the sake of my own mental balance, but to warn such others as may read it
seriously.
These pages - much in whose earlier parts will be familiar to close readers of the general
and scientific press - are written in the cabin of the ship that is bringing me home. I shall
give them to my son, Professor Wingate Peaslee of Miskatonic University - the only
member of my family who stuck to me after my queer amnesia of long ago, and the man
best informed on the inner facts of my case. Of all living persons, he is least likely to
ridicule what I shall tell of that fateful night.
I did not enlighten him orally before sailing, because I think he had better have the
revelation in written form. Reading and re-reading at leisure will leave with him a more
convincing picture than my confused tongue could hope to convey.
He can do anything that he thinks best with this account - showing it, with suitable
comment, in any quarters where it will be likely to accomplish good. It is for the sake of
such readers as are unfamiliar with the earlier phases of my case that I am prefacing the
revelation itself with a fairly ample summary of its background.
My name is Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, and those who recall the newspaper tales of a
generation back - or the letters and articles in psychological journals six or seven years
ago - will know who and what I am. The press was filled with the details of my strange
amnesia in 1908-13, and much was made of the traditions of horror, madness, and
witchcraft which lurked behind the ancient Massachusetts town then and now forming
my place of residence. Yet I would have it known that there is nothing whatever of the
mad or sinister in my heredity and early life. This is a highly important fact in view of the
shadow which fell so suddenly upon me from outside sources.
It may be that centuries of dark brooding had given to crumbling, whisper-haunted
Arkham a peculiar vulnerability as regards such shadows - though even this seems
doubtful in the light of those other cases which I later came to study. But the chief point
is that my own ancestry and background are altogether normal. What came, came from
somewhere else - where I even now hesitate to assert in plain words.
I am the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Wingate) Peaslee, both of wholesome old
Haverhill stock. I was born and reared in Haverhill - at the old homestead in Boardman
Street near Golden Hill - and did not go to Arkham till I entered Miskatonic University as
instructor of political economy in 1895.
For thirteen years more my life ran smoothly and happily. I married Alice Keezar of
Haverhill in 1896, and my three children, Robert, Wingate and Hannah were born in
1898, 1900, and 1903, respectively. In 1898 I became an associate professor, and in 1902
a full professor. At no time had I the least interest in either occultism or abnormal
psychology.
It was on Thursday, 14 May 1908, that the queer amnesia came. The thing was quite
sudden, though later I realized that certain brief, glimmering visions of several, hours
previous - chaotic visions which disturbed me greatly because they were so
unprecedented - must have formed premonitory symptoms. My head was aching, and I
had a singular feeling - altogether new to me - that some one else was trying to get
possession of my thoughts.
The collapse occurred about 10.20 A.M., while I was conducting a class in Political
Economy VI - history and present tendencies of economics - for juniors and a few
sophomores. I began to see strange shapes before my eyes, and to feel that I was in a
grotesque room other than the classroom.
My thoughts and speech wandered from my subject, and the students saw that something
was gravely amiss. Then I slumped down, unconscious, in my chair, in a stupor from
which no one could arouse me. Nor did my rightful faculties again look out upon the
daylight of our normal world for five years, four months, and thirteen days.
It is, of course, from others that I have learned what followed. I showed no sign of
consciousness for sixteen and a half hours though removed to my home at 27 Crane
Street, and given the best of medical attention.
At 3 A.M. May my eyes opened and began to speak and my family were thoroughly
frightened by the trend of my expression and language. It was clear that I had no
remembrance of my identity and my past, though for some reason seemed anxious to
conceal his lack of knowledge. My eyes glazed strangely at the persons around me, and
the flections of my facial muscles were altogether unfamiliar.
Even my speech seemed awkward and foreign. I used my vocal organs clumsily and
gropingly, and my diction had a curiously stilted quality, as if I had laboriously learned
the English language from books. The pronunciation was barbarously alien, whilst the
idiom seemed to include both scraps of curious archaism and expressions of a wholly
incomprehensible cast.
Of the latter, one in particular was very potently - even terrifiedly - recalled by the
youngest of the physicians twenty years afterward. For at that late period such a phrase
began to have an actual currency - first in England and then in the United States - and
though of much complexity and indisputable newness, it reproduced in every least
particular the mystifying words of the strange Arkham patient of 1908.
Physical strength returned at once, although I required an odd amount of re-education in
the use of my hands, legs, and bodily apparatus in general. Because of this and other
handicaps inherent in the mnemonic lapse, I was for some time kept under strict medical
care.
When I saw that my attempts to conceal the lapse had failed, I admitted it openly, and
became eager for information of all sorts. Indeed, it seemed to the doctors that I lost
interest in my proper personality as soon as I found the case of amnesia accepted as a
natural thing.
They noticed that my chief efforts were to master certain points in history, science, art,
language, and folklore - some of them tremendously abstruse, and some childishly simple
- which remained, very oddly in many cases, outside my consciousness.
At the same time they noticed that I had an inexplicable command of many almost
unknown sorts of knowledge - a command which I seemed to wish to hide rather than
display. I would inadvertently refer, with casual assurance, to specific events in dim ages
outside of the range of accepted history - passing off such references as a jest when I saw
the surprise they created. And I had a way of speaking of the future which two or three
times caused actual fright.
These uncanny flashes soon ceased to appear, though some observers laid their
vanishment more to a certain furtive caution on my part than to any waning of the strange
knowledge behind them. Indeed, I seemed anomalously avid to absorb the speech,
customs, and perspectives of the age around me; as if I were a studious traveller from a
far, foreign land.
As soon as permitted, I haunted the college library at all hours; and shortly began to
arrange for those odd travels, and special courses at American and European Universities,
which evoked so much comment during the next few years.
I did not at any time suffer from a lack of learned contacts, for my case had a mild
celebrity among the psychologists of the period. I was lectured upon as a typical example
of secondary personality - even though I seemed to puzzle the lecturers now and then
with some bizarre symptoms or some queer trace of carefully veiled mockery.
Of real friendliness, however, I encountered little. Something in my aspect and speech
seemed to excite vague fears and aversions in every one I met, as if I were a being
infinitely removed from all that is normal and healthful. This idea of a black, hidden
horror connected with incalculable gulfs of some sort of distance was oddly widespread
and persistent.
My own family formed no exception. From the moment of my strange waking my wife
had regarded me with extreme horror and loathing, vowing that I was some utter alien
usurping the body of her husband. In 1910 she obtained a legal divorce, nor would she
ever consent to see me even after my return to normality in 1913. These feelings were
shared by my elder son and my small daughter, neither of whom I have ever seen since.
Only my second son, Wingate, seemed able to conquer the terror and repulsion which my
change aroused. He indeed felt that I was a stranger, but though only eight years old held
fast to a faith that my proper self would return. When it did return he sought me out, and
the courts gave me his custody. In succeeding years he helped me with the studies to
which I was driven, and today, at thirty-five, he is a professor of psychology at
Miskatonic.
But I do not wonder at the horror caused - for certainly, the mind, voice, and facial
expression of the being that awakened on l5 May 1908, were not those of Nathaniel
Wingate Peastee.
I will not attempt to tell much of my life from 1908 to 1913, since readers may glean I the
outward essentials - as I largely had to do - from files of old newspapers and scientific
journals.
I was given charge of my funds, and spent them slowly and on the whole wisely, in travel
and in study at various centres of learning. My travels, however, were singular in the
extreme, involving long visits to remote and desolate places.
In 1909 I spent a month in the Himalayas, and in 1911 roused much attention through a
camel trip into the unknown deserts of Arabia. What happened on those journeys I have
never been able to learn.
During the summer of l9l2 I chartered a ship and sailed in the Arctic, north of
Spitzbergen, afterward showing signs of disappointment.
Later in that year I spent weeks - alone beyond the limits of previous or subsequent
exploration in the vast limestone cavern systems of western Virginia - black labyrinths so
complex that no retracing of my steps could even be considered.
My sojourns at the universities were marked by abnormally rapid assimilation, as if the
secondary personality had an intelligence enormously superior to my own. I have found,
also, that my rate of reading and solitary study was phenomenal. I could master every
detail of a book merely by glancing over it as fast as I could turn the leaves; while my
skill at interpreting complex figures in an instant was veritably awesome.
At times there appeared almost ugly reports of my power to influence the thoughts and
acts of others, though I seemed to have taken care to minimize displays of this faculty.
Other ugly reports concerned my intimacy with leaders of occultist groups, and scholars
suspected of connection with nameless bands of abhorrent elder-world hierophants.
These rumours, though never proved at the time, were doubtless stimulated by the known
tenor of some of my reading - for the consulltation of rare books at libraries cannot be
effected secretly.
There is tangible proof - in the form of marginal notes - that I went minutely through
such things as the Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules, Ludvig Prinn's De Vermis
Mysteriis, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, the surviving fragments of the
puzzling Book of Eibon, and the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul
Alhazred. Then, too, it is undeniable that a fresh and evil wave of underground cult
activity set in about the time of my odd mutation.
In the summer of 1913 I began to display signs of ennui and flagging interest, and to hint
to various associates that a change might soon be expected in me. I spoke of returning
memories of my earlier life - though most auditors judged me insincere, since all the
recollections I gave were casual, and such as might have been learned from my old
private papers.
About the middle of August I returned to Arkham and re-opened my long-closed house in
Crane Street. Here I installed a mechanism of the most curious aspect, constructed
piecemeal by different makers of scientific apparatus in Europe and America, and
guarded carefully from the sight of any one intelligent enough to analyse it.
Those who did see it - a workman, a servant, and the new housekeeper - say that it was a
queer mixture of rods, wheels, and mirros, though only about two feet tall, one foot wide,
and one foot thick. The central mirror was circular and convex. All this is borne out by
such makers of parts as can be located.
On the evening of Friday, 26 September, I dismissed the housekeeper and the maid until
noon of the next day. Lights burned in the house till late, and a lean, dark, curiously
foreign-looking man called in an automobile.
It was about one A.M. that the lights were last seen. At 2.15 A.M. a policeman observed
the place in darkness, but the strager's motor still at the curb. By 4 o'clock the motor was
certainly gone.
It was at 6 o'clock that a hesitant, foreign voice on the telephone asked Dr Wilson to call
at my house and bring me out of a peculiar faint. This call - a long-distance one - was
later traced to a public booth in the North Station in Boston, but no sign of the lean
foreigner was ever unearthed.
When the doctor reached my house he found me unconscious in the sitting room - in an
easy-chair with a table drawn up before it. On the polished top were scratches showing
where some heavy object had rested. The queer machine was gone, nor was anything
afterward heard of it. Undoubtedly the dark, lean foreigner had taken it away.
In the library grate were abundant ashes, evidently left from the burning of the every
remainmg scrap of paper on which I had written since the advent of the amnesia. Dr
Wilson found my breathing very peculiar, but after a hypodermic injection it became
more regular.
At 11.15 A.M., 27 September, I stirred vigorously, and my hitherto masklike face began
to show signs of expression. Dr Wilson remarked that the expression was not that of my
secondary personality, but seemed much like that of my normal self. About 11.30 I
muttered some very curious syllables - syllables which seemed unrelated to any human
speech. I appeared, too, to struggle against something. Then, just afternoon - the
housekeeper and the maid having meanwhile returned - I began to mutter in English.
"- of the orthodox economists of that period, Jevons typifies the prevailing trend toward
scientific correlation. His attempt to link the commercial cycle of prosperity and
depression with the physical cycle of the solar spots forms perhaps the apex of -"
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee had come back - a spirit in whose time scale it was still
Thursday morning in 1908, with the economics class gazing up at the battered desk on
the platform.
II
My reabsorption into normal life was a painful and difficult process. The loss of over five
years creates more complications than can be imagined, and in my case there were
countless matters to be adjusted.
What I heard of my actions since 1908 astonished and disturbed me, but I tried to view
the matter as philosophically as I could. At last, regaining custody of my second son,
Wingate, I settled down with him in the Crane Street house and endeavoured to resume
my teaching - my old professorship having been kindly offered me by the college.
I began work with the February, 1914, term, and kept at it just a year. By that time I
realized how badly my experience had shaken me. Though perfectly sane - I hoped - and
with no flaw in my original personality, I had not the nervous energy of the old days.
Vague dreams and queer ideas continually haunted me, and when the outbreak of the
World War turned my mind to history I found myself thinking of periods and events in
the oddest possible fashion.
My conception of time, my ability to distinguish between consecutiveness and
simultaneousness - seemed subtly disordered so that I formed chimerical notions about
living in one age and casting one's mind all over etenity for knowledge of past and future
ages.
The war gave me strange impressions of remembering some of its far-off consequences -
as if I knew how it was coming out and could look back upon it in the light of future
information. All such quasi-memories were attended with much pain, and with a feeling
that some artificial psychological barrier was set a against them.
When I diffidently hinted to others about my impressions I met with varied responses.
Some persons looked uncomfortably at me, but men in the mathematics department
spoke of new developments in those theories of relativity - then discussed only in learned
circles - which were later to become so famous. Dr. Albert Einstein, they said, was
rapidly reducing time to the status of a mere dimension.
But the dreams and disturbed feelings gained on me, so that I had to drop my regular
work in 1915. Certainly the impressions were taking an annoying shape - giving me the
persistent notion that my amnesia had formed some unholy sort of exchange; that the
secondary personality had indeed had had suffered displacement. been an in-
Thus I was driven to vague and fright speculations concerning the whereabouts of my
true self during the years that another had held my body. The curious knowledge and
strange conduct of my body's late tenant troubled me more and more as I learned further
details from persons, papers, and magazines.
Queernesses that had baffled others seemed to harmonize terribly with some background
of black knowledge which festered in the chasms of my subconscious. I began to search
feverishly for every scrap of information bearing on the studies and travels of that other
one during the dark years.
Not all of my troubles were as semi-abstract as this. There were the dreams - and these
seemed to grow in vividness and concreteness. Knowing how most would regard them, I
seldom mentioned them to anyone but my son or certain trusted psychologists, but
eventually I commenced a scientific study of other cases in order to see how typical or
nontypical such visions might be among amnesia victims.
My results, aided by psychologists, historians, anthropologists, and mental specialists of
wide experience, and by a study that included all records of split personalities from the
days of daemonic-possession legends to the medically realistic present, at first bothered
me more than they consoled me.
I soon found that my dreams had, indeed, no counterpart in the overwhelming bulk of
true amnesia cases. There remained, however, a tiny residue of accounts which for years
baffled and shocked me with their parallelism to my own experience. Some of them were
bits of ancient folklore; others were case histories in the annals of medicine; one or two
were anecdotes obscurely buried in standard histories.
It thus appeared that, while my special kind of affliction was prodigiously rare, instances
of it had occurred at long intervals ever since the beginnig of men's annals. Some
centuries might contain one, two, or three cases, others none - or at least none whose
record survived.
The essence was always the same - a person of keen thoughtfulness seized a strange
secondary life and leading for a greater or lesser period an utterly alien existence typified
at first by vocal and bodily awkwardness, an later by a wholesale acquisition of scientific,
historic, artistic, and anthropologic knowledge; an acquisition carried on with feverish
zest and with a wholly abnormal absorptive power. Then a sudden return of rightful
consciousness, intermittently plagued ever after with vague unplaceable dreams
suggesting fragments of some hideous memory elaborately blotted out.
And the close resemblance of those nightmares to my own - even in some of the smallest
particulars - left no doubt in my mind of their significantly typical nature. One or two of
the cases had an added ring of faint, blasphemous familiarity, as if I had heard of them
before through some cosmic channel too morbid and frightful to contemplate. In three
instances there was specific mention of such an unknown machine as had been in my
house before the second change.
Another thing that worried me during my investigation was the somewhat greater
frequency of cases where a brief, elusive glimpse of the typical nightmares was afforded
to persons not visited well-defined amnesia.
These persons were largely of mediocre mind or less - some so primitive that they could
scarcely be thought of as vehicles forabnormal scholarship and preternatural mental
acquisitions. For a second they would be fired with alien force - then a backward lapse,
and a thin, swift-fading memory of unhuman horrors.
There had been at least three such cases during the past half century - one only fifteen
years before. Had something been groping blindly through time from some unsuspected
abyss in Nature? Were these faint cases monstrous, sinister experiments of a kind and
authorship uttely beyond same belief?
Such were a few of the forless speculations of my weaker hours - fancies abetted by
myths which my studies uncovered. For I could not doubt but that certain persistent
legends of immemorial antiquity, apparently unknown to the victims and physicians
connected with recent amnesia cases, formed a striking and awesome elaboration of
memory lapses such as mine.
Of the nature of the dreams and impressions which were growing so clamorous I still
almost fear to speak. They seemed to savor of madness, and at times I believed I was
indeed going mad. Was there a special type of delusion afflicting those who had suffered
lapses of memory? Conceivably, the efforts of the subconscious mind to fill up a
perplexing blank with pseudo-memories might give rise to strange imaginative vagaries.
This indeed - though an alternative folklore theory finally seemed to me more plausible -
was the belief of many of the alienists who helped me in my search for parallel cases, and
who shared my puzzlement at the exact resemblances sometimes discovered.
They did not call the condition true insanity, but classed it rather among neurotic
disorders. My course in trying to track down and analyze it, instead of vaintly seeking to
dismiss or forget it, they heartily endorsed as correct according to the best psychological
principles. I especially valued the advice of such physicians as had studied me during my
possession by the other personality.
My first disturbances were not visual at all, but concerned the more abstract matters
which I have mentioned. There was, too, a feeling of profound and inexplicable horror
concerning myself. I developed a queer fear of seeing my own form, as if my eyes would
find it something utterly alien and inconceivably abhorrent.
When I did glance down and behold the familiar human shape in quiet grey or blue
clothing, I always felt a curious relief, though in order to gain this relief I had to conquer
an infinite dread. I shunned mirrors as much as possible, and was always shaved at the
barber's.
It was a long time before I correlated any of these disappointed feelings with the fleeting,
visual impressions which began to develop. The first such correlation had to do with the
odd sensation of an external, artificial restraint on my memory.
I felt that the snatches of sight I experienced had a profound and terrible meaning, and a
frightful connexion with myself, but that some purposeful influence held me from
grasping that meaning and that connexion. Then came that queerness about the element
of time, and with it desperate efforts to place the fragmentary dream-glimpses in the
chronological and spatial pattern.
The glimpses themselves were at first merely strange rather than horrible. I would seem
to be in an enormous vaulted chamber whose lofty stone aroinings were well-nigh lost in
the shadows overhead. In whatever time or place the scene might be, the principle of the
arch was known as fully and used as extensively as by the Romans.
There were colossal, round windows and high, arched doors, and pedestals or tables each
as tall as the height of an ordinary room. Vast shelves of dark wood lined the walls,
holding what seemed to be volumes of immense size with strange hieroglyphs on their
backs.
The exposed stonework held curious carvings, always in curvilinear mathematical
designs, and there were chiselled inscriptions in the same characters that the huge books
bore. The dark granite masonry was of a monstrous megathic type, with lines of convex-
topped blocks fitting the concave-bottomed courses which rested upon them.
There were no chairs, but the tops of the vast pedestals were littered with books, papers,
and what seemed to be writing materials - oddly figured jars of a purplish metal, and rods
with stained tips. Tall as the pedestals were, I seemed at times able to view them from
above. On some of them were great globes of luminous crystal serving as lamps, and
inexplicable machines formed of vitreous tubes and metal rods.
The windows were glazed, and latticed with stout-looking bars. Though I dared not
approach and peer out them, I could see from where I was he waving tops of singular
fern-like growths. The floor was of massive octagonal flagstones, while rugs and
hangings were entirely lacking.
Later I had visions of sweeping through Cyclopean corridors of stone, and up and down
gigantic inclined planes of the same monstrous masonry. There were no stairs anywhere,
nor was any passageway less than thirty feet wide. Some of the structures through which
I floated must have towered in the sky for thousands of feet.
There were multiple levels of black vaults below, and never-opened trapdoors, sealed
down with metal bands and holding dim suggestions of some special peril.
I seemed to be a prisoner, and horror hung broodingly over everything I saw. I felt that
the mocking curvilinear hieroglyphs on the walls would blast my soul with their message
were I not guarded by a merciful ignorance.
Still later my dreams included vistas from the great round windows, and from the titanic
flat roof, with its curious gardens, wide barren area, and high, scalloped parapet of stone,
to which the topmost of the inclined planes led.
There were, almost endless leagues of giant buildings, each in its garden, and ranged
along paved roads fully 200 feet wide. They differed greatly in aspect, but few were less
than 500 feet square or a thousand feet high. Many seemed so limitless that they must
have had a frontage of several thousand feet, while some shot up to mountainous altitudes
in the grey, steamy heavens.
They seemed to be mainly of stone or concrete, and most of them embodied the oddly
curvilinear type of masonry noticeable in the building that held me. Roofs were flat and
garden-covered, and tended to have scalloped parapets. Sometimes there were terraces
and higher levels, and wide, cleared spaces amidst the gardens. The great roads held hints
of motion, but in the earlier visions I could not resolve this impression into details.
In certain places I beheld enormous dark cylindrical towers which climbed far above any
of the other structures. These appeared to be of a totally unique nature and shewed signs
of prodigious age and dilapidation. They were built of a bizarre type of square-cut basalt
masonry, and tapered slightly toward their rounded tops. Nowhere in any of them could
the least traces of windows or other apertures save huge doors be found. I noticed also
some lower buildinigs - all crumbling with the weathering of aeons - which resembled
these dark, cylindrical towers in basic architecture. Around all these aberrant piles of
square-cut masonry there hovered an inexplicable aura of menace and concentrated fear,
like that bred by the sealed trap-doors.
The omnipresent gardens were almost terrifying in their strangeness, with bizarre and
unfamiliar forms of vegetation nodding over broad paths lined with curiously carven
monoliths. Abnormally vast fern-like growths predominated - some green, and some of a
ghastly, fungoid pallor.
Among them rose great spectral things resembling calamites, whose bamboo-like trunks
towered to fabulous heights. Then there were tufted forms like fabulous cycads, and
grotesque dark-green shrubs and trees of coniferous aspect.
Flowers were small, colourless, and unrecognizable, blooming in geometrical beds and at
large among the greenery.
In a few of the terrace and roof-top gardens were larger and more blossoms of most
offensive contours and seeming to suggest artificial breeding. Fungi of inconceivable
size, outlines, and colours speckled the scene in patterns bespeaking some unknown but
well-established horticultural tradition. In the larger gardens on the ground there seemed
to be some attempt to preserve the irregularities of Nature, but on the roofs there was
more selectiveness, and more evidences of the topiary art.
The sides were almost always moist and cloudy, and sometimes I would seem to witness
tremendous rains. Once in a while, though, there would be glimpses of the sun - which
looked abnormally large - and of the moon, whose markings held a touch of difference
from the normal that I could never quite fathom. When - very rarely - the night sky was
clear to any extent, I beheld constellations which were nearly beyond recognition. Known
outlines were sometimes approximated, but seldom duplicated; and from the position of
the few groups I could recognize, I felt I must be in the earth's southern hemisphere, near
the Tropic of Capricorn.
The far horizon was always steamy and indistinct, but I could see that great jungles of
unknown tree-ferns, calamites, lepidodendra, and sigillaria lay outside the city, their
fantastic frondage waving mockingly in the shifting vapours. Now and then there would
be suggestions of motion in the sky, but these my early visions never resolved.
By the autumn of 1914 I began to have infrequent dreams of strange floatings over the
city and through the regions around it. I saw interminable roads through forests of
fearsome growths with mottled, fluted, and banded trunks, and past other cities as strange
as the one which persistently haunted me.
I saw monstrous constructions of black or iridescent tone in glades and clearings where
perpetual twilight reigned, and traversed long causeways over swamps so dark that I
could tell but little of their moist, towering vegetation.
Once I saw an area of countless miles strewn with age-blasted basaltic ruins whose
architecture had been like that of the few windowless, round-topped towers in the
haunting city.
And once I saw the sea - a boundless, steamy expanse beyond the colossal stone piers of
an enormous town of domes and arches. Great shapeless sugggestions of shadow moved
over it, and here and there its surface was vexed ith anomalous spoutings.
III
As I have said, it was not immediately that these wild visions began to hold their
terrifying quality. Certainly, many persons have dreamed intrinsically stranger things -
things compounded of unrelated scraps of daily life, pictures,and reading, and arranged in
fantastically novel forms by the unchecked caprices of sleep.
For some time I accepted the visions as natural, even though I had never before been an
extravagant dreamer. Many of the vague anomalies, I argued, must have come from
trivial sources too numerous to track down; while others seemed to reflect a common text
book knowledge of the plants and other conditions of the primitive world of a hundred
and fifty million years ago - the world of the Permian or Triassic age.
In the course of some months, however, the element of terror did figure with
accumulating force. This was when the dreams began so unfailingly to have the aspect of
memories, and when my mind began to link them with my growing abstract disturbances
- the feeling of mnemonic restraint, the curious impressions regarding time, and sense of
a loathsome exchange with my secondary personality of 1908-13, and, considerably later,
the inexplicable loathing of my own person.
As certain definite details began to enter the dreams, their horror increased a
thousandfold - until by October, 1915, I felt I must do something. It was then that I began
an intensive study of other cases of amnesia and visions, feeling that I might thereby
obectivise my trouble and shake clear of its emotional grip.
However, as before mentioned, the result was at first almost exactly opposite. It disturbed
me vastly to find that my dreams had been so closely duplicated; especially since some of
the accounts were too early to admit of any geological knowledge - and therefore of any
idea of primitive landscapes - on the subjects' part.
What is more, many of these accounts supplied very horrible details and explanations in
connexion with the visions of great buildings and jungle gardens - and other things. The
actual sights and vague impressions were bad enough, but what was hinted or asserted by
some of the other dreamers savored of madness and blasphemy. Worst of all, my own
pseudo-memory was aroused to milder dreams and hints of coming revelations. And yet
most doctors deemed my course, on he whole, an advisable one.
I studied psychology systematically, and under the prevailing stimulus my son Wingate
did the same - his studies leading eventually to his present professorship. In 1917 and
1918 I took special courses at Miskatonic. Meanwhile, my examination of medical,
historical, and anthropological records became indefatigable, involving travels to distant
libraries, and finally including even a reading of the hideous books of forbidden elder
lore in which my secondary personality had been so disturbingly interested.
Some of the latter were the actual copies I had consulted in my altered state, and I was
greatly disturbed by certain marginal notations and ostensible corrections of the hideous
text in a script and idiom which somehow seemed oddly unhuman.
These markings were mostly in the respective languages of the various books, all of
which the writer seemed to know with equal, though obviously academic, facility. One
note appended to von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten, however, was alarmingly
otherwise. It consisted of certain curvilinear hieroglyphs in the same ink as that of the
German corrections, but following no recognized human pattern. And these hieroglyphs
were closely and unmistakably aldn to the characters constantly met with in my dreams -
characters whose meaning I would sometimes momentarily fancy I knew, or was just on
the brink of recalling.
To complete my black confusion, my librarians assured me that, in view of previous
examinations and records of consultation of the volumes in question, all of these
notations must have been made by myself in my secondary state. This despite the fact
that I was and still am ignorant of three of the languages involved.
Piecing together the scattered records, ancient and modern, anthropological and medical,
I found a fairly consistent mixture of myth and hallucination whose scope and wildness
left me utterly dazed. Only one thing consoled me, the fact that the myths were of such
early existence. What lost knowledge could have brought pictures of the Palaeozoic or
Mesozoic landscape into these primitive fables, I could not even guess; but the pictures
had been there. Thus, a basis existed for the formation of a fixed type of delusion.
Cases of amnesia no doubt created the general myth pattern - but afterward the fanciful
accretions of the myths must have reacted on amnesia sufferers and coloured their
pseudo-memories. I myself had read and heard all the early tales during my memory
lapse - my quest had amply proved that. Was it not natural, then, for my subsequent
dreams and emotional impressions to become coloured and moulded by what my memory
subtly held over from my secondary state?
A few of the myths had significant connexions with other cloudy legends of the pre-
human world, especially those Hindu tales involving stupefying gulfs of time and
forming part of the lore of modern theosopists.
Primal myth and modern delusion joined in their assumption that mankind is only one -
perhaps the least - of the highly evolved and dominant races of this planet's long and
largely unknown career. Things of inconceivable shape, they implied, had reared towers
to the sky and delved into every secret of Nature before the first amphibian forbear of
man had crawled out of the hot sea 300 million years ago.
Some had come down from the stars; a few were as old as the cosmos itself, others had
arisen swiftly from terrene germs as far behind the first germs of our life-cycle as those
germs are behind ourselves. Spans of thousands of millions of years, and linkages to
other galaxies and universes, were freely spoken of. Indeed, there was no such thing as
time in its humanly accepted sense.
But most of the tales and impressions concerned a relatively late race, of a queer and
intricate shape, resembling no life-form known to science, which had lived till only fifty
million years before the advent of man. This, they indicated, was the greatest race of all
because it alone had conquered the secret of time.
It had learned all things that ever were known or ever would be known on the earth,
through the power of its keener minds to project themselves into the past and future, even
through gulfs of millions of years, and study the lore of every age. From the
accomplishments of this race arose all legends of prophets, including those in human
mythology.
In its vast libraries were volumes of texts and pictures holding the whole of earth's
annals-histories and descriptions of every species that had ever been or that ever would
be, with full records of their arts, their achievements, their languages, and their
psychologies.
With this aeon-embracing knowledge, the Great Race chose from every era and life-form
such thoughts, arts, and processes as might suit its own nature and situation. Knowledge
of the past, secured through a kind of mind-casting outside the recognized senses, was
harder to glean than knowledge of the future.
In the latter case the course was easier and more material. With suitable mechanical aid a
mind would project itself forward in time, feeling its dim, extra-sensory way till it
approached the desired period. Then, after preliminary trials, it would seize on the best
discoverable representative of the highest of that period's life-forms. It would enter the
organism's brain and set up therein its own vibrations, while the displaced mind would
strike back to the period of the displacer, remaining in the latter's body till a reverse
process was set up.
The projected mind, in the body of the organism of the future, would then pose as a
member of the race whose outward form it wore, learning as quickly as possible all that
could be learned of the chosen age and its massed information and techniques.
Meanwhile the displaced mind, thrown back to the displacer's age and body, would be
carefully guarded. It would be kept from harming the body it occupied, and would be
drained of all its knowledge by trained questioners. Often it could be questioned in its
own language, when previous quests into the future had brought back records of that
language.
If the mind came from a body whose language the Great Race could not physically
reproduce, clever machines would be made, on which the alien speech could be played as
on a musical instrument.
The Great Race's members were immense rugose cones ten feet high, and with head and
other organs attached to foot-thick, distensible limbs spreading from the apexes. They
spoke by the clicking or scraping of huge paws or claws attached to the end of two of
their four limbs, and walked by the expansion and contraction of a viscous layer attached
to their vast, ten-foot bases.
When the captive mind's amazement and resentment had worn off, and when - assuming
that it came from a body vastly different from the Great Race's - it had lost its horror at its
unfamiliar temporary form, it was permitted to study its new environment and experience
a wonder and wisdom approyimating that of its displacer.
With suitable precautions, and in exchange for suitable services, it was allowed to rove
all over the habitable world in titan airships or on the huge boatlike atomic-engined
vehicles which traversed the great roads, and to delve freely into the libraries containing
the records of the planet's past and future.
This reconciled many captive minds to their lot; since none were other than keen, and to
such minds the unveiling of hidden mysteries of earth-closed chapters of inconceivable
pasts and dizzying vortices of future time which include the years ahead of their own
natural ages-forms always, despite the abysmal horrors often unveiled, the supreme
experience of life.
Now and then certain captives were permitted to meet other captive minds seized from
the future - to exchange thoughts with consciousnesses living a hundred or a thousand or
a million years before or after their own ages. And all were urged to write copiously in
their own languages of themselves and their respective periods; such documents to be
filed in the great central archives.
It may be added that there was one special type of captive whose privileges were far
greater than those of the majority. These were the dying permanent exiles, whose bodies
in the future had been seized by keen-minded members of the Great Race who, faced
with death, sought to escape mental extinction.
Such melancholy exiles were not as common as might be expected, since the longevity of
the Great Race lessened its love of life - especially among those superior minds capable
of projection. From cases of the permanent projection of elder minds arose many of those
lasting changes of personality noticed in later history - including mankind's.
As for the ordinary cases of exploration - when the displacing mind had learned what it
wished in the future, it would build an apparatus like that which had started its flight and
reverse the process of projection. Once more it would be in its own body in its own age,
while the lately captive mind would return to that body of the future to which it properly
belonged.
Only when one or the other of the bodies had died during the exchange was this
restoration impossible. In such cases, of course, the exploring mind had - like those of the
death-escapers - to live out an alien-bodied life in the future; or else the captive mind-like
the dying permanent exiles - had to end its days in the form and past age of the Great
Race.
This fate was least horrible when the captive mind was also of the Great Race - a not
infrequent occurrence, since in all its periods that race was intensely concerned with its
own future. The number of dying permanent exiles of the Great Race was very slight -
largely because of the tremendous penalties attached to displacements of future Great
Race minds by the moribund.
Through projection, arrangements were made to inflict these penalties on the offending
minds in their new future bodies - and sometimes forced reëxchanges were effected.
Complex cases of the displacement of exploring or already captive minds by minds in
various regions of the past had been known and carefully rectified. In every age since the
discovery of mind projection, a minute but well-recognised element of the population
consisted of Great Race minds from past ages, sojourning for a longer or shorter while.
When a captive mind of alien origin was returned to its own body in the future, it was
purged by an intricate mechanical hypnosis of all it had learned in the Great Race's age -
this because of certain troublesome consequences inherent in the general carrying
forward of knowledge in large quantities.
The few existing instances of clear transmission had caused, and would cause at known
future times, great disasters. And it was largely in consequence of two cases of this kind -
said the old myths - that mankind had learned what it had concerning the Great Race.
Of all things surviving physically and directly from that aeon-distant world, there
remained only certain ruins of great stones in far places and under the sea, and parts of
the text of the frightful Pnakotic Manuscripts.
Thus the returning mind reached its own age with only the faintest and most fragmentary
visions of what it had undergone since its seizure. All memories that could be eradicated
were eradicated, so that in most cases only a dream-shadowed blank stretched back to the
time of the first exchange. Some minds recalled more than others, and the chance joining
of memories had at rare times brought hints of the forbidden past to future ages.
There probably never was a time when groups or cults did not secretly cherish certain of
these hints. In the Necronomicon the presence of such a cult among human beings was
suggested - a cult that sometimes gave aid to minds voyaging down the aeons from the
days of the Great Race.
And, meanwhile, the Great Race itself waxed well-nigh omniscient, and turned to the task
of setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and
futures. It sought likewise to fathom the past years and origin of that black, aeon-dead orb
in far space whence its own mental heritage had come - for the mind of the Great Race
was older than its bodily form.
The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a
new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en
masse into that future race best adapted to house them - the cone-shaped beings that
peopled our earth a billion years ago.
Thus the Great Race came to be, while the myriad minds sent backward were left to die
in the horror of strange shapes. Later the race would again face death, yet would live
through another forward migration of its best minds into the bodies of others who had a
longer physical span ahead of them.
Such was the background of intertwined legend and hallucination. When, around 1920, I
had my researches in coherent shape, I felt a slight lessening of the tension which their
earlier stages had increased. After all, and in spite of the fancies prompted by blind
emotions, were not most of my phenomena readily explainable? Any chance might have
turned my mind to dark studies during the amnesia - and then I read the forbidden
legends and met the members of ancient and ill-regarded cults. That, plainly, supplied the
material for the dreams and disturbed feelings which came after the return of memory.
As for the marginal notes in dream-hieroglyphs and languages unknown to me, but laid at
my door by librarians - I might easily have picked up a smattering of the tongues during
my secondary state, while the hieroglyphs were doubtless coined by my fancy from
descriptions in old legends, and afterward woven into my dreams. I tried to verify certain
points through conversation with known cult leaders, but never succeeded in establishing
the right connexions.
At times the parallelism of so many cases in so many distant ages continued to worry me
as it had at first, but on the other hand I reflected that the excitant folklore was
undoubtedly more universal in the past than in the present.
Probably all the other victims whose cases were like mine had had a long and familiar
knowledge of the tales I had learned only when in my secondary state. When these
victims had lost their memory, they had associated themselves with the creatures of their
household myths - the fabulous invaders supposed to displace men's minds - and had thus
embarked upon quests for knowledge which they thought they could take back to a
fancied, non-human past.
Then, when their memory returned, they reversed the associative process and thought of
themselves as the former captive minds instead of as the displacers. Hence the dreams
and pseudo-memories following the conventional myth pattern.
Despite the seeming cumbrousness of these explanations, they came finally to supersede
all others in my mind-largely because of the greater weakness of any rival theory. And a
substantial number of eminent psychologists and anthropologists gradually agreed with
me.
The more I reflected, the more convincing did my reasoning seem; till in the end I had a
really effective bulwark against the visions and impressions which still assailed me.
Suppose I did see strange things at night? These were only what I had heard and read of.
Suppose I did have odd loathings and perspectives and pseudo-memories? These, too,
were only echoes of myths absorbed in my secondary state. Nothing that I might dream,
nothing that I might feel, could be of any actual significance.
Fortified by this philosophy, I greatly improved in nervous equilibrium, even though the
visions - rather than the abstract impressions - steadily became more frequent and more
disturbingly detailed. In 1922 I felt able to undertake regular work again, and put my
newly gained knowledge to practical use by accepting an instructorship in psychology at
the university.
My old chair of political economy had long been adequately filled - besides which,
methods of teaching economics had changed greatly since my heyday. My son was at this
time just entering on the post-graduate studies leading to his resent professorship, and we
worked together a great deal.
IV
I continued, however, to keep a careful record of the outré dreams which crowded upon
me so thickly and vividly. Such a record, I argued, was of genuine value as a
psychological document. The glimpses still seemed damnably like memories, though I
fought off this impression with a goodly measure of success.
In writing, I treated the phantasmata as things seen; but at all other times I brushed them
aside like any gossamer illusions of the night. I had never mentioned such matters in
common conversation; though reports of them, filtering out as such things will, had
aroused sundry rumors regarding my mental health. It is amusing to reflect that these
rumors were confined wholly to laymen, without a single champion among physicians or
psychologists.
Of my visions after 1914 I will here mention only a few, since fuller accounts and records
are at the disposal of the serious student. It is evident that with time the curious
inhibitions somewhat waned, for the scope of my visions vastly increased. They have
never, though, become other than disjointed fragments seemingly without clear
motivation.
Within the dreams I seemed gradually to acquire a greater and greater freedom of
wandering. I floated through many strange buildings of stone, going from one to the other
along mammoth underground passages which seemed to form the common avenues of
transit. Sometimes I encountered those gigantic sealed trap-doors in the lowest level,
around which such an aura of fear and forbiddenness clung.
I saw tremendously tessellated pools, and rooms of curious and inexplicable utensils of
myriad sorts. Then there were colossal caverns of intricate machinery whose outlines and
purpose were wholly strange to me, and whose sound manifested itself only after many
years of dreaming. I may here remark that sight and sound are the only senses I have ever
exercised in the visionary world.
The real horror began in May, 1915, when I first saw the living things. This was before
my studies had taught me what, in view of the myths and case histories, to expect. As
mental barriers wore down, I beheld great masses of thin vapour in various parts of the
building and in the streets below.
These steadily grew more solid and distinct, till at last I could trace their monstrous
outlines with uncomfortable ease. They seemed to be enormous, iridescent cones, about
ten feet high and ten feet wide at the base, and made up of some ridgy, scaly, semi-elastic
matter. From their apexes projected four flexible, cylindrical members, each a foot thick,
and of a ridgy substance like that of the cones themselves.
These members were sometimes contracted almost to nothing, and sometimes extended
to any distance up to about ten feet. Terminating two of them were enormous claws or
nippers. At the end of a third were four red, trumpetlike appendages. The fourth
terminated in an irregular yellowish globe some two feet in diameter and having three
great dark eyes ranged along its central circumference.
Surmounting this head were four slender grey stalks bearing flower-like appendages,
whilst from its nether side dangled eight greenish antennae or tentacles. The great base of
the central cone was fringed with a rubbery, grey substance which moved the whole
entity through expansion and contraction.
Their actions, though harmless, horrified me even more than their appearance - for it is
not wholesome to watch monstrous objects doing what one had known only human
beings to do. These objects moved intelligently about the great rooms, getting books from
the shelves and taking them to the great tables, or vice versa, and sometimes writing
diligently with a peculiar rod gripped in the greenish head tentacles. The huge nippers
were used in carrying books and in conversation-speech consisting of a kind of clicking
and scraping.
The objects had no clothing, but wore satchels or knapsacks suspended from the top of
the conical trunk. They commonly carried their head and its supporting member at the
level of the cone top, although it was frequently raised or lowered.
The other three great members tended to rest downward at the sides of the cone,
contracted to about five feet each when not in use. From their rate of reading, writing,
and operating their machines - those on the tables seemed somehow connected with
thought - I concluded that their intelligence was enormously greater than man's.
Aftenvard I saw them everywhere; swarming in all the great chambers and corridors,
tending monstrous machines in vaulted crypts, and racing along the vast roads in
gigantic, boat-shaped cars. I ceased to be afraid of them, for they seemed to form
supremely natural parts of their environment.
Individual differences amongst them began to be manifest, and a few appeared to be
under some kind of restraint. These latter, though shewing no physical variation, had a
diversity of gestures and habits which marked them off not only from the majority, but
very largely from one another.
They wrote a great deal in what seemed to my cloudy vision a vast variety of characters -
never the typical curvilinear hieroglyphs of the majority. A few, I fancied, used our own
familiar alphabet. Most of them worked much more slowly than the general mass of the
entities.
All this time my own part in the dreams seemed to be that of a disembodied
consciousness with a range of vision wider than the normal, floating freely about, yet
confined to the ordinary avenues and speeds of travel. Not until August, 1915, did any
suggestions of bodily existence begin to harass me. I say harass, because the first phase
was a purely abstract, though infinitely terrible, association of my previously noted body
loathing with the scenes of my visions.
For a while my chief concern during dreams was to avoid looking down at myself, and I
recall how grateful I was for the total absence of large mirrors in the strange rooms. I was
mightily troubled by the fact that I always saw the great tables - whose height could not
be under ten feet - from a level not below that of their surfaces.
And then the morbid temptation to look down at myself became greater and greater, till
one night I could not resist it. At first my downward glance revealed nothing whatever. A
moment later I perceived that this was because my head lay at the end of a flexible neck
of enormous length. Retracting this neck and gazing down very sharply, I saw the scaly,
rugose, iridescent bulk of a vast cone ten feet tall and ten feet wide at the base. That was
when I waked half of Arkham with my screaming as I plunged madly up from the abyss
of sleep.
Only after weeks of hideous repetition did I grow half-reconciled to these visions of
myself in monstrous form. In the dreams I now moved bodily among the other unknown
entities, reading terrible books from the endless shelves and writing for hours at the great
tables with a stylus managed by the green tentacles that hung down from my head.
Snatches of what I read and wrote would linger in my memory. There were horrible
annals of other worlds and other universes, and of stirrings of formless life outside of all
universes. There were records of strange orders of beings which had peopled the world in
forgotten pasts, and frightful chronicles of grotesque-bodied intelligences which would
people it millions of years after the death of the last human being.
I learned of chapters in human history whose existence no scholar of today has ever
suspected. Most of these writings were in the language of the hieroglyphs; which I
studied in a queer way with the aid of droning machines, and which was evidently an
agglutinative speech with root systems utterly unlike any found in human languages.
Other volumes were in other unknown tongues learned in the same queer way. A very
few were in languages I knew. Extremely clever pictures, both inserted in the records and
forming separate collections, aided me immensely. And all the time I seemed to be
setting down a history of my own age in English. On waking, I could recall only minute
and meaningless scraps of the unknown tongues which my dream-self had mastered,
though whole phrases of the history stayed with me.
I learned - even before my waking self had studied the parallel cases or the old myths
from which the dreams doubtless sprang - that the entities around me were of the world's
greatest race, which had conquered time and had sent exploring minds into every age. I
knew, too, that I had been snatched from my age while another used my body in that age,
and that a few of the other strange forms housed similarly captured minds. I seemed to
talk, in some odd language of claw clickings, with exiled intellects from every corner of
the solar system.
There was a mind from the planet we know as Venus, which would live incalculable
epochs to come, and one from an outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past. Of
earthly minds there were some from the winged, starheaded, half-vegetable race of
palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry
pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable
Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth's last age; five from the hardy
coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some
day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from
different branches of humanity.
I talked with the mind of Yiang-Li, a philosopher from the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan,
which is to come in 5,000 A.D.; with that of a general of the greatheaded brown people
who held South Africa in 50,000 B.C.; with that of a twelfth-century Florentine monk
named Bartolomeo Corsi; with that of a king of Lomar who had ruled that terrible polar
land one hundred thousand years before the squat, yellow Inutos came from the west to
engulf it.
I talked with the mind of Nug-Soth, a magician of the dark conquerors of 16,000 A.D.;
with that of a Roman named Titus Sempronius Blaesus, who had been a quaestor in
Sulla's time; with that of Khephnes, an Egyptian of the 14th Dynasty, who told me the
hideous secret of Nyarlathotep, with that of a priest of Atlantis' middle kingdom; with
that of a Suffolk gentleman of Cromwell's day, James Woodville; with that of a court
astronomer of pre-Inca Peru; with that of the Australian physicist Nevil Kingston-Brown,
who will die in 2,518 A.D.; with that of an archimage of vanished Yhe in the Pacific;
with that of Theodotides, a Greco-Bactrian official Of 200 B.C.; with that of an aged
Frenchman of Louis XIII's time named Pierre-Louis Montagny; with that of Crom-Ya, a
Cimmerian chieftain of 15,000 B.C.; and with so many others that my brain cannot hold
the shocking secrets and dizzying marvels I learned from them.
I awaked each morning in a fever, sometimes frantically trying to verify or discredit such
information as fell within the range of modern human knowledge. Traditional facts took
on new and doubtful aspects, and I marvelled at the dream-fancy which could invent such
surprising addenda to history and science.
I shivered at the mysteries the past may conceal, and trembled at the menaces the future
may bring forth. What was hinted in the speech of post-human entities of the fate of
mankind produced such an effect on me that I will not set it down here.
After man there would be the mighty beetle civilisation, the bodies of whose members
the cream of the Great Race would seize when the monstrous doom overtook the elder
world. Later, as the earth's span closed, the transferred minds would again migrate
through time and space - to another stopping-place in the bodies of the bulbous vegetable
entities of Mercury. But there would be races after them, clinging pathetically to the cold
planet and burrowing to its horror-filled core, before the utter end.
Meanwhile, in my dreams, I wrote endlessly in that history of my own age which I was
preparing - half voluntarily and half through promises of increased library and travel
opportunities - for the Great Race's central archives. The archives were in a colossal
subterranean structure near the city's center, which I came to know well through frequent
labors and consultations. Meant to last as long as the race, and to withstand the fiercest of
earth's convulsions, this titan repository surpassed all other buildings in the massive,
mountain-like firmness of its construction.
The records, written or printed on great sheets of a curiously tenacious cellulose fabric
were bound into books that opened from the top, and were kept in individual cases of a
strange, extremely light, restless metal of greyish hue, decorated with mathematical
designs and bearing the title in the Great Race's curvilinear hieroglyphs.
These cases were stored in tiers of rectangular vaults-like closed, locked shelves -
wrought of the same rustless metal and fastened by knobs with intricate turnings. My
own history was assigned a specific place in the vaults of the lowest or vertebrate level -
the section devoted to the culture of mankind and of the furry and reptilian races
immediately preceding it in terrestrial dominance.
But none of the dreams ever gave me a full picture of daily life. All were the merest
misty, disconnected fragments, and it is certain that these fragments were not unfolded in
their rightful sequence. I have, for example, a very imperfect idea of my own living
arrangements in the dream-world; though I seem to have possessed a great stone room of
my own. My restrictions as a prisoner gradually disappeared, so that some of the visions
included vivid travels over the mighty jungle roads, sojourns in strange cities, and
explorations of some of the vast, dark, windowless ruins from which the Great Race
shrank in curious fear. There were also long sea voyages in enormous, many-decked
boats of incredible swiftness, and trips over wild regions in closed projectile-like airships
lifted and moved by electrical repulsion.
Beyond the wide, warm ocean were other cities of the Great Race, and on one far
continent I saw the crude villages of the black-snouted, winged creatures who would
evolve as a dominant stock after the Great Race had sent its foremost minds into the
future to escape the creeping horror. Flatness and exuberant green life were always the
keynote of the scene. Hills were low and sparse, and usually displayed signs of volcanic
forces.
Of the animals I saw, I could write volumes. All were wild; for the Great Race's
mechanised culture had long since done away with domestic beasts, while food was
wholly vegetable or synthetic. Clumsy reptiles of great bulk floundered in steaming
morasses, fluttered in the heavy air, or spouted in the seas and lakes; and among these I
fancied I could vaguely recognise lesser, archaic prototypes of many forms - dinosaurs,
pterodactyls, ichthyosaurs, labyrinthodonts, plesiosaurs, and the like-made familiar
through palaeontology. Of birds or mammals there were none that I could discover.
The ground and swamps were constantly alive with snakes, lizards, and crocodiles while
insects buzzed incessantly among the lush vegetation. And far out at sea, unspied and
unknown monsters spouted mountainous columns of foam into the vaporous sky. Once I
was taken under the ocean in a gigantic submarine vessel with searchlights, and glimpsed
some living horrors of awesome magnitude. I saw also the ruins of incredible sunken
cities, and the wealth of crinoid, brachiopod, coral, and ichthyic life which everywhere
abounded.
Of the physiology, psychology, folkways, and detailed history of the Great Race my
visions preserved but little information, and many of the scattered points I here set down
were gleaned from my study of old legends and other cases rather than from my own
dreaming.
For in time, of course, my reading and research caught up with and passed the dreams in
many phases, so that certain dream-fragments were explained in advance and formed
verifications of what I had learned. This consolingly established my belief that similar
reading and research, accomplished by my secondary self, had formed the source of the
whole terrible fabric of pseudomemories.
The period of my dreams, apparently, was one somewhat less than 150,000,000 years
ago, when the Palaeozoic age was giving place to the Mesozoic. The bodies occupied by
the Great Race represented no surviving - or even scientifically known-line of terrestrial
evolution, but were of a peculiar, closely homogeneous, and highly specialised organic
type inclining as much as to the vegetable as to the animal state.
Cell action was of an unique sort almost precluding fatigue, and wholly eliminating the
need of sleep. Nourishment, assimilated through the red trumpet-like appendages on one
of the great flexible limbs, was always semifluid and in many aspects wholly unlike the
food of existing animals.
The beings had but two of the senses which we recognise - sight and hearing, the latter
accomplished through the flower-like appendages on the grey stalks above their heads.
Of other and incomprehensible senses - not, however, well utilizable by alien captive
minds inhabiting their bodies - they possessed many. Their three eyes were so situated as
to give them a range of vision wider than the normal. Their blood was a sort of deep-
greenish ichor of great thickness.
They had no sex, but reproduced through seeds or spores which clustered on their bases
and could be developed only under water. Great, shallow tanks were used for the growth
of their young - which were, however, reared only in small numbers on account of the
longevity of individuals - four or five thousand years being the common life span.
Markedly defective individuals were quickly disposed of as soon as their defects were
noticed. Disease and the approach of death were, in the absence of a sense of touch or of
physical pain, recognised by purely visual symptoms.
The dead were incinerated with dignified ceremonies. Once in a while, as before
mentioned, a keen mind would escape death by forward projection in time; but such cases
were not numerous. When one did occur, the exiled mind from the future was treated
with the utmost kindness till the dissolution of its unfamiliar tenement.
The Great Race seemed to form a single, loosely knit nation or league, with major
institutions in common, though there were four definite divisions. The political and
economic system of each unit was a sort of fascistic socialism, with major resources
rationally distributed, and power delegated to a small governing board elected by the
votes of all able to pass certain educational and psychological tests. Family organisation
was not overstressed, though ties among persons of common descent were recognised,
and the young were generally reared by their parents.
Resemblances to human attitudes and institutions were, of course, most marked in those
fields where on the one hand highly abstract elements were concerned, or where on the
other hand there was a dominance of the basic, unspecialised urges common to all
organic life. A few added likenesses came through conscious adoption as the Great Race
probed the future and copied what it liked.
Industry, highly mechanised, demanded but little time from each citizen; and the
abundant leisure was filled with intellectual and aesthetic activities of various sorts.
The sciences were carried to an unbelievable height of development, and art was a vital
part of life, though at the period of my dreams it had passed its crest and meridian.
Technology was enormously stimulated through the constant struggle to survive, and to
keep in existence the physical fabric of great cities, imposed by the prodigious geologic
upheavals of those primal days.
Crime was surprisingly scant, and was dealt with through highly efficient policing.
Punishments ranged from privilege deprivation and imprisonment to death or major
emotion wrenching, and were never administered without a careful study of the criminal's
inotivations.
Warfare, largely civil for the last few millennia though sometimes waged against reptilian
or octopodic invaders, or against the winged, star-headed Old Ones who centered in the
antarctic, was infrequent though infinitely devastating. An enormous army, using camera-
like weapons which produced tremendous electrical effects, was kept on hand for
purposes seldom mentioned, but obviously connected with the ceaseless fear of the dark,
windowless elder ruins and of the great sealed trap-doors in the lowest subterranean
levels.
This fear of the basalt ruins and trap-doors was largely a matter of unspoken suggestion -
or, at most, of furtive quasi-whispers. Everything specific which bore on it was
significantly absent from such books as were on the common shelves. It was the one
subject lying altogether under a taboo among the Great Race, and seemed to be connected
alike with horrible bygone struggles, and with that future peril which would some day
force the race to send its keener minds ahead en masse in time.
Imperfect and fragmentary as were the other things presented by dreams and legends, this
matter was still more bafflingly shrouded. The vague old myths avoided it - or perhaps all
allusions had for some reason been excised. And in the dreams of myself and others, the
hints were peculiarly few. Members of the Great Race never intentionally referred to the
matter, and what could be gleaned came only from some of the more sharply observant
captive minds.
According to these scraps of information, the basis of the fear was a horrible elder race of
half-polypous, utterly alien entities which had come through space from immeasurably
distant universes and had dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600
million years ago. They were only partly material - as we understand matter - and their
type of consciousness and media of perception differed widely from those of terrestrial
organisms. For example, their senses did not include that of sight; their mental world
being a strange, non-visual pattern of impressions.
They were, however, sufficiently material to use implements of normal matter when in
cosmic areas containing it; and they required housing - albeit of a peculiar kind. Though
their senses could penetrate all material barriers, their substance could not; and certain
forms of electrical energy could wholly destroy them. They had the power of aërial
motion, despite the absence of wings or any other visible means of levitation. Their
minds were of such texture that no exchange with them could be effected by the Great
Race.
When these things had come to the earth they had built mighty basalt cities of
windowless towers, and had preyed horribly upon the beings they found. Thus it was
when the minds of the Great Race sped across the void from that obscure, trans-galactic
world known in the disturbing and debatable Eltdown Shards as Yith.
The newcomers, with the instruments they created, had found it easy to subdue the
predatory entities and drive them down to those caverns of inner earth which they had
already joined to their abodes and begun to inhabit.
Then they had sealed the entrances and left them to their fate, afterward occupying most
of their great cities and preserving certain important buildings for reasons connected
more with superstition than with indifference, boldness, or scientific and historical zeal.
But as the aeons passed there came vague, evil signs that the elder things were growing
strong and numerous in the inner world. There were sporadic irruptions of a particularly
hideous character in certain small and remote cities of the Great Race, and in some of the
deserted elder cities which the Great Race had not peopled - places where the paths to the
gulfs below had not been properly sealed or guarded.
After that greater precautions were taken, and many of the paths were closed forever -
though a few were left with sealed trap-doors for strategic use in fighting the elder things
if ever they broke forth in unexpected places.
The irruptions of the elder things must have been shocking beyond all description, since
they had permanently coloured the psychology of the Great Race. Such was the fixed
mood of horror that the very aspect of the creatures was left unmentioned. At no time was
I able to gain a clear hint of what they looked like.
There were veiled suggestions of a monstrous plasticity, and of temporary lapses of
visibility, while other fragmentary whispers referred to their control and military use of
great winds. Singular whistling noises, and colossal footprints made up of five circular
toe marks, seemed also to be associated with them.
It was evident that the coming doom so desperately feared by the Great Race - the doom
that was one day to send millions of keen minds across the chasm of time to strange
bodies in the safer future - had to do with a final successful irruption of the elder beings.
Mental projections down the ages had clearly foretold such a horror, and the Great Race
had resolved that none who could escape should face it. That the foray would be a matter
of vengeance, rather than an attempt to reoccupy the outer world, they knew from the
planet's later history - for their projections shewed the coming and going of subsequent
races untroubled by the monstrous entities.
Perhaps these entities had come to prefer earth's inner abysses to the variable, storm-
ravaged surface, since light meant nothing to them. Perhaps, too, they were slowly
weakening with the aeons. Indeed, it was known that they would be quite dead in the time
of the post-human beetle race which the fleeing minds would tenant.
Meanwhile, the Great Race maintained its cautious vigilance, with potent weapons
ceaselessly ready despite the horrified banishing of the subject from common speech and
visible records. And always the shadow of nameless fear hung bout the sealed trap-doors
and the dark, windowless elder towers.
V
That is the world of which my dreams brought me dim, scattered echoes every night. I
cannot hope to give any true idea of the horror and dread contained in such echoes, for it
was upon a wholly intangible quality - the sharp sense of pseudo-memory - that such
feelings mainly depended.
As I have said, my studies gradually gave me a defence against these feelings in the form
of rational psychological explanations; and this saving influence was augmented by the
subtle touch of accustomedness which comes with the passage of time. Yet in spite of
everything the vague, creeping terror would return momentarily now and then. It did not,
however, engulf me as it had before; and after 1922 I lived a very normal life of work and
recreation.
In the course of years I began to feel that my experience - together with the kindred cases
and the related folklore - ought to be definitely summarised and published for the benefit
of serious students; hence I prepared a series of articles briefly covering the whole ground
and illustrated with crude sketches of some of the shapes, scenes, decorative motifs, and
hieroglyphs remembered from the dreams.
These appeared at various times during 1928 and 1929 in the Journal of the American
Psychological Society, but did not attract much attention. Meanwhile I continued to
record my dreams with the minutest care, even though the growing stack of reports
attained troublesomely vast proportions. On July 10, 1934, there was forwarded to me by
the Psychological Society the letter which opened the culminating and most horrible
phase of the whole mad ordeal. It was postmarked Pilbarra, Western Australia, and bore
the signature of one whom I found, upon inquiry, to be a mining engineer of considerable
prominence. Enclosed were some very curious snapshots. I will reproduce the text in its
entirety, and no reader can fail to understand how tremendous an effect it and the
photographs had upon me.
I was, for a time, almost stunned and incredulous; for although I had often thought that
some basis of fact must underlie certain phases of the legends which had coloured my
dreams, I was none the less unprepared for anything like a tangible survival from a lost
world remote beyond all imagination. Most devastating of all were the photographs - for
here, in cold, incontrovertible realism, there stood out against a background of sand
certain worn-down, water-ridged, storm-weathered blocks of stone whose slightly convex
tops and slightly concave bottoms told their own story.
And when I studied them with a magnifying glass I could see all too plainly, amidst the
batterrings and pittings, the traces of those vast curvilinear designs and occasional
hieroglyphs whose significance had become so hideous to me. But here is the letter,
which speaks for itself.
49, Dampier St.,
Pilbarra, W. Australia,
May 18, 1934.
Prof. N. W Peaslee,
c/o Am. Psychological Society,
30 E. 41st St.,
New York City, U.S.A.
My Dear Sir:
A recent conversation with Dr. E. M. Boyle of Perth, and some papers
with your articles which he has just sent me, make it advisable for me to
tell you about certain things I have seen in the Great Sandy Desert east of
our gold field here. It would seem, in view of the peculiar legends about
old cities with huge stonework and strange designs and hieroglyphs which
you describe, that I have come upon something very important.
The blackfellows have always been full of talk about "great stones with
marks on them," and seem to have a terrible fear of such things. They
connect them in some way with their common racial legends about
Buddai, the gigantic old man who lies asleep for ages underground with
his head on his arm, and who will some day awake and eat up the world.
There are some very old and half-forgotten tales of enormous underground
huts of great stones, where passages lead down and down, and where
horrible things have happened. The blackfellows claim that once some
warriors, fleeing in battle, went down into one and never came back, but
that frightful winds began to blow from the place soon after they went
down. However, there usually isn't much in what these natives say.
But what I have to tell is more than this. Two years ago, when I was
prospecting about 500 miles east in the desert, I came on a lot of queer
pieces of dressed stone perhaps 3 X 2 X 2 feet in size, and weathered and
pitted to the very limit.
At first I couldn't find any of the marks the blackfellows told about, but
when I looked close enough I could make out some deeply carved lines in
spite of the weathering. There were peculiar curves, just like what the
blackfellows had tried to describe. I imagine there must have been thirty
or forty blocks, some nearly buried in the sand, and all within a circle
perhaps a quarter of a mile in diameter.
When I saw some, I looked around closely for more, and made a careful
reckoning of the place with my instruments. I also took pictures of ten or
twelve of the most typical blocks, and will enclose the prints for you to
see.
I turned my information and pictures over to the government at Perth, but
they have done nothing about them.
Then I met Dr. Boyle, who had read your articles in the Joumal of the
American Psychological Society, and, in time, happened to mention the
stones. He was enormously interested, and became quite excited when I
shewed him my snapshots, saying that the stones and the markings were
just like those of the masonry you had dreamed about and seen described
in legends.
He meant to write you, but was delayed. Meanwhile, he sent me most of
the magazines with your articles, and I saw at once, from your drawings
and descriptions, that my stones are certainly the kind you mean. You can
appreciate this from the enclosed prints. Later on you will hear directly
from Dr. Boyle.
Now I can understand how important all this will be to you. Without
question we are faced with the remains of an unknown civilization older
than any dreamed of before, and forming a basis for your legends.
As a mining engineer, I have some knowledge of geology, and can tell you
that these blocks are so ancient they frighten me. They are mostly
sandstone and granite, though one is almost certainly made of a queer sort
of cement or concrete.
They bear evidence of water action, as if this part of the world had been
submerged and come up again after long ages - all since those blocks were
made and used. It is a matter of hundreds of thousands of years - or heaven
knows how much more. I don't like to think about it.
In view of your previous diligent work in tracking down the legends and
everything connected with them, I cannot doubt but that you will want to
lead an expedition to the desert and make some archaeological
excavations. Both Dr. Boyle and I are prepared to cooperate in such work
if you - or organizations known to you - can furnish the funds.
I can get together a dozen miners for the heavy digging - the blackfellows
would be of no use, for I've found that they have an almost maniacal fear
of this particular spot. Boyle and I are saying nothing to others, for you
very obviously ought to have precedence in any discoveries or credit.
The place can be reached from Pilbarra in about four days by motor tractor
- which we'd need for our apparatus. It is somewhat west and south of
Warburton's path of 1873, and 100 miles southeast of Joanna Spring. We
could float things up the De Grey River instead of starting from Pilbarra -
but all that can be talked over later.
Roughly the stones lie at a point about 22° 3' 14" South Latitude, 125° 0'
39" East Longitude. The climate is tropical, and the desert conditions are
trying.
I shall welcome further correspondence upon this subject, and am keenly
eager to assist in any plan you may devise. After studying your articles I
am deeply impressed with the profound significance of the whole matter.
Dr. Boyle will write later. When rapid communication is needed, a cable
to Perth can be relayed by wireless.
Hoping profoundly for an early message,
Believe me,
Most faithfully yours,
Robert B.F. Mackenzie
Of the immediate aftermath of this letter, much can be learned from the press. My good
fortune in securing the backing of Miskatonic University was great, and both Mr.
Mackenzie and Dr. Boyle proved invaluable in arranging matters at the Australian end.
We were not too specific with the public about our objects, since the whole matter would
have lent itself unpleasantly to sensational and jocose treatment by the cheaper
newspapers. As a result, printed reports were sparing; but enough appeared to tell of our
quest for reported Australian ruins and to chronicle our various preparatory steps.
Professor William Dyer of the college's geology department - leader of the Miskatonic
Antarctic Expedition Of 1930-31 - Ferdinand C. Ashley of the department of ancient
history, and Tyler M. Freeborn of the department of anthropology - together with my son
Wingate - accompanied me.
My correspondent, Mackenzie, came to Arkham early in 1935 and assisted in our final
preparations. He proved to be a tremendously competent and affable man of about fifty,
admirably well-read, and deeply familiar with all the conditions of Australian travel.
He had tractors waiting at Pilbarra, and we chartered a tramp steamer sufficiently small to
get up the river to that point. We were prepared to excavate in the most careful and
scientific fashion, sifting every particle of sand, and disturbing nothing which might seem
to be in or near its original situation.
Sailing from Boston aboard the wheezy Lexington on March 28, 1935, we had a leisurely
trip across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea,
and across the Indian Ocean to our goal. I need not tell how the sight of the low, sandy
West Australian coast depressed me, and how I detested the crude mining town and
dreary gold fields where the tractors were given their last loads.
Dr. Boyle, who met us, proved to be elderly, pleasant, and intelligent - and his knowledge
of psychology led him into many long discussions with my son and me.
Discomfort and expectancy were oddly mingled in most of us when at length our party of
eighteen rattled forth over the arid leagues of sand and rock. On Friday, May 31st, we
forded a branch of the De Grey and entered the realm of utter desolation. A certain
positive terror grew on me as we advanced to this actual site of the elder world behind the
legends - a terror, of course, abetted by the fact that my disturbing dreams and pseudo-
memories still beset me with unabated force.
It was on Monday, June 3rd, that we saw the first of the half-buried blocks. I cannot
describe the emotions with which I actually touched - in objective reality - a fragment of
Cyclopean masonry in every respect like the blocks in the walls of my dream-buildings.
There was a distinct trace of carving - and my hands trembled as I recognised part of a
curvilinear decorative scheme made hellish to me through years of tormenting nightmare
and baffling research.
A month of digging brought a total of some 1250 blocks in varying stages of wear and
disintegration. Most of these were carven megaliths with curved tops and bottoms. A
minority were smaller, flatter, plain-surfaced, and square or octagonally cut-like those of
the floors and pavements in my dreams - while a few were singularly massive and curved
or slanted in such a manner as to suggest use in vaulting or groining, or as parts of arches
or round window casings.
The deeper - and the farther north and east - we dug, the more blocks we found; though
we still failed to discover any trace of arrangement among them. Professor Dyer was
appalled at the measureless age of the fragments, and Freeborn found traces of symbols
which fitted darkly into certain Papuan and Polynesian legends of infinite antiquity. The
condition and scattering of the blocks told mutely of vertiginous cycles of time and
geologic upheavals of cosmic savagery.
We had an aëroplane with us, and my son Wingate would often go up to different heights
and scan the sand-and-rock waste for signs of dim, large-scale outlines - either
differences of level or trails of scattered blocks. His results were virtually negative; for
whenever he would one day think he had glimpsed some significant trend, he would on
his next trip find the impression replaced by another equally insubstantial - a result of the
shifting, wind-blown sand.
One or two of these ephemeral suggestions, though, affected me queerly and
disagreeably. They seemed, after a fashion, to dovetail horribly with something I had
dreamed or read, but which I could no longer remember. There was a terrible familiarity
about them - which somehow made me look furtively and apprehensively over the
abominable, sterile terrain toward the north and northeast.
Around the first week in July I developed an unaccountable set of mixed emotions about
that general northeasterly region. There was horror, and there was curiosity - but more
than that, there was a persistent and perplexing illusion of memory.
I tried all sorts of psychological expedients to get these notions out of my head, but met
with no success. Sleeplessness also gained upon me, but I almost welcomed this because
of the resultant shortening of my dream-periods. I acquired the habit of taking long, lone
walks in the desert late at night-usually to the north or northeast, whither the sum of my
strange new impulses seemed subtly to pull me.
Sometimes, on these walks, I would stumble over nearly buried fragments of the ancient
masonry. Though there were fewer visible blocks here than where we had started, I felt
sure that there must be a vast abundance beneath the surface. The ground was less level
than at our camp, and the prevailing high winds now and then piled the sand into fantastic
temporary hillocks - exposing low traces of the elder stones while it covered other traces.
I was queerly anxious to have the excavations extend to this territory, yet at the same
time dreaded what might be revealed. Obviously, I was getting into a rather bad state - all
the worse because I could not account for it.
An indication of my poor nervous health can be gained from my response to an odd
discovery which I made on one of my nocturnal rambles. It was on the evening of July
l1th, when the moon flooded the mysterious hillocks with a curious pallor.
Wandering somewhat beyond my usual limits, I came upon a great stone which seemed
to differ markedly from any we had yet encountered. It was almost wholly covered, but I
stooped and cleared away the sand with my hands, later studying the object carefully and
supplementing the moonlight with my electric torch.
Unlike the other very large rocks, this one was perfectly square-cut, with no convex or
concave surface. It seemed, too, to be of a dark basaltic substance, wholly dissimilar to
the granite and sandstone and occasional concrete of the now familiar fragments.
Suddenly I rose, turned, and ran for the camp at top speed. It was a wholly unconscious
and irrational flight, and only when I was close to my tent did I fully realise why I had
run. Then it came to me. The queer dark stone was something which I had dreamed and
read about, and which was linked with the uttermost horrors of the aeon-old legendry.
It was one of the blocks of that basaltic elder masonry which the fabled Great Race held
in such fear - the tall, windowless ruins left by those brooding, half-material, alien things
that festered in earth's nether abysses and against whose wind-like, invisible forces the
trap-doors were sealed and the sleepless sentinels posted.
I remained awake all night, but by dawn realised how silly I had been to let the shadow of
a myth upset me. Instead of being frightened, I should have had a discoverer's
enthusiasm.
The next forenoon I told the others about my find, and Dyer, Freeborn, Boyle, my son,
and I set out to view the anomalous block. Failure, however, confronted us. I had formed
no clear idea of the stone's location, and a late ind had wholly altered the hillocks of
shifting sand.
VI
I come now to the crucial and most difficult part of my narrative - all the more difficult
because I cannot be quite certain of its reality. At times I feel uncomfortably sure that I
was not dreaming or deluded; and it is this feelingin view of the stupendous implications
which the objective truth of my experience would raise - which impels me to make this
record.
My son - a trained psychologist with the fullest and most sympathetic knowledge of my
whole case - shall be the primary judge of what I have to tell.
First let me outline the externals of the matter, as those at the camp know them. On the
night of July 17-18, after a windy day, I retired early but could not sleep. Rising shortly
before eleven, and afflicted as usual with that strange feeling regarding the northeastward
terrain, I set out on one of my typical nocturnal walks; seeing and greeting only one
person - an Australian miner named Tupper - as I left our precincts.
The moon, slightly past full, shone from a clear sky, and drenched the ancient sands with
a white, leprous radiance which seemed to me somehow infinitely evil. There was no
longer any wind, nor did any return for nearly five hours, as amply attested by Tupper
and others who saw me walking rapidly across the pallid, secret-guarding hillocks toward
the northeast.
About 3:30 a.m. a violent wind blew up, waking everyone in camp and felling three of
the tents. The sky was unclouded, and the desert still blazed with that leprous moonlight.
As the party saw to the tents my absence was noted, but in view of my previous walks
this circumstance gave no one alarm. And yet, as many as three men - all Australians -
seemed to feel something sinister in the air.
Mackenzie explained to Professor Freeborn that this was a fear picked up from
blackfellow folklore - the natives having woven a curious fabric of malignant myth about
the high winds which at long intervals sweep across the sands under a clear sky. Such
winds, it is whispered, blow out of the great stone huts under the ground, where terrible
things have happened - and are never felt except near places where the big marked stones
are scattered. Close to four the gale subsided as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the
sand hills in new and unfamiliar shapes.
It was just past five, with the bloated, fungoid moon sinking in the west, when I staggered
into camp - hatless, tattered, features scratched and ensanguined, and without my electric
torch. Most of the men had returned to bed, but Professor Dyer was smoking a pipe in
front of his tent. Seeing my winded and almost frenzied state, he called Dr. Boyle, and
the two of them got me on my cot and made me comfortable. My son, roused by the stir,
soon joined them, and they all tried to force me to lie still and attempt sleep.
But there was no sleep for me. My psychological state was very extraordinary - different
from anything I had previously suffered. After a time I insisted upon talking - nervously
and elaborately explaining my condition. I told them I had become fatigued, and had lain
down in the sand for a nap. There had, I said, been dreams even more frightful than usual
- and when I was awaked by the sudden high wind my overwrought nerves had snapped.
I had fled in panic, frequently falling over half-buried stones and thus gaining my tattered
and bedraggled aspect. I must have slept long - hence the hours of my absence.
Of anything strange either seen or experienced I hinted absolutely nothing - exercising
the greatest self-control in that respect. But I spoke of a change of mind regarding the
whole work of the expedition, and urged a halt in all digging toward the northeast. My
reasoning was patently weak - for I mentioned a dearth of blocks, a wish not to offend the
superstitious miners, a possible shortage of funds from the college, and other things either
untrue or irrelevant. Naturally, no one paid the least attention to my new wishes - not
even my son, whose concern for my health was obvious.
The next day I was up and around the camp, but took no part in the excavations. Seeing
that I could not stop the work, I decided to return home as soon as possible for the sake of
my nerves, and made my son promise to fly me in the plane to Perth - a thousand miles to
the southwest - as soon as he had surveyed the region I wished let alone.
If, I reflected, the thing I had seen was still visible, I might decide to attempt a specific
warning even at the cost of ridicule. It was just conceivable that the miners who knew the
local folklore might back me up. Humouring me, my son made the survey that very
afternoon, flying over all the terrain my walk could possibly have covered. Yet nothing of
what I had found remained in sight.
It was the case of the anomalous basalt block all over again - the shifting sand had wiped
out every trace. For an instant I half regretted having lost a certain awesome object in my
stark fright - but now I know that the loss was merciful. I can still believe my whole
experience an illusion - especially if, as I devoutly hope, that hellish abyss is never found.
Wingate took me to Perth on July 20th, though declining to abandon the expedition and
return home. He stayed with me until the 25th, when the steamer for Liverpool sailed.
Now, in the cabin of the Empress, I am pondering long and frantically upon the entire
matter, and have decided that my son at least must be informed. It shall rest with him
whether to diffuse the matter more widely.
In order to meet any eventuality I have prepared this summary of my background - as
already known in a scattered way to others - and will now tell as briefly as possible what
seemed to happen during my absence from the camp that hideous night.
Nerves on edge, and whipped into a kind of perverse eagerness by that inexplicable,
dread-mingled, mnemonic urge toward the northeast, I plodded on beneath the evil,
burning moon. Here and there I saw, half shrouded by sand, those primal Cyclopean
blocks left from nameless and forgotten aeons.
The incalculable age and brooding horror of this monstrous waste began to oppress me as
never before, and I could not keep from thinking of my maddening dreams, of the
frightful legends which lay behind them, and of the present fears of natives and miners
concerning the desert and its carven stones.
And yet I plodded on as if to some eldritch rendezvous - more and more assailed by
bewildering fancies, compulsions, and pseudo-memories. I thought of some of the
possible contours of the lines of stones as seen by my son from the air, and wondered
why they seemed at once so ominous and so familiar. Something was fumbling and
rattling at the latch of my recollection, while another unknown force sought to keep the
portal barred.
The night was windless, and the pallid sand curved upward and downward like frozen
waves of the sea. I had no goal, but somehow ploughed along as if with fate-bound
assurance. My dreams welled up into the waking world, so that each sand-embedded
megalith seemed part of endless rooms and corridors of pre-human masonry, carved and
hieroglyphed with symbols that I knew too well from years of custom as a captive mind
of the Great Race.
At moments I fancied I saw those omniscient, conical horrors moving about at their
accustomed tasks, and I feared to look down lest I find myself one with them in aspect.
Yet all the while I saw the sand-covered blocks as well as the rooms and corridors; the
evil, burning moon as well as the lamps of luminous crystal; the endless desert as well as
the waving ferns beyond the windows. I was awake and dreaming at the same time.
I do not know how long or how far - or indeed, in just what direction -I had walked when
I first spied the heap of blocks bared by the day's wind. It was the largest group in one
place that I had seen so far, and so sharply did it impress me that the visions of fabulous
aeons faded suddenly away.
Again there were only the desert and the evil moon and the shards of an unguessed past. I
drew close and paused, and cast the added light of my electric torch over the tumbled
pile. A hillock had blown away, leaving a low, irregularly round mass of megaliths and
smaller fragments some forty feet across and from two to eight feet high.
From the very outset I realized that there was some utterly unprecedented quality about
those stones. Not only was the mere number of them quite without parallel, but
something in the sandworn traces of design arrested me as I scanned them under the
mingled beams of the moon and my torch.
Not that any one differed essentially from the earlier specimens we had found. It was
something subtler than that. The impression did not come when I looked at one block
alone, but only when I ran my eye over several almost simultaneously.
Then, at last, the truth dawned upon me. The curvilinear patterns on many of those blocks
were closely related - parts of one vast decorative conception. For the first time in this
aeon-shaken waste I had come upon a mass of masonry in its old position - tumbled and
fragmentary, it is true, but none the less existing in a very definite sense.
Mounting at a low place, I clambered laboriously over the heap; here and there clearing
away the sand with my fingers, and constantly striving to interpret varieties of size,
shape, and style, and relationships of design.
After a while I could vaguely guess at the nature of the bygone structure, and at the
designs which had once stretched over the vast surfaces of the primal masonry. The
perfect identity of the whole with some of my dream-glimpses appalled and unnerved me.
This was once a Cyclopean corridor thirty feet tall, paved with octagonal blocks and
solidly vaulted overhead. There would have been rooms opening off on the right, and at
the farther end one of those strange inclined planes would have wound down to still
lower depths.
I started violently as these conceptions occurred to me, for there was more in them than
the blocks themselves had supplied. How did I know that this level should have been far
underground? How did I know that the plane leading upward should have been behind
me? How did I know that the long subterrene passage to the Square of Pillars ought to lie
on the left one level above me?
How did I know that the room of machines and the rightward-leading tunnel to the
central archives ought to lie two levels below? How did I know that there would be one
of those horrible, metal-banded trap-doors at the very bottom four levels down?
Bewildered by this intrusion from the dream-world, I found myself shaking and bathed in
a cold perspiration.
Then, as a last, intolerable touch, I felt that faint, insidious stream of cool air trickling
upward from a depressed place near the center of the huge heap. Instantly, as once before,
my visions faded, and I saw again only the evil moonlight, the brooding desert, and the
spreading tumulus of palaeogean masonry. Something real and tangible, yet fraught with
infinite suggestions of nighted mystery, now confronted me. For that stream of air could
argue but one thing - a hidden gulf of great size beneath the disordered blocks on the
surface.
My first thought was of the sinister blackfellow legends of vast underground huts among
the megaliths where horrors happen and great winds are born. Then thoughts of my own
dreams came back, and I felt dim pseudo-memories tugging at my mind. What manner of
place lay below me? What primal, inconceivable source of age-old myth-cycles and
haunting nightmares might I be on the brink of uncovering?
It was only for a moment that I hesitated, for more than curiosity and scientific zeal was
driving me on and working against my growing fear.
I seemed to move almost automatically, as if in the clutch of some compelling fate.
Pocketing my torch, and struggling with a strength that I had not thought I possessed, I
wrenched aside first one titan fragment of stone and then another, till there welled up a
strong draught whose dampness contrasted oddly with the deserts dry air. A black rift
began to yawn, and at length - when I had pushed away every fragment small enough to
budge - the leprous moonlight blazed on an aperture of ample width to admit me.
I drew out my torch and cast a brilliant beam into the opening. Below me was a chaos of
tumbled masonry, sloping roughly down toward the north at an angle of about forty-five
degrees, and evidently the result of some bygone collapse from above.
Between its surface and the ground level was a gulf of impenetrable blackness at whose
upper edge were signs of gigantic, stress-heaved vaulting. At this point, it appeared, the
deserts sands lay directly upon a floor of some titan structure of earth's youth - how
preserved through aeons of geologic convulsion I could not then and cannot now even
attempt to guess.
In retrospect, the barest idea of a sudden, lone descent into such a doubtful abyss - and at
a time when one's whereabouts were unknown to any living soul - seems like the utter
apex of insanity. Perhaps it was - yet that night I embarked without hesitancy upon such a
descent.
Again there was manifest that lure and driving of fatality which had all along seemed to
direct my course. With torch flashing intermittently to save the battery, I commenced a
mad scramble down the sinister, Cyclopean incline below the opening - sometimes facing
forward as I found good hand - and foot-holds, and at other times turning to face the heap
of megaliths as I clung and fumbled more precariously.
In two directions beside me distant walls of carven, crumbling masonry loomed dimly
under the direct beams of my torch. Ahead, however, was only unbroken darkness.
I kept no track of time during my downward scramble. So seething with baffling hints
and images was my mind that all objective matters seemed withdrawn into incalculable
distances. Physical sensation was dead, and even fear remained as a wraith-like, inactive
gargoyle leering impotently at me.
Eventually, I reached a level floor strewn with fallen blocks, shapeless fragments of
stone, and sand and detritus of every kind. On either side - perhaps thirty feet apart - rose
massive walls culminating in huge groinings. That they were carved I could just discern,
but the nature of the carvings was beyond my perception.
What held me the most was the vaulting overhead. The beam from my torch could not
reach the roof, but the lower parts of the monstrous arches stood out distinctly. And so
perfect was their identity with what I had seen in countless dreams of the elder world,
that I trembled actively for the first time.
Behind and high above, a faint luminous blur told of the distant moonlit world outside.
Some vague shred of caution warned me that I should not let it out of my sight, lest I
have no guide for my return.
I now advanced toward the wall at my left, where the traces of carving were plainest. The
littered floor was nearly as hard to traverse as the downward heap had been, but I
managed to pick my difficult way.
At one place I heaved aside some blocks and locked away the detritus to see what the
pavement was like, and shuddered at the utter, fateful familiarity of the great octagonal
stones whose buckled surface still held roughly together.
Reaching a convenient distance from the wall, I cast the searchlight slowly and carefully
over its worn remnants of carving. Some bygone influx of water seemed to have acted on
the sandstone surface, while there were curious incrustations which I could not explain.
In places the masonry was very loose and distorted, and I wondered how many aeons
more this primal, hidden edifice could keep its remaining traces of form amidst earth's
heavings.
But it was the carvings themselves that excited me most. Despite their time-crumbled
state, they were relatively easy to trace at close range; and the complete, intimate
familiarity of every detail almost stunned my imagination.
That the major attributes of this hoary masonry should be familiar, was not beyond
normal credibility.
Powerfully impressing the weavers of certain myths, they had become embodied in a
stream of cryptic lore which, somehow, coming to my notice during the amnesic period,
had evoked vivid images in my subconscious mind.
But how could I explain the exact and minute fashion in which each line and spiral of
these strange designs tallied with what I had dreamed for more than a score of years?
What obscure, forgotten iconography could have reproduced each subtle shading and
nuance which so persistently, exactly, and unvaryingly besieged my sleeping vision night
after night?
For this was no chance or remote resemblance. Definitely and absolutely, the millennially
ancient, aeon-hidden corridor in which I stood was the original of something I knew in
sleep as intimately as I knew my own house in Crane Street, Arkham. True, my dreams
shewed the place in its undecayed prime; but the identity was no less real on that account.
I was wholly and horribly oriented.
The particular structure I was in was known to me. Known, too, was its place in that
terrible elder city of dreams. That I could visit unerringly any point in that structure or in
that city which had escaped the changes and devastations of uncounted ages, I realized
with hideous and instinctive certainty. What in heaven's name could all this mean? How
had I come to know what I knew? And what awful reality could lie behind those antique
tales of the beings who had dwelt in this labyrinth of primordial stone?
Words can convey only fractionally the welter of dread and bewilderment which ate at
my spirit. I knew this place. I knew what lay before me, and what had lain overhead
before the myriad towering stories had fallen to dust and debris and the desert. No need
now, I thought with a shudder, to keep that faint blur of moonlight in view.
I was torn betwixt a longing to flee and a feverish mixture of burning curiosity and
driving fatality. What had happened to this monstrous megalopolis of old in the millions
of years since the time of my dreams? Of the subterrene mazes which had underlain the
city and linked all the titan towers, how much had still survived the writhings of earth's
crust?
Had I come upon a whole buried world of unholy archaism? Could I still find the house
of the writing master, and the tower where S'gg'ha, the captive mind from the star-headed
vegetable carnivores of Antarctica, had chiselled certain pictures on the blank spaces of
the walls?
Would the passage at the second level down, to the hall of the alien minds, be still
unchoked and traversable? In that hall the captive mind of an incredible entity - a half-
plastic denizen of the hollow interior of an unknown trans-Plutonian planet eighteen
million years in the future - had kept a certain thing which it had modelled from clay.
I shut my eyes and put my hand to my head in a vain, pitiful effort to drive these insane
dream-fragments from my consciousness. Then, for the first time, I felt acutely the
coolness, motion, and dampness of the surrounding air. Shuddering, I realized that a vast
chain of aeon-dead black gulfs must indeed be yawning somewhere beyond and below
me.
I thought of the frightful chambers and corridors and inclines as I recalled them from my
dreams. Would the way to the central archives still be open? Again that driving fatality
tugged insistently at my brain as I recalled the awesome records that once lay cased in
those rectangular vaults of rustless metal.
There, said the dreams and legends, had reposed the whole history, past and future, of the
cosmic space-time continuum - written by captive minds from every orb and every age in
the solar system. Madness, of course - but had I not now stumbled into a nighted world as
mad as I?
I thought of the locked metal shelves, and of the curious knob twistings needed to open
each one. My own came vividly into my consciousness. How often had I gone through
that intricate routine of varied turns and pressures in the terrestrial vertebrate section on
the lowest level! Every detail was fresh and familiar.
If there were such a vault as I had dreamed of, I could open it in a moment. It was then
that madness took me utterly. An instant later, and I was leaping and stumbling over the
rocky debris toward the well-remembered incline to the depths below.
VII
From that point forward my impressions are scarcely to be relied on - indeed, I still
possess a final, desperate hope that they all form parts of some daemonic dream or
illusion born of delirium. A fever raged in my brain, and everything came to me through
a kind of haze - sometimes only intermittently.
The rays of my torch shot feebly into the engulfing blackness, bringing phantasmal
flashes of hideously familiar walls and carvings, all blighted with the decay of ages. In
one place a tremendous mass of vaulting had fallen, so that I had to clamber over a
mighty mound of stones reaching almost to the ragged, grotesquely stalactited roof.
It was all the ultimate apex of nightmare, made worse by the blasphemous tug of pseudo-
memory. One thing only was unfamiliar, and that was my own size in relation to the
monstrous masonry. I felt oppressed by a sense of unwonted smallness, as if the sight of
these towering walls from a mere human body was something wholly new and abnormal.
Again and again I looked nervously down at myself, vaguely disturbed by the human
form I possessed.
Onward through the blackness of the abyss I leaped, plunged, and staggered - often
falling and bruising myself, and once nearly shattering my torch. Every stone and corner
of that daemonic gulf was known to me, and at many points I stopped to cast beams of
light through choked and crumbling, yet familiar, archways.
Some rooms had totally collapsed; others were bare, or debris-filled. In a few I saw
masses of metal - some fairly intact, some broken, and some crushed or battered - which I
recognised as the colossal pedestals or tables of my dreams. What they could in truth
have been, I dared not guess.
I found the downward incline and began its descent - though after a time halted by a
gaping, ragged chasm whose narrowest point could not be much less than four feet
across. Here the stonework had fallen through, revealing incalculable inky depths
beneath.
I knew there were two more cellar levels in this titan edifice, and trembled with fresh
panic as I recalled the metal-clamped trap-door on the lowest one. There could be no
guards now - for what had lurked beneath had long since done its hideous work and sunk
into its long decline. By the time of the posthuman beetle race it would be quite dead.
And yet, as I thought of the native legends, I trembled anew.
It cost me a terrible effort to vault that yawning chasm, since the littered floor prevented a
running start - but madness drove me on. I chose a place close to the left-hand wall -
where the rift was least wide and the landing-spot reasonably clear of dangerous debris -
and after one frantic moment reached the other side in safety.
At last, gaining the lower level, I stumbled on past the archway of the room of machines,
within which were fantastic ruins of metal, half buried beneath fallen vaulting.
Everything was where I knew it would be, and I climbed confidently over the heaps
which barred the entrance of a vast transverse corridor. This, I realised, would take me
under the city to the central archives.
Endless ages seemed to unroll as I stumbled, leaped, and crawled along that debris-
cluttered corridor. Now and then I could make out carvings on the ages-tained walls -
some familiar, others seemingly added since the period of my dreams. Since this was a
subterrene house - connecting highway, there were no archways save when the route led
through the lower levels of various buildings.
At some of these intersections I turned aside long enough to look down well-remembered
corridors and into well-remembered rooms. Twice only did I find any radical changes
from what I had dreamed of - and in one of these cases I could trace the sealed-up
outlines of the archway I remembered.
I shook violently, and felt a curious surge of retarding weakness, as I steered a hurried
and reluctant course through the crypt of one of those great windowless, ruined towers
whose alien, basalt masonry bespoke a whispered and horrible origin.
This primal vault was round and fully two hundred feet across, with nothing carved upon
the dark-hued stonework. The floor was here free from anything save dust and sand, and I
could see the apertures leading upward and downward. There were no stairs or inclines -
indeed, my dreams had pictured those elder towers as wholly untouched by the fabulous
Great Race. Those who had built them had not needed stairs or inclines.
In the dreams, the downward aperture had been tightly sealed and nervously guarded.
Now it lay open-black and yawning, and giving forth a current of cool, damp air. Of what
limitless caverns of eternal night might brood below, I would not permit myself to think.
Later, clawing my way along a badly heaped section of the corridor, I reached a place
where the roof had wholly caved in. The debris rose like a mountain, and I climbed up
over it, passing through a vast, empty space where my torchlight could reveal neither
walls nor vaulting. This, I reflected, must be the cellar of the house of the metal-
purveyors, fronting on the third square not far from the archives. What had happened to it
I could not conjecture.
I found the corridor again beyond the mountain of detritus and stone, but after a short
distance encountered a wholly choked place where the fallen vaulting almost touched the
perilously sagging ceiling. How I managed to wrench and tear aside enough blocks to
afford a passage, and how I dared disturb the tightly packed fragments when the least
shift of equilibrium might have brought down all the tons of superincumbent masonry to
crush me to nothingness, I do not know.
It was sheer madness that impelled and guided me - if, indeed, my whole underground
adventure was not - as I hope - a hellish delusion or phase of dreaming. But I did make -
or dream that I made - a passage that I could squirm through. As I wiggled over the
mound of debris - my torch, switched continuously on, thrust deeply in my mouth - I felt
myself torn by the fantastic stalactites of the jagged floor above me.
I was now close to the great underground archival structure which seemed to form my
goal. Sliding and clambering down the farther side of the barrier, and picking my way
along the remaining stretch of corridor with hand-held, intermittently flashing torch, I
came at last to a low, circular crypt with arches - still in a marvelous state of preservation
- opening off on every side.
The walls, or such parts of them as lay within reach of my torchlight, were densely
hieroglyphed and chiselled with typical curvilinear symbols - some added since the
period of my dreams.
This, I realised, was my fated destination, and I turned at once through a familiar archway
on my left. That I could find a clear passage up and down the incline to all the surviving
levels, I had, oddly, little doubt. This vast, earth-protected pile, housing the annals of all
the solar system, had been built with supernal skill and strength to last as long as that
system itself.
Blocks of stupendous size, poised with mathematical genius and bound with cements of
incredible toughness, had combined to form a mass as firm as the planet's rocky core.
Here, after ages more prodigious than I could sanely grasp, its buried bulk stood in all its
essential contours, the vast, dust-drifted floors scarce sprinkled with the litter elsewhere
so dominant.
The relatively easy walking from this point onward went curiously to my head. All the
frantic eagerness hitherto frustrated by obstacles now took itself out in a kind of febrile
speed, and I literally raced along the low-roofed, monstrously well-remembered aisles
beyond the archway.
I was past being astonished by the familiarity of what I saw. On every hand the great
hieroglyphed metal shelf-doors loomed monstrously; some yet in place, others sprung
open, and still others bent and buckled under bygone geological stresses not quite strong
enough to shatter the titan masonry.
Here and there a dust-covered heap beneath a gaping, empty shelf seemed to indicate
where cases had been shaken down by earth tremors. On occasional pillars were great
symbols or letters proclaiming classes and subclasses of volumes.
Once I paused before an open vault where I saw some of the accustomed metal cases still
in position amidst the omnipresent gritty dust. Reaching up, I dislodged one of the thinner
specimens with some difficulty, and rested it on the floor for inspection. It was titled in
the prevailing curvilinear hieroglyphs, though something in the arrangement of the
characters seemed subtly unusual.
The odd mechanism of the hooked fastener was perfectly well known to me, and I
snapped up the still rustless and workable lid and drew out the book within. The latter, as
expected, was some twenty by fifteen inches in area, and two inches thick; the thin metal
covers opening at the top.
Its tough cellulose pages seemed unaffected by the myriad cycles of time they had lived
through, and I studied the queerly pigmented, brush-drawn letters of the text-symbols
unlike either the usual curved hieroglyphs or any alphabet known to human scholarship -
with a haunting, half-aroused memory.
It came to me that this was the language used by a captive mind I had known slightly in
my dreams - a mind from a large asteroid on which had survived much of the archaic life
and lore of the primal planet whereof it formed a fragment. At the same time I recalled
that this level of the archives was devoted to volumes dealing with the non-terrestrial
planets.
As I ceased poring over this incredible document I saw that the light of my torch was
beginning to fail, hence quickly inserted the extra battery I always had with me. Then,
armed with the stronger radiance, I resumed my feverish racing through unending tangles
of aisles and corridors - recognising now and then some familiar shelf, and vaguely
annoyed by the acoustic conditions which made my footfalls echo incongruously in these
catacombs.
The very prints of my shoes behind me in the millennially untrodden dust made me
shudder. Never before, if my mad dreams held anything of truth, had human feet pressed
upon those immemorial pavements.
Of the particular goal of my insane racing, my conscious mind held no hint. There was,
however, some force of evil potency pulling at my dazed will and buried recollection, so
that I vaguely felt I was not running at random.
I came to a downward incline and followed it to profounder depths. Floors flashed by me
as I raced, but I did not pause to explore them. In my whirling brain there had begun to
beat a certain rhythm which set my right hand twitching in unison. I wanted to unlock
something, and felt that I knew all the intricate twists and pressures needed to do it. It
would be like a modern safe with a combination lock.
Dream or not, I had once known and still knew. How any dream - or scrap of
unconsciously absorbed legend - could have taught me a detail so minute, so intricate,
and so complex, I did not attempt to explain to myself. I was beyond all coherent thought.
For was not this whole experience - this shocking familiarity with a set of unknown ruins,
and this monstrously exact identity of everything before me with what only dreams and
scraps of myth could have suggested - a horror beyond all reason?
Probably it was my basic conviction then - as it is now during my saner moments - that I
was not awake at all, and that the entire buried city was a fragment of febrile
hallucination.
Eventually, I reached the lowest level and struck off to the right of the incline. For some
shadowy reason I tiled to soften my steps, even though I lost speed thereby. There was a
space I was afraid to cross on this last, deeply buried floor.
As I drew near it I recalled what thing in that space I feared. It was merely one of the
metal-barred and closely guarded trap-doors. There would be no guards now, and on that
account I trembled and tiptoed as I had done in passing through that black basalt vault
where a similar trap-door had yawned.
I felt a current of cool, damp air as I had felt there, and wished that my course led in
another direction. Why I had to take the particular course I was taking, I did not know.
When I came to the space I saw that the trap-door yawned widely open. Ahead, the
shelves began again, and I glimpsed on the floor before one of them a heap very thinly
covered with dust, where a number of cases had recently fallen. At the same moment a
fresh wave of panic clutched me, though for some time I could not discover why.
Heaps of fallen cases were not uncommon, for all through the aeons this lightless
labyrinth had been racked by the heavings of earth and had echoed at intervals of the
deafening clatter of toppling objects. It was only when I was nearly across the space that I
realized why I shook so violently.
Not the heap, but something about the dust of the level floor was troubling me. In the
light of my torch it seemed as if that dust were not as even as it ought to be - there were
places where it looked thinner, as if it had been disturbed not many months before. I
could not be sure, for even the apparently thinner places were dusty enough; yet a certain
suspicion of regularity in the fancied unevenness was highly disquieting.
When I brought the torchlight close to one of the queer places I did not like what I saw -
for the illusion of regularity became very great. It was as if there were regular lines of
composite impressions - impressions that went in threes, each slightly over a foot square,
and consisting of five nearly circular three-inch prints, one in advance of the other four.
These possible lines of foot-square impressions appeared to lead in two directions, as if
something had gone somewhere and returned. They were, of course, very faint, and may
have been illusions or accidents; but there was an element of dim, fumbling terror about
the way I thought they ran. For at one end of them was the heap of cases which must have
clattered down not long before, while at the other end was the ominous trap-door with the
cool, damp wind, yawning unguarded down to abysses past imagination.
VIII
That my strange sense of compulsion was deep and overwhelming is shewn by its
conquest of my fear. No rational motive could have drawn me on after that hideous
suspicion of prints and the creeping dream-memories it excited. Yet my right hand, even
as it shook with fright, still twitched rhythmically in its eagerness to turn a lock it hoped
to find. Before I knew it I was past the heap of lately fallen cases and running on tiptoe
through aisles of utterly unbroken dust toward a point which I seemed to know morbidly,
horribly well.
My mind was asking itself questions whose origin and relevancy I was only beginning to
guess. Would the shelf be reachable by a human body? Could my human hand master all
the aeon-remembered motions of the lock? Would the lock be undamaged and workable?
And what would I do - what dare I do with what - as I now commenced to realise - I both
hoped and feared to find? Would it prove the awesome, brain-shattering truth of
something past normal conception, or shew only that I was dreaming?
The next I knew I had ceased my tiptoed racing and was standing still, staring at a row of
maddeningly familiar hieroglyphed shelves. They were in a state of almost perfect
preservation, and only three of the doors in this vicinity had sprung open.
My feelings toward these shelves cannot be described - so utter and insistent was the
sense of old acquaintance. I was looking high up at a row near the top and wholly out of
my reach, and wondering how I could climb to best advantage. An open door four rows
from the bottom would help, and the locks of the closed doors formed possible holds for
hands and feet. I would grip the torch between my teeth, as I had in other places where
both hands were needed. Above all I must make no noise.
How to get down what I wished to remove would be difficult, but I could probably hook
its movable fastener in my coat collar and carry it like a knapsack. Again I wondered
whether the lock would be undamaged. That I could repeat each familiar motion I had not
the least doubt. But I hoped the thing would not scrape or creak - and that my hand could
work it properly.
Even as I thought these things I had taken the torch in my mouth and begun to climb. The
projecting locks were poor supports; but, as I had expected, the opened shelf helped
greatly. I used both the swinging door and the edge of the aperture itself in my ascent,
and managed to avoid any loud creaking.
Balanced on the upper edge of the door, and leaning far to my right, I could just reach the
lock I sought. My fingers, half numb from climbing, were very clumsy at first; but I soon
saw that they were anatomically adequate. And the memory-rhythm was strong in them.
Out of unknown gulfs of time the intricate, secret motions had somehow reached my
brain correctly in every detail - for after less than five minutes of trying there came a
click whose familiarity was all the more startling because I had not consciously
anticipated it. In another instant the metal door was slowly swinging open with only the
faintest grating sound.
Dazedly I looked over the row of greyish case ends thus exposed, and felt a tremendous
surge of some wholly inexplicable emotion. Just within reach of my right hand was a case
whose curving hieroglyphs made me shake with a pang infinitely more complex than one
of mere fright. Still shaking, I managed to dislodge it amidst a shower of gritty flakes,
and ease it over toward myself without any violent noise.
Like the other case I had handled, it was slightly more than twenty by fifteen inches in
size, with curved mathematical designs in low relief. In thickness it just exceeded three
inches.
Crudely wedging it between myself and the surface I was climbing, I fumbled with the
fastener and finally got the hook free. Lifting the cover, I shifted the heavy object to my
back, and let the hook catch hold of my collar. Hands now free, I awkwardly clambered
down to the dusty floor, and prepared to inspect my prize.
Kneeling in the gritty dust, I swung the case around and rested it in front of me. My
hands shook, and I dreaded to draw out the book within almost as much as I longed - and
felt compelled - to do so. It had very gradually become clear to me what I ought to find,
and this realisation nearly paralysed my faculties.
If the thing were there - and if I were not dreaining - the implications would be quite
beyond the power of the human spirit to bear. What tormented me most was my
momentary inability to feel that my surroundings were a dream. The sense of reality was
hideous - and again becomes so as I recall the scene.
At length I tremblingly pulled the book from its container and stared fascinatedly at the
well-known hieroglyphs on the cover. It seemed to be in prime condition, and the
curvilinear letters of the title held me in almost as hypnotised a state as if I could read
them. Indeed, I cannot swear that I did not actually read them in some transient and
terrible access of abnormal memory.
I do not know how long it was before I dared to lift that thin metal cover. I temporized
and made excuses to myself. I took the torch from my mouth and shut it off to save the
battery. Then, in the dark, I collected my courage finally lifting the cover without turning
on the light. Last of all, I did indeed flash the torch upon the exposed page - steeling
myself in advance to suppress any sound no matter what I should find.
I looked for an instant, then collapsed. Clenching my teeth, however, I kept silent. I sank
wholly to the floor and put a hand to my forehead amidst the engulfing blackness. What I
dreaded and expected was there. Either I was dreaming, or time and space had become a
mockery.
I must be dreaming - but I would test the horror by carrying this thing back and shewing
it to my son if it were indeed a reality. My head swam frightfully, even though there were
no visible objects in the unbroken gloom to swirl about me. Ideas and images of the
starkest terror - excited by vistas which my glimpse had opened up - began to throng in
upon me and cloud my senses.
I thought of those possible prints in the dust, and trembled at the sound of my own
breathing as I did so. Once again I flashed on the light and looked at the page as a
serpent's victim may look at his destroyer's eyes and fangs.
Then, with clumsy fingers, in the dark, I closed the book, put it in its container, and
snapped the lid and the curious, hooked fastener. This was what I must carry back to the
outer world if it truly existed - if the whole abyss truly existed - if I, and the world itself,
truly existed.
Just when I tottered to my feet and commenced my return I cannot be certain. It comes to
me oddly - as a measure of my sense of separation from the normal world - that I did not
even once look at my watch during those hideous hours nderground.
Torch in hand, and with the ominous case under one arm, I eventually found myself
tiptoeing in a kind of silent panic past the draught - giving abyss and those lurking
suggestions of prints. I lessened my precautions as I climbed up the endless inclines, but
could not shake off a shadow of apprehension which I had not felt on the downward
journey.
I dreaded having to repass through the black basalt crypt that was older than the city
itself, where cold draughts welled up from unguarded depths. I thought of that which the
Great Race had feared, and of what might still be lurking - be it ever so weak and dying -
down there. I thought of those five-circle prints and of what my dreams had told me of
such prints - and of strange winds and whistling noises associated with them. And I
thought of the tales of the modern blackfellows, wherein the horror of great winds and
nameless subterrene ruins was dwelt upon.
I knew from a carven wall symbol the right floor to enter, and came at last after passing
that other book I had examined - to the great circular space with the branching archways.
On my right, and at once recognisable, was the arch through which I had arrived. This I
now entered, conscious that the rest of my course would be harder because of the tumbled
state of the masonry outside the archive building. My new metal-eased burden weighed
upon me, and I found it harder and harder to be quiet as I stumbled among debris and
fragments of every sort.
Then I came to the ceiling-high mound of debris through which I had wrenched a scanty
passage. My dread at wriggling through again was infinite, for my first passage had made
some noise, and I now - after seeing those possible prints - dreaded sound above all
things. The case, too, doubled the problem of traversing the narrow crevice.
But I clambered up the barrier as best I could, and pushed the case through the aperture
ahead of me. Then, torch in mouth, I scrambled through myself - my back torn as before
by stalactites.
As I tried to grasp the case again, it fell some distance ahead of me down the slope of the
debris, making a disturbing clatter and arousing echoes which sent me into a cold
perspiration. I lunged for it at once, and regained it without further noise - but a moment
afterward the slipping of blocks under my feet raised a sudden and unprecedented din.
The din was my undoing. For, falsely or not, I thought I heard it answered in a terrible
way from spaces far behind me. I thought I heard a shrill, whistling sound, like nothing
else on earth, and beyond any adequate verbal description. If so, what followed has a
grim irony - since, save for the panic of this thing, the second thing might never have
happened.
As it was, my frenzy was absolute and unrelieved. Taking my torch in my hand and
clutching feebly at the case, I leaped and bounded wildly ahead with no idea in my brain
beyond a mad desire to race out of these nightmare ruins to the waking world of desert
and moonlight which lay so far above.
I hardly knew it when I reached the mountain of debris which towered into the vast
blackness beyond the caved-in roof, and bruised and cut myself repeatedly in scrambling
up its steep slope of jagged blocks and fragments.
Then came the great disaster. Just as I blindly crossed the summit, unprepared for the
sudden dip ahead, my feet slipped utterly and I found myself involved in a mangling
avalanche of sliding masonry whose cannon-loud uproar split the black cavern air in a
deafening series of earth-shaking reverberations.
I have no recollection of emerging from this chaos, but a momentary fragment of
consciousness shows me as plunging and tripping and scrambling along the corridor
amidst the clangour - case and torch still with me.
Then, just as I approached that primal basalt crypt I had so dreaded, utter madness came.
For as the echoes of the avalanche died down, there became audible a repetition of that
frightful alien whistling I thought I had heard before. This time there was no doubt about
it - and what was worse, it came from a point not behind but ahead of me.
Probably I shrieked aloud then. I have a dim picture of myself as flying through the
hellish basalt vault of the elder things, and hearing that damnable alien sound piping up
from the open, unguarded door of limitless nether blacknesses. There was a wind, too -
not merely a cool, damp draught, but a violent, purposeful blast belching savagely and
frigidly from that abominable gulf whence the obscene whistling came.
There are memories of leaping and lurching over obstacles of every sort, with that torrent
of wind and shrieking sound growing moment by moment, and seeming to curl and twist
purposefully around me as it struck out wickedly from the spaces behind and beneath.
Though in my rear, that wind had the odd effect of hindering instead of aiding my
progress; as if it acted like a noose or lasso thrown around me. Heedless of the noise I
made, I clattered over a great barrier of blocks and was again in the structure that led to
the surface.
I recall glimpsing the archway to the room of machines and almost crying out as I saw
the incline leading down to where one of those blasphemous trap-doors must be yawning
two levels below. But instead of crying out I muttered over and over to myself that this
was all a dream from which I must soon awake. Perhaps I was in camp - perhaps I was at
home in Arkham. As these hopes bolstered up my sanity I began to mount the incline to
the higher level.
I knew, of course, that I had the four-foot cleft to re-cross, yet was too racked by other
fears to realise the full horror until I came almost upon it. On my descent, the leap across
had been easy - but could I clear the gap as readily when going uphill, and hampered by
fright, exhaustion, the weight of the metal case, and the anomalous backward tug of that
daemon wind? I thought of these things at the last moment, and thought also of the
nameless entities which might be lurking in the black abysses below the chasm.
My wavering torch was growing feeble, but I could tell by some obscure memory when I
neared the cleft. The chill blasts of wind and the nauseous whistling shrieks behind me
were for the moment like a merciful opiate, dulling my imagination to the horror of the
yawning gulf ahead. And then I became aware of the added blasts and whistling in front
of me - tides of abomination surging up through the cleft itself from depths unimagined
and unimaginable.
Now, indeed, the essence of pure nightmare was upon me. Sanity departed - and, ignoring
everything except the animal impulse of flight, I merely struggled and plunged upward
over the incline's debris as if no gulf had existed. Then I saw the chasm's edge, leaped
frenziedly with every ounce of strength I possessed, and was instantly engulfed in a
pandaemoniae vortex of loathsome sound and utter, materially tangible blackness.
This is the end of my experience, so far as I can recall. Any further impressions belong
wholly to the domain of phantasmagoria delirium. Dream, madness, and memory merged
wildly together in a series of fantastic, fragmentary delusions which can have no relation
to anything real.
There was a hideous fall through incalculable leagues of viscous, sentient darkness, and a
babel of noises utterly alien to all that we know of the earth and its organic life. Dormant,
rudimentary senses seemed to start into vitality within me, telling of pits and voids
peopled by floating horrors and leading to sunless crags and oceans and teeming cities of
windowless, basalt towers upon which no light ever shone.
Secrets of the primal planet and its immemorial aeons flashed through my brain without
the aid of sight or sound, and there were known to me things which not even the wildest
of my former dreams had ever suggested. And all the while cold fingers of damp vapor
clutched and picked at me, and that eldritch, damnable whistling shrieked fiendishly
above all the alternations of babel and silence in the whirlpools of darkness around.
Afterward there were visions of the Cyclopean city of my dreams - not in ruins, but just
as I had dreamed of it. I was in my conical, non-human body again, and mingled with
crowds of the Great Race and the captive minds who carried books up and down the lofty
corridors and vast inclines.
Then, superimposed upon these pictures, were frightful, momentary flashes of a non-
vistial consciousness involving desperate struggles, a writhing free from clutching
tentacles of whistling wind, an insane, bat-like flight through half-solid air, a feverish
burrowing through the cyclone-whipped dark, and a wild stumbling and scrambling over
fallen masonry.
Once there was a curious, intrusive flash of half sight - a faint, diffuse suspicion of bluish
radiance far overhead. Then there came a dream of wind - pursued climbing and crawling
- of wriggling into a blaze of sardonic moonlight through a jumble of debris which slid
and collapsed after me amidst a morbid hurricane. It was the evil, monotonous beating of
that maddening moonlight which at last told me of the return of what I had once known
as the objective, waking world.
I was clawing prone through the sands of the Australian desert, and around me shrieked
such a tumult of wind as I had never before known on our planet's surface. My clothing
was in rags, and my whole body was a mass of bruises and scratches.
Full consciousness returned very slowly, and at no time could I tell just where delirious
dream left off and true memory began. There had seemed to be a mound of titan blocks,
an abyss beneath it, a monstrous revelation from the past, and a nightmare horror at the
end - but how much of this was real?
My flashlight was gone, and likewise any metal case I may have discovered. Had there
been such a case - or any abyss- or any mound? Raising my head, I looked behind me,
and saw only the sterile, undulant sands of the desert.
The daemon wind died down, and the bloated, fungoid moon sank reddeningly in the
west. I lurched to my feet and began to stagger southwestward toward the camp. What in
truth had happened to me? Had I merely collapsed in the desert and dragged a dream-
racked body over miles of sand and buried blocks? If not, how could I bear to live any
longer?
For, in this new doubt, all my faith in the myth-born unreality of my visions dissolved
once more into the hellish older doubting. If that abyss was real, then the Great Race was
real - and its blasphemous reachings and seizures in the cosmos-wide vortex of time were
no myths or nightmares, but a terrible, soul-shattering actuality.
Had I, in full, hideous fact, been drawn back to a pre-human world of a hundred and fifty
million years ago in those dark, baffling days of the amnesia? Had my present body been
the vehicle of a frightful alien consciousness from palaeogean gulfs of time?
Had I, as the captive mind of those shambling horrors, indeed known that accursed city of
stone in its primordial heyday, and wriggled down those familiar corridors in the
loathsome shape of my captor? Were those tormenting dreams of more than twenty years
the offspring of stark, monstrous memories?
Had I once veritably talked with minds from reachless corners of time and space, learned
the universe's secrets, past and to come, and written the annals of my own world for the
metal cases of those titan archives? And were those others - those shocking elder things
of the mad winds and daemon pipings - in truth a lingering, lurking menace, waiting and
slowly weakening in black abysses while varied shapes of life drag out their
multimillennial courses on the planet's age-racked surface?
I do not know. If that abyss and what I held were real, there is no hope. Then, all too
truly, there lies upon this world of man a mocking and incredible shadow out of time.
But, mercifully, there is no proof that these things are other than fresh phases of my
myth-born dreams. I did not bring back the metal case that would have been a proof, and
so far those subterrene corridors have not been found.
If the laws of the universe are kind, they will never be found. But I must tell my son what
I saw or thought I saw, and let him use his judgment as a psychologist in gauging the
reality of my experience, and communicating this account to others.
I have said that the awful truth behind my tortured years of dreaming hinges absolutely
upon the actuality of what I thought I saw in those Cyclopean, buried ruins. It has been
hard for me, literally, to set down that crucial revelation, though no reader can have failed
to guess it. Of course, it lay in that book within the metal case - the case which I pried out
of its lair amidst the dust of a million centuries.
No eye had seen, no hand had touched that book since the advent of man to this planet.
And yet, when I flashed my torch upon it in that frightful abyss, I saw that the queerly
pigmented letters on the brittle, aeon-browned cellulose pages were not indeed any
nameless hieroglyphs of earth's youth. They were, instead, the letters of our familiar
alphabet, spelling out the words of the English language in my own handwriting.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written Nov? - 3 Dec 1931
Published 1936 in The Shadow over Innsmouth, Everett, PA: Visionary Publishing Co., p.
13-158.
I
During the winter of 1927-28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and
secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of
Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and
arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting - under suitable
precautions - of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty
houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one
of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor.
Keener news-followers, however, wondered at the prodigious number of arrests, the
abnormally large force of men used in making them, and the secrecy surrounding the
disposal of the prisoners. No trials, or even definite charges were reported; nor were any
of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. There were vague
statements about disease and concentration camps, and (law) about dispersal in various
naval and military prisons, (inn) nothing positive ever developed. Innsmouth itself was
left almost depopulated, and it is even now only beginning to show signs of a sluggishly
revived existence.
Complaints from many liberal organizations were met with long confidential discussions,
and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these
societies became surprisingly passive and reticent. Newspaper men were harder to
manage, but seemed largely to cooperate with the government in the end. Only one paper
- a tabloid always discounted because of its wild policy - mentioned the deep diving
submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil
Reef. That item, gathered by chance in a haunt of Sailors, seemed indeed rather far-
fetched; since the low, black reef lay a full mile and a half out from Innsmouth Harbour.
People around the country and in the nearby towns muttered a great deal among
themselves, but said very little to the outer world. They had talked about dying and half-
deserted Innsmouth for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more
hideous than what they had whispered and hinted at years before. Many things had taught
them secretiveness, and there was no need to exert pressure on them. Besides, they really
knew little; for wide salt marshes, desolate and unpeopled, kept neighbors off from
Innsmouth on the landward side.
But at last I am going to defy the ban on speech about this thing. Results, I am certain, are
so thorough that no public harm save a shock of repulsion could ever accrue from a
hinting of what was found by those horrified men at Innsmouth. Besides, what was found
might possibly have more than one explanation. I do not know just how much of the
whole tale has been told even to me, and I have many reasons for not wishing to probe
deeper. For my contact with this affair has been closer than that of any other layman, and
I have carried away impressions which are yet to drive me to drastic measures.
It was I who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16,
1927, and whose frightened appeals for government inquiry and action brought on the
whole reported episode. I was willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and
uncertain; but now that it is an old story, with public interest and curiosity gone, I have an
odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly-
shadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to
restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not the first to
succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind
regarding a certain terrible step which lies ahead of me.
I never heard of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first and - so far - last time.
I was celebrating my coming of age by a tour of New England - sightseeing, antiquarian,
and genealogical - and had planned to go directly from ancient Newburyport to Arkham,
whence my mother's family was derived. I had no car, but was travelling by train, trolley
and motor-coach, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport they told
me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station
ticket-office, when I demurred at the high fare, that I learned about Innsmouth. The stout,
shrewd-faced agent, whose speech shewed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic
toward my efforts at economy, and made a suggestion that none of my other informants
had offered.
"You could take that old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it ain't
thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth - you may have heard about that -
and so the people don't like it. Run by an Innsmouth fellow - Joe Sargent - but never gets
any custom from here, or Arkham either, I guess. Wonder it keeps running at all. I s'pose
it's cheap enough, but I never see mor'n two or three people in it - nobody but those
Innsmouth folk. Leaves the square - front of Hammond's Drug Store - at 10 a.m. and 7
p.m. unless they've changed lately. Looks like a terrible rattletrap - I've never been on it."
That was the first I ever heard of shadowed Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not
shown on common map or listed in recent guidebooks would have interested me, and the
agent's odd manner of allusion roused something like real curiosity. A town able to
inspire such dislike in it its neighbors, I thought, must be at least rather unusual, and
worthy of a tourist's attention. If it came before Arkham I would stop off there and so I
asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate, and spoke with an
air of feeling slightly superior to what he said.
"Innsmouth? Well, it's a queer kind of a town down at the mouth of the Manuxet. Used to
be almost a city - quite a port before the War of 1812 - but all gone to pieces in the last
hundred years or so. No railroad now - B. and M. never went through, and the branch line
from Rowley was given up years ago.
"More empty houses' than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of except
fishing and lobstering. Everybody trades mostly either here or in Arkham or Ipswich.
Once they had quite a few mills, but nothing's left now except one gold refinery running
on the leanest kind of part time.
"That refinery, though, used to he a big thing, and old man Marsh, who owns it, must be
richer'n Croesus. Queer old duck, though, and sticks mighty close in his home. He's
supposed to have developed some skin disease or deformity late in life that makes him
keep out of sight. Grandson of Captain Obed Marsh, who founded the business. His
mother seems to've been some kind of foreigner - they say a South Sea islander - so
everybody raised Cain when he married an Ipswich girl fifty years ago. They always do
that about Innsmouth people, and folks here and hereabouts always try to cover up any
Innsmouth blood they have in 'em. But Marsh's children and grandchildren look just like
anyone else far's I can see. I've had 'em pointed out to me here - though, come to think of
it, the elder children don't seem to be around lately. Never saw the old man.
"And why is everybody so down on Innsmouth? Well, young fellow, you mustn't take too
much stock in what people here say. They're hard to get started, but once they do get
started they never let up. They've been telling things about Innsmouth - whispering 'em,
mostly - for the last hundred years, I guess, and I gather they're more scared than
anything else. Some of the stories would make you laugh - about old Captain Marsh
driving bargains with the devil and bringing imps out of hell to live in Innsmouth, or
about some kind of devil-worship and awful sacrifices in some place near the wharves
that people stumbled on around 1845 or thereabouts - but I come from Panton, Vermont,
and that kind of story don't go down with me.
"You ought to hear, though, what some of the old-timers tell about the black reef off the
coast - Devil Reef, they call it. It's well above water a good part of the time, and never
much below it, but at that your could hardly call it an island. The story is that there's a
whole legion of devils seen sometimes on that reef-sprawled about, or darting in and out
of some kind of caves near the top. It's a rugged, uneven thing, a good bit over a mile out,
and toward the end of shipping days sailors used to make big detours just to avoid it.
"That is, sailors that didn't hail from Innsmouth. One of the things they had against old
Captain Marsh was that he was supposed to land on it sometimes at night when the tide
was right Maybe he did, for I dare say the rock formation was interesting, and it's just
barely possible he was looking for pirate loot and maybe finding ft; but there was talk of
his dealing with demons there. Fact is, I guess on the whole it was really the Captain that
gave the bad reputation to the reef.
"That was before the big epidemic of 1846, when over half the folks in Innsmouth was
carried off. They never did quite figure out what the trouble was, but it was probably
some foreign kind of disease brought from China or somewhere by the shipping. It surely
was bad enough - there was riots over it, and all sorts of ghastly doings that I don't
believe ever got outside of town - and it left the place a awful shape. Never came back -
there can't be more'n 300 or 400 people living there now.
"But the real thing behind the way folks feel is simply race prejudice - and I don't say I'm
blaming those that hold it I hate those Innsmouth folks myself, and I wouldn't care to go
to their town. I s'pose you know - though I can see you're a Westerner by your talk - what
a lot our New England ships - used to have to do with queer ports in Africa, Asia, the
South Seas, and everywhere else, and what queer kinds of people they sometimes brought
back with 'em. You've probably heard about the Salem man that came home with a
Chinese wife, and maybe you know there's still a bunch of Fiji Islanders somewhere
around Cape Cod.
"Well, there must be something like that back of the Innsmouth people. The place always
was badly cut off from the rest of the country by marshes and creeks and we can't be sure
about the ins and outs of the matter; but it's pretty clear that old Captain Marsh must have
brought home some odd specimens when he had all three of his ships in commission back
in the twenties and thirties. There certainly is a strange kind of streak in the Innsmouth
forks today - I don't know how to explain it but it sort of makes you crawl. You'll notice a
little in Sargent if you take his bus. Some of 'em have queer narrow heads with flat noses
and bulgy, starry eyes that never seem to shut, and their skin ain't quite right. Rough and
scabby, and the sides of the necks are all shriveled or creased up. Get bald, too, very
young. The older fellows look the worst - fact is, I don't believe I've ever seen a very old
chap of that kind. Guess they must die of looking in the glass! Animals hate 'em - they
used to have lots of horse trouble before the autos came in.
"Nobody around here or in Arkham or Ipswich will have anything to do with 'em, and
they act kind of offish themselves when they come to town or when anyone tries to fish
on their grounds. Queer how fish are always thick off Innsmouth Harbour when there
ain't any anywhere else around - but just try to fish there yourself and see how the folks
chase you off! Those people used to come here on the railroad - walking and taking the
train at Rowley after the branch was dropped - but now they use that bus.
"Yes, there's a hotel in Innsmouth - called the Gilman House - but I don't believe it can
amount to much. I wouldn't advise you to try it. Better stay over here and take the ten
o'clock bus tomorrow morning; then you can get an evening bus there for Arkham at
eight o'clock. There was a factory inspector who stopped at the Gilman a couple of years
ago and he had a lot of unpleasant hints about the place. Seems they get a queer crowd
there, for this fellow heard voices in other room - though most of 'em was empty - that
gave him the shivers. It was foreign talk' he thought, but he said the bad thing about it
was the kind of voice that sometimes spoke. It sounded so unnatural - slopping like, he
said - that he didn't dare undress and go to sleep. Just waited up and lit out the first thing
in the morning. The talk went on most all night.
"This fellow - Casey, his name was - had a lot to say about how the Innsmouth folk,
watched him and seemed kind of on guard. He found the Marsh refinery a queer place -
it's in an old mill on the lower falls of the Manuxet. What he said tallied up with what I'd
heard. Books in bad shape, and no clear account of any kind of dealings. You know it's
always been a kind of mystery where the Marshes get the gold they refine. They've never
seemed to do much buying in that line, but years ago they shipped out an enormous lot of
ingots.
"Used to be talk of a queer foreign kind of jewelry that the sailors and refinery men
sometimes sold on the sly, or that was seen once or twice on some of the Marsh women-
folks. People allowed maybe old Captain Obed traded for it in some heathen port,
especially since he always ordered stacks of glass beads and trinkets such as seafaring
men used to get for native trade. Others thought and still think he'd found an old pirate
cache out on Devil Reef. But here's a funny thing. The old Captain's been dead these
sixty years, and there's ain't been a good-sized ship out of the place since the Civil War;
but just the same the Marshes still keep on buying a few of those native trade things -
mostly glass and rubber gewgaws, they tell me. Maybe the Innsmouth folks like 'em to
look at themselves - Gawd knows they've gotten to be about as bad as South Sea
cannibals and Guinea savages.
"That plague of '46 must have taken off the best blood in the place. Anyway, they're a
doubtful lot now, and the Marshes and other rich folks are as bad as any. As I told you,
there probably ain't more'n 400 people in the whole town in spite of all the streets they
say there are. I guess they're what they call 'white trash' down South - lawless and sly,
and full of secret things. They get a lot of fish and lobsters and do exporting by truck.
Queer how the fish swarm right there and nowhere else.
"Nobody can ever keep track of these people, and state school officials and census men
have a devil of a time. You can bet that prying strangers ain't welcome around
Innsmouth. I've heard personally of more'n one business or government man that's
disappeared there, and there's loose talk of one who went crazy and is out at Danvers
now. They must have fixed up some awful scare for that fellow.
"That's why I wouldn't go at night if I was you. I've never been there and have no wish to
go, but I guess a daytime trip couldn't hurt you - even though the people hereabouts will
advise you not to make it. If you're just sightseeing, and looking for old-time stuff,
Innsmouth ought to be quite a place for you."
And so I spent part of that evening at the Newburyport Public Library looking up data
about Innsmouth. When I had tried to question the natives in the shops, the lunchroom,
the garages, and the are station, I had found them even harder to get started than the ticket
agent had predicted; and realized that I could not spare the time to overcome their first
instinctive reticence. They had a kind of obscure suspiciousness, as if there were
something amiss with anyone too much interested in Innsmouth. At the Y. M. C. A.,
where I was stopping, the clerk merely discouraged my going to such a dismal, decadent
place; and the people at the library shewed much the same attitude. Clearly, in the eyes of
the educated, Innsmouth was merely an exaggerated case of civic degeneration.
The Essex County histories on the library shelves had very little to say, except that the
town was founded in 1643, noted for shipbuilding before the Revolution, a seat of great
marine prosperity in the early 19th century, and later a minor factory center using the
Manuxet as power. The epidemic and riots of 1846 were very sparsely treated, as if they
formed a discredit to the county.
References to decline were few, though the significance of the later record was
unmistakable. After the Civil War air industrial life was confined to the Marsh Refining
Company, and the marketing of gold ingots formed the only remaining bit of major
commerce aside from the eternal fishing. That fishing paid less and less as the price of
the commodity fell and large-scale corporations offered competition, but there was never
a dearth of fish around Innsmouth Harbour. Foreigners seldom settled there, and there
was some discreetly veiled evidence that a number of Poles and Portuguese who had tried
it had been scattered in a peculiarly drastic fashion.
Most interesting of all was a glancing reference to the strange jewelry vaguely associated
with Innsmouth. It had evidently impressed the whole countryside more thin a little, for
mention was made of specimens in the museum of Miskatonic University at Arkham, and
in the display room of the Newburyport Historical Society. The fragmentary descriptions
of these things were bald and prosaic, but they hinted to me an undercurrent of persistent
strangeness. Something about them seemed so odd and provocative that I could not put
them out of my mind, and despite the relative lateness of the hour I resolved to see the
local sample - said to be a large, queerly-proportioned thing evidently meant for a tiara -
if it could possibly be arranged.
The librarian gave me a note of introduction to the curator of the Society, a Miss Anna
Tilton, who lived nearby, and after a brief explanation that ancient gentlewoman was
kind enough to pilot me into the closed building, since the hour was not outrageously
late. The collection was a notable one indeed, but in my present mood I had eyes for
nothing but the bizarre object which glistened in a comer cupboard under the electric
lights.
It took no excessive sensitiveness to beauty to make me literally gasp at the strange,
unearthly splendour of the alien, opulent phantasy that rested there on a purple velvet
cushion. Even now I can hardly describe what I saw, though it was clearly enough a sort
of tiara, as the description had said. It was tall in front, and with a very large and
curiously irregular periphery, as if designed for a head of almost freakishly elliptical
outline. The material seemed to be predominantly gold, though a weird lighter
lustrousness hinted at some strange alloy with an equally beautiful and scarcely
identifiable metal. Its condition was almost perfect, and one could have spent hours in
studying the striking and puzzlingly untraditional designs - some simply geometrical, and
some plainly marine - chased or moulded in high relief on its surface with a
craftsmanship of incredible skill and grace.
The longer I looked, the more the thing fascinated me; and in this fascination there was a
curiously disturbing element hardly to be classified or accounted for. At first I decided
that it was the queer other-worldly quality of the art which made me uneasy. All other art
objects I had ever seen either belonged to some known racial or national stream, or else
were consciously modernistic defiances of every recognized stream. This tiara was
neither. It clearly belonged to some settled technique of infinite maturity and perfection,
yet that technique was utterly remote from any - Eastern or Western, ancient or modern -
which I had ever heard of or seen exemplified. It was as if the workmanship were that of
another planet.
However, I soon saw that my uneasiness had a second and perhaps equally potent source
residing in the pictorial and mathematical suggestion of the strange designs. The patterns
all hinted of remote secrets and unimaginable abysses in time and space, and the
monotonously aquatic nature of the reliefs became almost sinister. Among these reliefs
were fabulous monsters of abhorrent grotesqueness and malignity - half ichthyic and half
batrachian in suggestion - which one could not dissociate from a certain haunting and
uncomfortable sense of pseudomemory, as if they called up some image from deep cells
and tissues whose retentive functions are wholly primal and awesomely ancestral. At
times I fancied that every contour of these blasphemous fish-frogs was over-flowing with
the ultimate quintessence of unknown and inhuman evil.
In odd contrast to the tiara's aspect was its brief and prosy history as related by Miss
Tilton. It had been pawned for a ridiculous sum at a stop in State Street in 1873, by a
drunken Innsmouth man shortly afterward killed in a brawl. The Society had acquired it
directly from the pawnbroker, at once giving it a display worthy of its quality. It was
labeled as of probable East-Indian or Indochinese provenance, though the attribution was
frankly tentative.
Miss Tilton, comparing all possible hypotheses regarding its origin and its presence in
New England, was inclined to believe that it formed part of some exotic pirate hoard
discovered by old Captain Obed Marik. This view was surely not weakened by the
insistent offers of purchase at a high price which the Marshes began to make as soon as
they knew of its presence, and which they repeated to this day despite the Society's
unvarying determination not to sell.
As the good lady shewed me out of the building she made it clear that the pirate theory of
the Marsh fortune was a popular one among the intelligent people of the region. Her own
attitude toward shadowed Innsmouth - which she never seen - was one of disgust at a
community slipping far down the cultural scale, and she assured me that the rumours of
devil-worship were partly justified by a peculiar secret cult which had gained force there
and engulfed all the orthodox churches.
It was called, she said, 'The Esoteric Order of Dagon", and was undoubtedly a debased,
quasi-pagan thing imported from the East a century before, at a time when the Innsmouth
fisheries seemed to be going barren. Its persistence among a simple people was quite
natural in view of the sudden and permanent return of abundantly fine fishing, and it soon
came to be the greatest influence in the town, replacing Freemasonry altogether and
taking up headquarters in the old Masonic Hall on New Church Green.
All this, to the pious Miss Tilton, formed an excellent reason for shunning the ancient
town of decay and desolation; but to me it was merely a fresh incentive. To my
architectural and historical anticipations was now added an acute anthropological zeal,
and I could scarcely sleep in my small room at the "Y" as the night wore away.
II
Shortly before ten the next morning I stood with one small valise in front of Hammond's
Drug Store in old Market Square waiting for the Innsmouth bus. As the hour for its
arrival drew near I noticed a general drift of the loungers to other places up the street, or
to the Ideal Lunch across the square. Evidently the ticket-agent had not exaggerated the
dislike which local People bore toward Innsmouth and its denizens. In a few moments a
small motor-coach of extreme decrepitude and dirty grey colour rattled down State Street,
made a turn, and drew up at the curb beside me. I felt immediately that it was the right
one; a guess which the half-legible on the windshield - Arkham - Innsmouth -
Newburyport - soon verified.
There were only three passengers - dark, unkempt men of sullen visage and somewhat
youthful cast - and when the vehicle stopped they clumsily shambled out and began
walking up State Street in a silent, almost furtive fashion. The driver also alighted, and I
watched him as he went into the drug store to make some purchase. This, I reflected,
must be the Joe Sargent mentioned by the ticket-agent; and even before I noticed any
details there spread over me a wave of spontaneous aversion which could be neither
checked nor explained. It suddenly struck me as very natural that the local people should
not wish to ride on a bus owned and driven by this man, or to visit any oftener than
possible the habitat of such a man and his kinsfolk.
When the driver came out of the store I looked at him more carefully and tried to
determine the source of my evil impression. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered man not
much under six feet tall, dressed in shabby blue civilian clothes and wearing a frayed golf
cap. His age was perhaps thirty-five, but the odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck
made him seem older when one did not study his dull, expressionless face. He had a
narrow head, bulging, watery-blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding
forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears. His long thick lip and coarse-pored,
greyish cheeks seemed almost beardless except for some sparse yellow hairs that
straggled and curled in irregular patches; and in places the surface seemed queerly
irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease. His hands were large and heavily
veined, and had a very unusual greyish-blue tinge. The fingers were strikingly short in
proportion to the rest of the structure, and seemed to have a tendency to curl closely into
the huge palm. As he walked toward the bus I observed his peculiarly shambling gait and
saw that his feet were inordinately immense. The more I studied them the more I
wondered how he could buy any shoes to fit them.
A certain greasiness about the fellow increased my dislike. He was evidently given to
working or lounging around the fish docks, and carried with him much of their
characteristic smell. Just what foreign blood was in him I could not even guess. His
oddities certainly did not look Asiatic, Polynesian, Levantine or negroid, yet I could see
why the people found him alien. I myself would have thought of biological degeneration
rather than alienage.
I was sorry when I saw there would be no other passengers on the bus. Somehow I did
not like the idea of riding alone with this driver. But as leaving time obviously
approached I conquered my qualms and followed the man aboard, extending him a dollar
bill and murmuring the single word "Innsmouth." He looked curiously at me for a second
as he returned forty cents change without speaking. I took a seat far behind him, but on
the same side of the bus, since I wished to watch the shore during the journey.
At length the decrepit vehicle stared with a jerk, and rattled noisily past the old brick
buildings of state street amidst a cloud of vapour from the exhaust. Glancing at the people
on the sidewalks, I thought I detected in them a curious wish to avoid looking at the bus -
or at least a wish to avoid seeming to look at it. Then we turned to the left so High Street,
when the going was smoother; flying by stately old mansions of the early republic and
still older colonial farmhouses, passing the Lower Green and Parker River, and finally
emerging Into a long, monotonous stretch of open shore country.
The day was warm and sunny, but the landscape of sand and sedge-grass, and stunted
shrubbery became more and desolate as we proceeded. Out the window I could see the
blue water and the sandy line of Plum Island, and we presently drew very near the beach
as our narrow road veered off from the main highway to Rowley and Ipswich. There were
no visible houses, and I could tell by the state of the road that traffic was very light
hereabouts. The weather-worn telephone poles carried only two wires. Now and then we
crossed crude wooden bridges over tidal creeks that wound far inland and promoted the
general isolation of the region.
Once in a while I noticed dead stumps and crumbling foundation-walls above the drifting
sand, and recalled the old tradition quoted it one of the histories I had read, that this was
once a fertile and thickly-settled countryside. The change, it was said, came
simultaneously with the Innsmouth epidemic of l846, and was thought by simple folk to
have a dark connection with hidden forces of evil. Actually, it was caused by the unwise
cutting of woodlands near the shore, which robbed the soil of the best protection and
open the way for waves of wind-blown sand.
At last we lost sight of Plum Island and saw the vast expanse of the open Atlantic on our
left. Our narrow course began to climb steeply, and I felt a singular sense of disquiet in
looking at the lonely crest ahead where the rutted road-way met the sky. It was as if the
bus were about to keep on in its ascent, leaving the sane earth altogether and merging
with the unknown arcana of upper air and cryptical sky. The smell of the sea took on
ominous implications, and the silent driver's bent, rigid back and narrow head became
more and more hateful. As I looked at him I saw that the back of his head was almost as
hairless as his face, having only a few straggling yellow strands upon a grey scabrous
surface.
Then we reached the crest and beheld the outspread valley beyond, where the Manuxet
joins the sea just north of the long line of cliffs that culminate in Kingsport Head and veer
off toward Cape Ann. On the far misty horizon I could just make out the dizzy profile of
the Head, topped by the queer ancient house of which so many legends are told; but for
the moment all my attention was captured by the nearer panorama just below me. I had, I
realized, come face to face with rumour-shadowed Innsmouth.
It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of
visible life. From the tangle of chimney-pots scarcely a wisp of smoke came, and the
three tall steeples loomed stark and unpainted against the seaward horizon. One of them
was crumbling down at the top, and in that and another there were only black gaping
holes where clock-dials should have been. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and
peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we
approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved
in. There were some large square Georgian houses, too, with hipped roofs, cupolas, and
railed "widow's walks." These were mostly well back from the water, and one or two
seemed to be in moderately sound condition. Stretching inland from among them I saw
the rusted, grass-grown line of the abandoned railway, with leaning telegraph-poles now
devoid of wires, and the half-obscured lines of the old carriage roads to Rowley and
Ipswich.
The decay was worst close to the waterfront, though in its very midst I could spy the
white belfry of a fairly well preserved brick structure which looked like a small factory.
The harbour, long clogged with sand, was enclosed by an ancient stone breakwater; on
which I could begin to discern the minute forms of a few seated fishermen, and at whose
end were what looked like the foundations of a bygone light. house. A sandy tongue had
formed inside this barrier and upon it I saw a few decrepit cabins, moored dories, and
scattered lobster-pots. The only deep water seemed to be where the river poured out past
the belfried structure and turned southward to join the ocean at the breakwater's end.
Here and there the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate
rottenness, those farthest south seeming the most decayed. And far out at sea, despite a
high tide, I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water yet carrying a
suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This, I knew, must be Devil Reef. As I looked, a
subtle, curious sense of beckoning seemed superadded to repulsion; and oddly enough, I
found this overtone more disturbing than the primary impression.
We met no one on the road, but presently began to pass deserted farms in varying stages
of ruin. Then I noticed a few inhabited houses with rags stuffed in the broken windows
and shells and dead fish lying about the littered yards. Once or twice I saw listless-
looking people working in barren gardens or digging clams on the fishy-smelling beach
below, and groups of dirty, simian-visaged children playing around weed-grown
doorsteps. Somehow these people seemed more disquieting than the dismal buildings, for
almost every on. had certain peculiarities of face and motions which I instinctively
disliked without being able to define or comprehend them. For a second I thought this
typical physique suggested some picture I had seen, perhaps in a book, under
circumstances of particular horror or melancholy; but this pseudo-recollection passed
very quickly.
As the bus reached a lower level I began to catch the steady note of a waterfall through
the unnatural stillness, The leaning, unpainted houses grew thicker, lined both sides of the
road, and displayed more urban tendencies than did those we were leaving behind, The
panorama ahead had contracted to a street scene, and in spots I could see where a
cobblestone pavement and stretches of brick sidewalk had formerly existed. All the
houses were apparently deserted, and there were occasional gaps where tumbledown
chimneys and cellar walls told of buildings that had collapsed. Pervading everything was
the most nauseous fishy odour imaginable.
Soon cross streets and junctions began to appear; those on the left leading to shoreward
realms of unpaved squalor and decay, while those on the right shewed vistas of departed
grandeur. So far I had seen no people in the town, but there now came signs of a sparse
habitation - curtained windows here and there, and an occasional battered motorcar at the
curb. Pavement and sidewalks were increasingly well-defined, and though most of the
houses were quite old - wood and brick structures of the early 1901 century - they were
obviously kept fit for habitation. At an amateur antiquarian I almost lost my olfactory
disgust and my feeling of menace and repulsion amidst this rich, unaltered survival from
the past.
But I was not to reach my destination without one very strong impression of poignantly
disagreeable quality. The bus had come to a sort of open concourse or radial point with
churches on two sides and the bedraggled remains of a circular green in the centre, and I
was looking at a large pillared hall on the right-hand junction ahead. The structure's once
white paint was now gray and peeling and the black and gold sign on the pediment was
so faded that I could only with difficulty make out the words "Esoteric Order of Dagon".
This, then was the former Masonic Hall now given over to a degraded cult. As I strained
to decipher this inscription my notice was distracted by the raucous tones of a cracked
bell across the street, and I quickly turned to look out the window on my side of the
coach.
The sound came from a squat stone church of manifestly later date than most of the
houses, built in a clumsy Gothic fashion and having a disproportionately high basement
with shuttered windows. Though the hands of its clock were missing on the side I
glimpsed, I knew that those hoarse strokes were tolling the hour of eleven. Then suddenly
all thoughts of time were blotted out by an onrushing image of sharp intensity and
unaccountable horror which had seized me before I knew what it really was. The door of
the church basement was open, revealing a rectangle of blackness inside. And as I
looked, a certain object crossed or seemed to cross that dark rectangle; burning into my
brain a momentary conception of nightmare which was all the more maddening because
analysis could not shew a single nightmarish quality in it.
It was a living object - the first except the driver that I had seen since entering the
compact part of the town - and had I been in a steadier mood I would have found nothing
whatever of terror in it. Clearly, as I realised a moment later, it was the pastor; clad in
some peculiar vestments doubtless introduced since the Order of Dagon had modified the
ritual of the local churches. The thing which had probably caught my first subconscious
glance and supplied the touch of bizarre horror was the tall tiara he wore; an almost exact
duplicate of the one Miss Tilton had shown me the previous evening. This, acting on my
imagination, had supplied namelessly sinister qualities to the indeterminate face and
robed, shambling form beneath it. There was not, I soon decided, any reason why I
should have felt that shuddering touch of evil pseudo-memory. Was it not natural that a
local mystery cult should adopt among its regimentals an unique type of head-dress made
familiar to the community in some strange way - perhaps as treasure-trove?
A very thin sprinkling of repellent-looking youngish people now became visible on the
sidewalks - lone individuals, and silent knots of two or three. The lower floors of the
crumbling houses sometimes harboured small shops with dingy signs, and I noticed a
parked truck or two as we rattled along. The sound of waterfalls became more and more
distinct, and presently I saw a fairly deep river-gorge ahead, spanned by a wide, iron-
railed highway bridge beyond which a large square opened out. As we clanked over the
bridge I looked out on both sides and observed some factory buildings on the edge of the
grassy bluff or part way down. The water far below was very abundant, and I could see
two vigorous sets of falls upstream on my right and at least one downstream on my left.
From this point the noise was quite deafening. Then we rolled into the large semicircular
square across the river and drew up on the right-hand side in front of a tall, cupola
crowned building with remnants of yellow paint and with a half-effaced sign proclaiming
it to be the Gilman House.
I was glad to get out of that bus, and at once proceeded to check my valise in the shabby
hotel lobby. There was only one person in sight - an elderly man without what I had come
to call the "Innsmouth look" - and I decided not to ask him any of the questions which
bothered me; remembering that odd things had been noticed in this hotel. Instead, I
strolled out on the square, from which the bus had already gone, and studied the scene
minutely and appraisingly.
One side of the cobblestoned open space was the straight line of the river; the other was a
semicircle of slant-roofed brick buildings of about the 1800 period, from which several
streets radiated away to the southeast, south, and southwest. Lamps were depressingly
few and small - all low-powered incandescents - and I was glad that my plans called for
departure before dark, even though I knew the moon would be bright. The buildings were
all in fair condition, and included perhaps a dozen shops in current operation; of which
one was a grocery of the First National chain, others a dismal restaurant, a drug store, and
a wholesale fish-dealer's office, and still another, at the eastward extremity of the square
near the river an office of the town's only Industry - the Marsh Refining Company. There
were perhaps ten people visible, and four or five automobiles and motor trucks stood
scattered about I did not need to be told that this was the civic centre of Innsmouth.
Eastward I could catch blue glimpses of the harbour, against which rose the decaying
remains of three once beautiful Georgian steeples. And toward the shore on the opposite
bank of the river I saw the white belfry surmounting what I took to be the Marsh refinery.
For some reason or other I chose to make my first inquiries at the chain grocery, whose
personnel was not likely to be native to Innsmouth. I found a solitary boy of about
seventeen in charge, and was pleased to note the brightness and affability which promised
cheerful information. He seemed exceptionally eager to talk, and I soon gathered that he
did not like the place, its fishy smell, or its furtive people. A word with any outsider was
a relief to him. He hailed from Arkham, boarded with a family who came from Ipswich,
and went back whenever he got a moment off. His family did not like him to work in
Innsmouth, but the chain had transferred him there and he did not wish to give up his job.
There was, he said, no public library or chamber of commerce in Innsmouth, but I could
probably find my way about. The street I had come down was Federal. West of that were
the fine old residence streets - Broad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adams - and east of it
were the shoreward slums. It was in these slums - along Main Street - that I would find
the old Georgian churches, but they were all long abandoned. It would be well not to
make oneself too conspicuous in such neighbourhoods - especially north of the river
since the people were sullen and hostile. Some strangers had even disappeared.
Certain spots were almost forbidden territory, as he had learned at considerable cost. One
must not, for example, linger much around the Marsh refinery, or around any of the still
used churches, or around the pillared Order of Dagon Hall at New Church Green. Those
churches were very odd - all violently disavowed by their respective denominations
elsewhere, and apparently using the queerest kind of ceremonials and clerical vestments.
Their creeds were heterodox and mysterious, involving hints of certain marvelous
transformations leading to bodily immorality - of a sort - on this earth. The youth's own
pastor - Dr. Wallace of Asbury M. E. Church in Arkham - had gravely urged him not to
join any church in Innsmouth.
As for the Innsmouth people - the youth hardly knew, what to make of them. They were
as furtive and seldom seen as animals that live in burrows, and one could hardly imagine
how they passed the time apart from their desultory fishing. Perhaps - judging from the
quantities of bootleg liquor they consumed - they lay for most of the daylight hours in an
alcoholic stupor. They seemed sullenly banded together in some sort of fellowship and
understanding - despising the world as if they had access to other and preferable spheres
of entity. Their appearance - especially those staring, unwinking eyes which one never
saw shut - was certainly shocking enough; and their voices were disgusting. It was awful
to hear them chanting in their churches at night, and especially during their main festivals
Or revivals, which fell twice a year on April 30th and October 31st.
They were very fond of the water, and swam a great deal in both river and harbour.
Swimming races out to Devil Reef were very common, and everyone in sight seemed
well able to share in this arduous sport. When one came to think of it, it was generally
only rather young people who were seen about in public, and of these the oldest were apt
to be the most tainted-looking. When exceptions did occur, they were mostly persons
with no trace of aberrancy, like the old clerk at the hotel. One wondered what became of
the bulk of the older folk, and whether the "Innsmouth look" were not a strange and
insidious disease-phenomenon which increased its hold as years advanced.
Only a very rare affliction, of course, could bring about such vast and radical anatomical
changes in a single individual after maturity - changes invoking osseous factors as basic
as the shape of the skull - but then, even this aspect was no more baffling and unheard-of
than the visible features of the malady as a whole. It would be hard, the youth implied, to
form any real conclusions regarding such a matter; since one never came to know the
natives personally no matter how long one might live in Innsmouth.
The youth was certain that many specimens even worse than the worst visible ones were
kept locked indoors in some places. People sometimes heard the queerest kind of sounds.
The tottering waterfront hovels north of the river were reputedly connected by hidden
tunnels, being thus a veritable warren of unseen abnormalities. What kind of foreign
blood - if any - these beings had, it was impossible to tell. They sometimes kept certain
especially repulsive characters out of sight when government and others from the outside
world came to town.
It would be of no use, my informant said, to ask the natives anything about the place. The
only one who would talk was a very aged but normal looking man who lived at the
poorhouse on the north rim of the town and spent his time walking about or lounging
around the fire station. This hoary character, Zadok Allen, was 96 years old and
somewhat touched in the head, besides being the town drunkard. He was a strange,
furtive creature who constantly looked over his shoulder as if afraid of something, and
when sober could not be persuaded to talk at all with strangers. He was, however, unable
to resist any offer of his favorite poison; and once drunk would furnish the most
astonishing fragments of whispered reminiscence.
After all, though, little useful data could be gained front him; since his stories were all
insane, incomplete hints of impossible marvels and horrors which could have no source
save in his own disordered fancy. Nobody ever believe him, but the natives did not like
him to drink and talk with strangers; and it was not always safe to be seen questioning
him. It was probably from him that some of the wildest popular whispers and delusions
were derived.
Several non-native residents had reported monstrous glimpses from time to time, but
between old Zadok's tales and the malformed inhabitants it was no wonder such illusions
were current. None of the non-natives ever stayed out late at night, there being a
widespread impression that it was not wise to do so. Besides, the streets were
loathsomely dark.
As for business - the abundance of fish was certainly almost uncanny, but the natives
were taking less and less advantage of it. Moreover, prices were falling and competition
was growing. Of course the town's real business was the refinery, whose commercial
office was on the square only a few doors east of where we stood. Old Man Marsh was
never seen, but sometimes went to the works in a closed, curtained car.
There were all sorts of rumors about how Marsh 'Inc' come to look. He had once been a
great dandy; and people said he still wore the frock-coated finery of the Edwardian age
curiously adapted to certain deformities. His son had formerly conducted the office in the
square, but latterly they had been keeping out of sight a good deal and leaving the brunt
of affairs to the younger generation. The sons and their sisters had come to look very
queer, especially the elder ones; and it was said that their health was failing.
One of the Marsh daughters was a repellent, reptilian-looking woman who wore an
excess of weird jewellery clearly of the same exotic tradition as that to which the strange
tiara belonged. My informant had noticed it many times, and had heard it spoken of as
coming from some secret hoard, either of pirates or of demons. The clergymen - or
priests, or whatever they were called nowadays - also wore this kind of ornament as a
headdress; but one seldom caught glimpses of them. Other specimens the youth had not
seen, though many were rumoured to exist around Innsmouth.
The Marshes, together with the other three gently bred families of the town - the Waites,
the Gilmans, and the Eliots - were all very retiring. They lived in immense houses along
Washington Street, and several were reputed to harbour in concealment certain living
kinsfolk whose personal aspect forbade public view, and whose deaths had been reported
and recorded.
Warning me that many of the street signs were down, the youth drew for my benefit a
rough but ample and painstaking sketch map of the town's salient features. After a
moment's study I felt sure that it would be of great help, and pocketed it with profuse
thanks. Disliking the dinginess of the single restaurant I had seen, I bought a fair supply
of cheese crackers and ginger wafers to serve as a lunch later on. My program, I decided,
would be to thread the principal streets, talk with any non-natives I might encounter, and
catch the eight o'clock coach for Arkham. The town, I could see, formed a significant and
exaggerated example of communal decay; but being no sociologist I would limit my
serious observations to the field of architecture.
Thus I began my systematic though half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadow-
blighted ways. Crossing the bridge and turning toward the roar of the lower falls, I passed
close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed to be oddly free from the noise of industry. ml.
building stood on the steep river bluff near a bridge and an open confluence of streets
which I took to be the earliest civic center, displaced after the Revolution by the present
Town Square.
Re-crossing the gorge on the Main Street bridge, I struck a region of utter desertion
which somehow made me shudder. Collapsing huddles of gambrel roofs formed a jagged
and fantastic skyline, above which rose the ghoulish, decapitated steeple of an ancient
church. Some houses along Main Street were tenanted, but most were tightly boarded up.
Down unpaved side streets I saw the black, gaping windows of deserted hovels, many of
which leaned at perilous and incredible angles through the sinking of part of the
foundations. Those windows stared so spectrally that it took courage to turn eastward
toward the waterfront. Certainly, the terror of a deserted house swells in geometrical
rather than arithmetical progression as houses multiply to form a city of stark desolation.
The sight of such endless avenues of fishy-eyed vacancy and death, and the thought of
such linked infinities of black, brooding compartments given over to cob-webs and
memories and the conqueror worm, start up vestigial fears and aversions that not even the
stoutest philosophy can disperse.
Fish Street was as deserted as Main, though it differed in having many brick and stone
warehouses still in excellent shape. Water Street was almost its duplicate, save that there
were great seaward gaps where wharves had been. Not a living thing did I see except for
the scattered fishermen on the distant break-water, and not a sound did I hear save the
lapping of the harbour tides and the roar of the falls in the Manuxet. The town was
getting more and more on my nerves, and I looked behind me furtively as I picked my
way back over the tottering Water Street bridge. The Fish Street bridge, according to the
sketch, was in ruins.
North of the river there were traces of squalid life - active fish-packing houses in Water
Street, smoking chimneys and patched roofs here and there, occasional sounds from
indeterminate sources, and infrequent shambling forms in the dismal streets and unpaved
lanes - but I seemed to find this even more oppressive than the southerly desertion. For
one thing, the people were more hideous and abnormal than those near the centre of the
town; so that I was several times evilly reminded of something utterly fantastic which I
could not quite place. Undoubtedly the alien strain in the Innsmouth folk was stronger
here than farther inland - unless, indeed, the "Innsmouth look" were a disease rather than
a blood stain, in which case this district might be held to harbour the more advanced
cases.
One detail that annoyed me was the distribution of the few faint sounds I heard. They
ought naturally to have come wholly from the visibly inhabited houses, yet in reality
were often strongest inside the most rigidly boarded-up facades. There were creakings,
scurryings, and hoarse doubtful noises; and I thought uncomfortably about the hidden
tunnels suggested by the grocery boy. Suddenly I found myself wondering what the
voices of those denizens would be like. I had heard no speech so far in this quarter, and
was unaccountably anxious not to do so.
Pausing only long enough to look at two fine but ruinous old churches at Main and
Church Streets, I hastened out of that vile waterfront slum. My next logical goal was New
Church Green, but somehow or other I could not bear to repass the church in whose
basement I had glimpsed the inexplicably frightening form of that strangely diademmed
priest or pastor. Besides, the grocery youth had told me that churches, as well as the
Order of Dagon Hall, were not advisable neighbourhoods for strangers.
Accordingly I kept north along Main to Martin, then turning inland, crossing Federal
Street safely north of the Green, and entering the decayed patrician neighbourhood of
northern Broad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adams Streets. Though these stately old
avenues. were ill-surfaced and unkempt, their elm-shaded dignity had not entirely
departed. Mansion after mansion claimed my gaze, most of them decrepit and boarded up
amidst neglected grounds, but one or two in each street shewing signs of occupancy. In
Washington Street there was a row of four or five in excellent repair and with finely-
tended lawns and gardens. The most sumptuous of these - with wide terraced parterres
extending back the whole way to Lafayette Street - I took to be the home of Old Man
Marsh, the afflicted refinery owner.
In all these streets no living thing was visible, and I wondered at the complete absence of
cats and dogs from Innsmouth. Another thing which puzzled and disturbed me, even in
some of the best-preserved mansions, was the tightly shuttered condition of many third-
story and attic windows. Furtiveness and secretiveness seemed universal in this hushed
city of alienage and death, and I could not escape the sensation of being watched from
ambush on every hand by sly, staring eyes that never shut.
I shivered as the cracked stroke of three sounded from a belfry on my left. Too well did I
recall the squat church from which those notes came. Following Washington street
toward the river, I now faced a new zone of former industry and commerce; noting the
ruins of a factory ahead, and seeing others, with the traces of an old railway station and
covered railway bridge beyond, up the gorge on my right.
The uncertain bridge now before me was posted with a warning sign, but I took the risk
and crossed again to the south bank where traces of life reappeared. Furtive, shambling
creatures stared cryptically in my direction, and more normal faces eyed me coldly and
curiously. Innsmouth was rapidly becoming intolerable, and I turned down Paine Street
toward the Square in the hope of getting some vehicle to take me to Arkham before the
still-distant starting-time of that sinister bus.
It was then that I saw the tumbledown fire station on my left, and noticed the red faced,
bushy-bearded, watery eyed old man in nondescript rags who sat on a bench in front of it
talking with a pair of unkempt but not abnormal looking firemen. This, of course, must be
Zodak Allen, the half-crazed, liquorish nonagenarian whose tales of old Innsmouth and
its shadow were so hideous and incredible.
III
It must have been some imp of the perverse - or some sardonic pull from dark, hidden
sources - which made me change my plans as I did. I had long before resolved to limit
my observations to architecture alone, and I was even then hurrying toward the Square in
an effort to get quick transportation out of this festering city of death and decay; but the
sight of old Zadok Allen set up new currents in my mind and made me slacken my pace
uncertainly.
I had been assured that the old man could do nothing but hint at wild, disjointed, and
incredible legends, and I had been warned that the natives made it unsafe to be seen
talking with him; yet the thought of this aged witness to the town's decay, with memories
going back to the early days of ships and factories, was a lure that no amount of reason
could make me resist. After all, the strangest and maddest of myths are often merely
symbols or allegories based upon truth - and old Zadok must have seen everything which
went on around Innsmouth for the last ninety years. Curiosity flared up beyond sense and
caution, and in my youthful egotism I fancied I might be able to sift a nucleus of real
history from the confused, extravagant outpouring I would probably extract with the aid
of raw whiskey.
I knew that I could not accost him then and there, for the firemen would surely notice and
object. Instead, I reflected, I would prepare by getting some bootleg liquor at a place
where the grocery boy had told me it was plentiful. Then I would loaf near the fire station
in apparent casualness, and fall in with old Zadok after he had started on one of his
frequent rambles. The youth had said that he was very restless, seldom sitting around the
station for more than an hour or two at a time.
A quart bottle of whiskey was easily, though not cheaply, obtained in the rear of a dingy
variety-store just off the Square in Eliot Street The dirty-looking fellow who waited on
me had a touch of the staring "Innsmouth look", but was quite civil in his way; being
perhaps used to the custom of such convivial strangers - truckmen, gold-buyers, and the
like - as were occasionally in town.
Reentering the Square I saw that luck was with me; for - shuffling out of Paine street
around the comer of the Gilman House - I glimpsed nothing less than the tall, lean,
tattered form of old Zadok Allen himself. In accordance with my plan, I attracted his
attention by brandishing my newly-purchased bottle: and loon realised that he had begun
to shuffle wistfully after me as I tinned into Waite Street on my way to the most deserted
region I could think of.
I was steering my course by the map the grocery boy had prepared, and was aiming for
the wholly abandoned stretch of southern waterfront which I had previously visited. The
only people in sight there had been the fishermen on the distant breakwater; and by going
a few squares south I could get beyond the range of these, finding a pair of seats on some
abandoned wharf and being free to question old Zadok unobserved for an indefinite time.
Before I reached Main Street I could hear a faint and wheezy "Hey, Mister!" behind me
and I presently allowed the old man to catch up and tab copious pulls from the quart
bottle.
I began putting out feelers as we walked amidst the omnipresent desolation and crazily
tilted ruins, but found that the aged tongue did not loosen as quickly as I had expected. At
length I saw a grass-grown opening toward the sea between crumbling brick walls, with
the weedy length of an earth-and-masonry wharf projecting beyond. Piles of moss-
covered stones near the water promised tolerable seats, and the scene was sheltered from
all possible view by a ruined warehouse on the north. Here, I thought was the ideal place
for a long secret colloquy; so I guided my companion down the lane and picked out spots
to sit in among the mossy stones. The air of death and desertion was ghoulish, and the
smell of fish almost insufferable; but I was resolved to let nothing deter me.
About four hours remained for conversation if I were to catch the eight o'clock coach for
Arkham, and I began to dole out more liquor to the ancient tippler; meanwhile eating my
own frugal lunch. In my donations I was careful not to overshoot the mark, for I did not
wish Zadok's vinous garrulousness to pass into a stupor, after an hour his furtive
taciturnity shewed signs of disappearing, but much to my disappointment he still
sidetracked my questions about Innsmouth and its shadow-haunted past. He would babble
of current topics, revealing a wide acquaintance with newspapers and a great tendency to
philosophise in a sententious village fashion.
Toward the end of the second hour I feared my quart of whiskey would not be enough to
produce results, and was wondering whether I had better leave old Zadok and go back for
more. Just then, however, chance made the opening which my questions had been unable
to make; and the wheezing ancient's rambling took a turn that caused me to lean forward
and listen alertly. My back was toward the fishy-smelling sea, but he was facing it and
something or other had caused his wandering gaze to light on the low, distant line of
Devil Reef, then showing plainly and almost fascinatingly above the waves. The sight
seemed to displease him, for he began a series of weak curses which ended in a
confidential whisper and a knowing leer. He bent toward me, took hold of my coat lapel,
and hissed out some hints that could not be mistaken,
"Thar's whar it all begun - that cursed place of all wickedness whar the deep water starts.
Gate o' hell - sheer drop daown to a bottom no saoundin'-line kin tech. Ol' Cap'n Obed
done it - him that faound aout more'n was good fer him in the Saouth Sea islands.
"Everybody was in a bad way them days. Trade fallin' off, mills losin' business - even the
new ones - an' the best of our menfolks kilt aprivateerin' in the War of 1812 or lost with
the Elizy brig an' the Ranger scow - both on 'em Gilman venters. Obed Marsh he had
three ships afloat - brigantine Columby, brig Hefty, an' barque Sumatry Queen. He was
the only one as kep' on with the East-Injy an' Pacific trade, though Esdras Martin's
barkentine Malay Bride made a venter as late as twenty-eight.
"Never was nobody like Cap'n Obed - old limb o' Satan! Heh, heh! I kin mind him a-
tellin' abaout furren parts, an' callin' all the folks stupid for goin' to Christian meetin' an'
bearin' their burdns meek an' lowly. Says they'd orter git better gods like some o' the folks
in the Injies - gods as ud bring 'em good fishin' in return for their sacrifices, an' ud reely
answer folks's prayers.
"Matt Eliot his fust mate, talked a lot too, only he was again' folks's doin' any heathen
things. Told abaout an island east of Othaheite whar they was a lot o' stone ruins older'n
anybody knew anying abaout, kind o' like them on Ponape, in the Carolines, but with
carven's of faces that looked like the big statues on Easter Island. Thar was a little
volcanic island near thar, too, whar they was other ruins with diff'rent carvin' - ruins all
wore away like they'd ben under the sea onct, an' with picters of awful monsters all over
'em.
"Wal, Sir, Matt he says the natives anound thar had all the fish they cud ketch, an' sported
bracelets an' armlets an' head rigs made aout o' a queer kind o' gold an' covered with
picters o' monsters jest like the ones carved over the ruins on the little island - sorter fish-
like frogs or froglike fishes that was drawed in all kinds o' positions likes they was
human bein's. Nobody cud get aout o' them whar they got all the stuff, an' all the other
natives wondered haow they managed to find fish in plenty even when the very next
island had lean pickin's. Matt he got to wonderon' too an' so did Cap'n Obed. Obed be
notices, besides, that lots of the hn'some young folks ud drop aout o' sight fer good from
year to year, an' that they wan't many old folks around. Also, he thinks some of the folks
looked dinned queer even for Kanakys.
"It took Obed to git the truth aout o' them heathen. I dun't know haow he done it, but be
begun by tradin' fer the gold-like things they wore. Ast 'em whar they come from, an' ef
they cud git more, an' finally wormed the story aout o' the old chief - -Walakea, they
called him. Nobody but Obed ud ever a believed the old yeller devil, but the Cap'n cud
read folks like they was books. Heh, heh! Nobody never believes me naow when I tell
'em, an' I dun't s'pose you will, young feller - though come to look at ye, ye hev kind o'
got them sharp-readin' eyes like Obed had."
The old man's whisper grew fainter, and I found myself shuddering at the terrible and
sincere portentousness of his intonation, even though I knew his tale could be nothing but
drunken phantasy.
"Wal, Sir, Obed he 'lart that they's things on this arth as most folks never heerd about - an'
wouldn't believe ef they did hear. lt seems these Kanakys was sacrificin' heaps o' their
young men an' maidens to some kind o' god-things that lived under the sea, an' gittin' all
kinds o' favour in return. They met the things on the little islet with the queer ruins, an' it
seems them awful picters o' frog-fish monsters was supposed to be picters o' these things.
Mebbe they was the kind o' critters as got all the mermaid stories an' sech started.
"They had all kinds a' cities on the sea-bottom, an' this island was heaved up from thar.
Seem they was some of the things alive in the stone buildin's when the island come up
sudden to the surface, That's how the Kanakys got wind they was daown thar. Made sign-
talk as son as they got over bein' skeert, an' pieced up a bargain afore long.
"Them things liked human sacrifices. Had had 'em ages afore, but lost track o' the upper
world after a time. What they done to the victims I ain't fer me to say, an' I guess Obed
was'n't none too sharp abaout askin'. But it was all right with the heathens, because they'd
ben havin' a hard time an' was desp'rate abaout everything. They give a sarten number o'
young folks to the sea-things twice every year - May-Eve an' Hallawe'en - reg'lar as cud
be. Also give some a' the carved knick-knacks they made. What the things agreed to give
in return was plenty a' fish - they druv 'em in from all over the sea - an' a few gold like
things naow an' then.
"Wal, as I says, the natives met the things on the little volcanic islet - goin' thar in canoes
with the sacrifices et cet'ry, and bringin' back any of the gold-like jools as was comin' to
'em. At fust the things didn't never go onto the main island, but arter a time they come to
want to. Seems they hankered arter mixin' with the folks, an' havin' j'int ceremonies on
the big days - May-Eve an' Hallowe'en. Ye see, they was able to live both in ant aout o'
water - what they call amphibians, I guess. The Kanakys told 'em as haow folks from the
other islands might wanta wipe 'an out if they got wind o' their bein' thar, but they says
they dun't keer much, because they cud wipe aout the hull brood o' humans ef they was
wiliin' to bother - that is, any as didn't be, sarten signs sech as was used onct by the lost
Old Ones, whoever they was. But not wantin' to bother, they'd lay low shun anybody
visited the island.
"When it come to matin' with them toad-lookin' fishes, the Kanakys kind o' balked, but
finally they larnt something as put a new face on the matter. Seems that human folks has
got a kind a' relation to sech water-beasts - that everything alive come aout o' the water
onct an' only needs a little change to go back agin. Them things told the Kanakys that ef
they mixed bloods there'd be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more'n
more like the things, till finally they'd take to the water an' jine the main lot o' things
daown har. An' this is the important part, young feller - them as turned into fish things an'
went into the water wouldn't never die. Them things never died excep' they was kilt
violent.
"Wal, Sir, it seems by the time Obed knowed them islanders they was all full o' fish blood
from them deep water things. When they got old an' begun to shew it, they was kep' hid
until they felt like takin' to the water an' quittin' the place. Some was more teched than
others, an' some never did change quite enough to take to the water; but mosily they
turned out jest the way them things said. Them as was born more like the things changed
arly, but them as was nearly human sometimes stayed on the island till they was past
seventy, though they'd usually go daown under for trial trips afore that. Folks as had took
to the water gen'rally come back a good deal to visit, so's a man ud often be a'talkin' to his
own five-times-great-grandfather who'd left the dry land a couple o' hundred years or so
afore.
"Everybody got aout o' the idee o' dyin' - excep' in canoe wars with the other islanders, or
as sacrifices to the sea-gods daown below, or from snakebite or plague or sharp gallopin'
ailments or somethin' afore they cud take to the water - but simply looked forrad to a kind
o' change that wa'n't a bit horrible artet a while. They thought what they'd got was well
wuth all they'd had to give up - an' I guess Obed kind o' come to think the same hisself
when he'd chewed over old Walakea's story a bit. Walakea, though, was one of the few as
hadn't got none of the fish blood - bein' of a royal line that intermarried with royal lines
on other islands.
"Walakea he shewed Obed a lot o' rites an' incantations as had to do with the sea things,
an' let him see some o' the folks in the village as had changed a lot from human shape.
Somehaow or other, though, he never would let him see one of the reg'lar things from
right aout o' the water. In the end he give him a funny kind o' thingumajig made aout o'
lead or something, that he said ud bring up the fish things from any place in the water
whar they might be a nest o' 'em. The idee was to drop it daown with the right kind o'
prayers an' sech. Walakea allowed as the things was scattered all over the world, so's
anybody that looked abaout cud find a nest an' bring 'em up ef they was wanted.
"Matt he didn't like this business at all, an' wanted Obed shud keep away from the island;
but the Cap'n was sharp fer gain, an' faound he cud get them gold-like things so cheap it
ud pay him to make a specialty of them. Things went on that way for years an' Obed got
enough o' that gold-like stuff to make him start the refinery in Waite's old run-daown
fullin' mill. He didn't dass sell the pieces like they was, for folks ud be all the time askin'
questions. All the same his crews ud get a piece an' dispose of it naow and then, even
though they was swore to keep quiet; an' he let his women-folks wear some o' the pieces
as was more human-like than most.
"Well, come abaout thutty-eight - when I was seven year' old - Obed he faound the island
people all wiped aout between v'yages. Seems the other islanders had got wind o' what
was goin' on, and had took matters into their own hands. S'pose they must a had, after all,
them old magic signs as the sea things says was the only things they was afeard of. No
tellin' what any o' them Kanakys will chance to git a holt of when the sea-bottom throws
up some island with ruins older'n the deluge. Pious cusses, these was - they didn't leave
nothin' standin' on either the main island or the little volcanic islet excep' what parts of
the ruins was too big to knock daown. In some places they was little stones strewed
abaout - like charms - with somethin' on 'em like what ye call a swastika naowadays.
Prob'ly them was the Old Ones' signs. Folks all wiped aout no trace o' no gold-like things
an' none the nearby Kanakys ud breathe a word abaout the matter. Wouldn't even admit
they'd ever ben any people on that island.
"That naturally hit Obed pretty hard, seein' as his normal trade was doin' very poor. It hit
the whole of Innsmouth, too, because in seafarint days what profited the master of a ship
gen'lly profited the crew proportionate. Most of the folks araound the taown took the hard
times kind o' sheep-like an' resigned, but they was in bad shape because the fishin' was
peterin' aout an' the mills wan't doin' none too well.
"Then's the time Obed he begun a-cursin' at the folks fer bein' dull sheep an' prayin' to a
Christian heaven as didn't help 'em none. He told 'em he'd knowed o' folks as prayed to
gods that give somethin' ye reely need, an' says ef a good bunch o' men ud stand by him,
he cud mebbe get a holt o' sarten paowers as ud bring plenty o' fish an' quite a bit of gold.
0' course them as sarved on the Sumatry Queen, an' seed the island knowed what he
meant, an' wa'n't none too anxious to get clost to sea-things like they'd heard tell on, but
them as didn't know what 'twas all abaout got kind o' swayed by what Obed had to say,
and begun to ast him what he cud do to sit 'em on the way to the faith as ud bring 'em
results."
Here the old man faltered, mumbled, and lapsed into a moody and apprehensive silence;
glancing nervously over his shoulder and then turning back to stare fascinatedly at the
distant black reef. When I spoke to him he did not answer, so I knew I would have to let
him finish the bottle. The insane yarn I was hearing interested me profoundly, for I
fancied there was contained within it a sort of crude allegory based upon the strangeness
of Innsmouth and elaborated by an imagination at once creative and full of scraps of
exotic legend. Not for a moment did I believe that the tale had any really substantial
foundation; but none the less the account held a hint of genuine terror if only because it
brought in references to strange jewels clearly akin to the malign tiara I had seen at
Newburyport. Perhaps the ornaments bad, after all, come from some strange island; and
possibly the wild stories were lies of the bygone Obed himself rather than of this antique
toper.
I handed Zadok the bottle, and he drained it to the last drop. It was curious how he could
stand so much whiskey, for not even a trace of thickness had come into his high, wheezy
voice. He licked the nose of the bottle and slipped it into his pocket, then beginning to
nod and whisper softly to himself. I bent close to catch any articulate words he might
utter, and thought I saw a sardonic smile behind the stained bushy whiskers. Yes - he was
really forming words, and I could grasp a fair proportion of them.
"Poor Matt - Matt he allus was agin it - tried to line up the folks on his side, an' had long
talks with the preachers - no use - they run the Congregational parson aout o' taown, an'
the Methodist feller quit - never did see Resolved Babcock, the Baptist parson, agin -
Wrath 0' Jehovy - I was a mightly little critter, but I heerd what I heerd an, seen what I
seen - Dagon an' Ashtoreth - Belial an' Beelzebub - Golden Caff an' the idols o' Canaan
an' the Philistines - Babylonish abominations - Mene, mene, tekel, upharisn - -."
He stopped again, and from the look in his watery blue eyes I feared he was close to a
stupor after all. But when I gently shook his shoulder he turned on me with astonishing
alertness and snapped out some more obscure phrases.
"Dun't believe me, hey? Hey, heh, heh - then jest tell me, young feller, why Cap'n Obed
an' twenty odd other folks used to row aout to Devil Reef in the dead o' night an' chant
things so laoud ye cud hear 'em all over taown when the wind was right? Tell me that,
hey? An' tell me why Obed was allus droppin' heavy things daown into the deep water
t'other side o' the reef whar the bottom shoots daown like a cliff Iower'a ye kin saound?
Tell me what he done with that funny-shaped lead thingumajig as Walakea give him?
Hey, boy? An' what did they all haowl on May-Eve, an, agin the next Hallowe'en? An'
why'd the new church parsons - fellers as used to he sailors - wear them queer robes an'
cover their-selves with them gold-like things Obed brung? Hey?"
The watery blue eyes were almost savage and maniacal now, and the dirty white beard
bristled electrically. Old Zadok probably saw me shrink back, for he began to cackle
evilly.
"Heh, heh, heh, heh! Beginni'n to see hey? Mebbe ye'd like to a ben me in them days,
when I seed things at night aout to sea from the cupalo top o' my haouse. Oh, I kin tell ye'
little pitchers hev big ears, an' I wa'n't missin' nothin' o' what was gossiped abaout Cap'n
Obed an' the folks aout to the reef! Heh, heh, heh! Haow abaout the night I took my pa's
ship's glass up to the cupalo an' seed the reef a-bristlin' thick with shapes that dove off
quick soon's the moon riz?
"Obed an' the folks was in a dory, but them shapes dove off the far side into the deep
water an' never come up . . .
"Haow'd ye like to be a little shaver alone up in a cupola a-watchin' shapes as wa'n't
human shapes? . . .Heh? . . . Heh, heh, heh . . ."
The old man was getting hysterical, and I began to shiver with a nameless alarm. He laid
a gnarled claw on my shoulder, and it seemed to me that its shaking was not altogether
that of mirth.
"S'pose one night ye seed somethin' heavy heaved offen Obed's dory beyond the reef' and
then learned next day a young feller was missin' from home. Hey! Did anybody ever see
hide or hair o' Hiram Gilman agin. Did they? An' Nick Pierce, an' Luelly Waite, an'
Adoniram Saouthwick, an' Henry Garrison Hey? Heh, heh, heh, heh . . . Shapes talkin'
sign language with their hands . . . them as had reel hands . . .
"Wal, Sir, that was the time Obed begun to git on his feet agin. Folks see his three darters
a-wearin' gold-like things as nobody'd never see on 'em afore, an' smoke stared comin'
aout o' the refin'ry chimbly. Other folks was prosp'rin, too - fish begun to swarm into the
harbour fit to kill' an' heaven knows what sized cargoes we begun to ship aout to
Newb'ryport, Arkham, an' Boston. T'was then Obed got the ol' branch railrud put through.
Some Kingsport fishermen heerd abaout the ketch an' come up in sloops, but they was all
lost. Nobody never see 'em agin. An' jest then our folk organised the Esoteric Order 0'
Dagon, an' bought Masoic Hall offen Calvary Commandery for it . . . heh, heh, heh! Mart
Eliot was a Mason an' agin the sellin', but he dropped aout o' sight jest then.
"Remember, I ain't sayin' Obod was set on hevin' things jest like they was on that Kanaky
isle. I dun't think he aimed at fust to do no mixin', nor raise no younguns to take to the
water an' turn into fishes with eternal life. He wanted them gold things, an' was willin' to
pay heavy, an' I guess the others was satisfied fer a while . . .
"Come in' forty-six the taown done some lookin' an' thinkin' fer itself. Too many folks
messin' - too much wild preachin' at meetin' of a Sunday - too much talk abaout that reef.
I guess I done a bit by tellin' Selectman Mowry what I see from the cupalo. They was a
party one night as follered Obed's craowd aout to the reef, an' I heerd shots betwixt the
dories. Nex' day Obed and thutty-two others was in gaol, with everybody a-wonderin' jest
what was afoot and jest what charge agin 'em cud he got to holt. God, ef anybody'd look'd
ahead . . . a couple o' weeks later, when nothin' had ben throwed into the sea fer thet long
...
Zadok was shewing sings of fright and exhaustion, and I let him keep silence for a while,
though glancing apprehensively at my watch. The tide had turned and was coming in
now, and the sound of the waves seemed to arouse him. I was glad of that tide, for at high
water the fishy smell might not be so bad. Again I strained to catch his whispers.
"That awful night . . . I seed 'em. I was up in the cupalo . . . hordes of' em . . . swarms of
'em . . . all over the reef an' swimin' up the harbour into the Manuret. . . God, what
happened in the streets of Innsmouth that night . . . they rattled our door, but pa wouldn't
open . . . then he clumb aout the kitchen winder with his musket to find Selecman Mowry
an' see what he cud; do . . . Maounds o' the dead an' the dyin' . . . shots and screams . . .
shaoutin' in Ol Squar an' Taown Squar an' New Church Green - gaol throwed open . . . -
proclamation . . . treason . . . called it the plague when folks come in an' faoud haff our
people missin' . . . nobody left but them as ud jine in with Obed an' them things or else
keep quiet . . . never heard o' my pa no more. . . "
The old man was panting and perspiring profusely. His grip on my shoulder tightened.
"Everything cleaned up in the mornin' - but they was traces . . . Obed he kinder takes
charge an' says things is goin' to be changed . . . others'll worship with us at meetin'-time,
an' sarten haouses hez got to entertin guests . . . they wanted to mix like they done wish
the Kanakys, an' he for one didn't feel baound to stop 'em. Far gone, was 0bed . . . jest
like a crazy man on the subjeck. He says they brung us fish an' treasure, an' shud hev
what they hankered after . . ."
"Nothin' was to be diff'runt on the aoutsid; only we was to keep shy o' strangers ef we
knowed what was good fer us.
"We all hed to take the Oath o' Dagon, an' later on they was secon' an' third Oaths that
wrne on us took. Them as ud help special, ud git special rewards - gold an' sech - No use
balkin', fer they was millions of 'em daown thar. They'd ruther not start risin' an' wipin'
aout human-kind, but ef they was gave away an' forced to, they cud do a lot toward jest
that. We didn't hev them old charms to cut 'em off like folks in the Saouth Sea did, an'
them Kanakys wudu't never give away their secrets.
"Yield up enough sacrifices an' savage knick-knacks an' harbourage in the taown when
they wanted it, an' they'd let well enough alone. Wudn't bother no strangers as might bear
tales aoutside - that is, withaout they got pryin'. All in the band of the faithful - Order 0'
Dagon - an' the children shud never die, but go back to the Mother Hydra an' Father
Dagon what we all come from onct . . . la! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh
Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtaga - "
Old Zadok was fast lapsing into stark raving, and I held my breath. Poor old soul - to
what pitiful depths of hallucination had his liquor, plus his hatred of the decay, alienage,
and disease around him, brought that fertile, imaginative brain? He began to moan now,
and tears were coursing down his channelled checks into the depths of his beard.
"God, what I seen senct I was fifteen year' old - Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin! - the folks
as was missin', and them as kilt theirselves - them as told things in Arkham or Ipswich or
sech places was all called crazy, like you're callin' me right naow - but God, what I seen -
They'd a kilt me long ago fer' what I know, only I'd took the fust an' secon' Oaths o' Dago
offen Ohed, so was pertected unlessen a jury of 'em proved I told things knowin' an'
delib'rit . . . but I wudn't take the third Oath - I'd a died ruther'n take that - "
"It got wuss araound Civil War time, when children born senct 'fiorty-six begun to grow
up - some 'em, that is. I was afeared - never did no pryin' arter that awful night, an' never
see one o' - them - clost to in all my life. That is, never no full-blooded one. I went to the
war, an' ef I'd a had any guts or sense I'd a never come back, but settled away from here.
But folks wrote me things wa'n't so bad. That, I s'pose, was because gov'munt draft men
was in taown arter 'sirty-three. Arter the war it was jest as bad agin. People begun to fall
off - mills an' shops shet daown shippin' stopped an' the harbour choked up - railrud give
up - but they . . . they never stopped swimmin' in an' aout o' the river from that cursed
reef o' Setan - an' more an' more attic winders got a-boarded up, an' more an' more noises
was heerd in haouses as wa'n't s'posed to hev nobody in 'em. . .
"Folks aoutside hev their stories abaout us - s'pose you've heerd a plenty on 'em, seein'
what questions ye ast - stories abaout things they've seed naow an' then, an' abaout that
queer joofry as still comes in from somewhars an' ain't quite all melted up - but nothin'
never gits def'nite. Nobody'll believe nothin'. They call them gold-like things pirate loot,
an' allaow the Innsmouth folks hez furren blood or is dis-tempered or somethin'. Beside,
them that lives here shoo off as many strangers as they kin, an' encourage the rest not to
git very cur'ous, specially raound night time. Beasts balk at the critters - hosses wuss'n
mules - but when they got autos that was all right.
"In forty-six Cap'n Obed took a second wife that nobody in thee taown never see - some
says he didn't want to, but was made to by them as he'd called in - had three children by
her - two as disappeared young, but one gal as looked like anybody else an' was eddicated
in Europe. Obed finally got her married off by a trick to an Ackham feller as didn't
suspect nothin'. But nobody aoutside'll hav nothin' to do with Innsmouth folks 'now.
Barnabas Marsh that runs the refin'ry now is Obed's grandson by hist first wife - son of
Onesiphorus, his eldest eon, but his mother was another o' them as wa'n't never seen
aoutdoors.
"Right naow Barnabas is abaout changed. Can't shet his eyes no more, an' is all aout o'
shape. They say he still wears clothes, but he'll take to the water soon. Mebbe he's tried it
already - they do sometimes go daown for little spells afore they go daown for good.
Ain't ben seed abaout in public fer night on ten year'. Dun't know haow his poor wife kin
feel - she come from Ipiwich, an' they nigh lynched Barnabas when he courted her fifty
odd year' ago. Obed he died in 'seventy-eight an' all the next gen'ratioon is gone naow -
the fust wife's children dead, and the rest . . . God knows . . ."
The sound of the incoming tide was flow very insistent, and little by little it seemed to
change the old man's mood from maudlin tearfulness to watchful fear. He would pause
now and then to renew those nervous glances over his shoulder or out toward the reef,
and despite the wild absurdity of his tale, I could not help beginning to share his
apprehensiveness. Zadok now grew shriller, seemed to be trying to whip up his courage
with louder speech.
"Hey, yew, why dun't ye say somethin'? Haow'd ye like to he livin' in a taown like this,
with everything a-rottin' an' dyin', an' boarded-up monsters crawlin' an' bleatin' an' barkin'
an' hoppin' araoun' black cellars an' attics every way ye turn? Hey? Haow'd ye like to hear
the haowlin' night arter night from the churches an' Order 0' Dagon Hall, an' know what's
doin' part o' the haowlin'? Haow'd ye like to hear what comes from that awful reef every
May-Eve an' Hallowmass? Hey? Think the old man's crazy, eh? Wal, Sir, let me tell ye
that ain't the wust!"
Zadok was really screaming now, and the mad frenzy of his voice disturbed me more
than I care to own.
"Curse ye, dun't set thar a'starin' at me with them eyes - I tell Obed Marsh he's in hell, an,
hez got to stay thar! Heh, heh . . . in hell, I says! Can't git me - I hain't done nothin' nor
told nobody nothin' - -
"Oh, you, young feller? Wal, even ef I hain't told nobody nothin' yet, I'm a'goin' to naow!
Yew jest set still an' listen to me, boy - this is what I ain't never told nobody. . . I says I
didn't get to do pryin' arter that night - but I faound things about jest the same!"
"Yew want to know what the reel horror is, hey? Wal, it's this - it ain't what them fish
devils hez done, but what they're a-goin' to do! They're a-bringin' things up aout o' whar
they come from into the taown - been doin' it fer years, an' slackenin' up lately. Them
haouses north o' the river be-twixt Water an' Main Streets is full of 'em - them devils an'
what they brung - an' when they git ready . . . I say, when they git... ever hear tell of a
shoggoth?
"Hey, d'ye hear me? I tell ye I know what them things be - I seen 'em one mght when . . .
eh-ahhh-ah! e'yahhh . . . "
The hideous suddenness and inhuman frightfulness of the old man's shriek almost made
me faint. His eyes, looking past me toward the malodorous sea, were positively starting
from his head; while his face was a mask of fear worthy of Greek tragedy. His bony claw
dug monstrously into my shoulder, and he made no motion as I turned my head to look at
whatever he had glimpsed.
There was nothing that I could see. Only the incoming tide, with perhaps one set of
ripples more local than the long-flung line of breakers. But now Zadok was shaking me,
and I turned back to watch the melting of that fear-frozen face into a chaos of twitching
eyelids and mumbling gums. Presently his voice came back - albeit as a trembling
whisper.
"Git aout o' here! Get aout o' here! They seen us - git aout fer your life! Dun't wait fer
nothin' - they know naow - Run fer it - quick - aout o' this taown - -"
Another heavy wave dashed against the loosing masonry of the bygone wharf, and
changed the mad ancient's whisper to another inhuman and blood-curdling scream. "E-
yaahhhh! . . . Yheaaaaaa!. . ."
Before I could recover my scattered wits he had relaxed his clutch on my shoulder and
dashed wildly inland toward the street, reeling northward around the ruined warehouse
wall.
I glanced back at the sea, but there was nothing there. And when I reached Water Street
and looked along it toward the north there was no remaining trace of Zadok Allen.
IV
I can hardly describe the mood in which I was left by this harrowing episode - an episode
at once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying. The grocery boy had prepared me for it,
yet the reality left me none the less bewildered and disturbed. Puerile though the story
was, old Zadok's insane earnestness and horror had communicated to me a mounting
unrest which joined with my earlier sense of loathing for the town and its blight of
intangible shadow.
Later I might sift the tale and extract some nucleus of historic allegory; just now I wished
to put it out of my head. The hour grown perilously late - my watch said 7:15, and the
Arkham bus left Town Square at eight - so I tied to give my thoughts as neutral and
practical a cast as possible, meanwhile walking rapidly through the deserted streets of
gaping roofs and leaning houses toward the hotel where I had checked my valise and
would find my bus.
Though the golden light of late afternoon gave the ancient roofs and decrepit chimneys an
air of mystic loveliness and peace, I could not help glancing over my shoulder now and
then. I would surely be very glad to get out of malodorous and fear-shadowed Innsmouth,
and wished there were some other vehicle than the bus driven by that sinister-looking
fellow Sargent. Yet I did not hurry too precipitately, for there were architectural details
worth viewing at every dent corner; and I could easily, I calculated, cover the necessary
distance in a half-hour.
Studying the grocery youth's map and seeking a route I had not traversed before, I chose
Marsh Street instead of State for my approach to Town Square. Near the corner of Fall
street I began to see scattered groups of furtive whisperers, and when I finally reached the
Square I saw that almost all the loiterers were congregated around the door of the Gilman
House. It seemed as if many bulging, watery, unwinking eyes looked oddly at me as I
claimed my valise in the lobby, and I hoped that none of these unpleasant creatures would
be my fellow-passengers on the coach.
The bus, rather early, rattled in with three passengers somewhat before eight, and an evil-
looking fellow on the sidewalk muttered a few indistinguishable words to the driver.
Sargent threw out a mail-bag and a roll of newspapers, and entered the hotel; while the
passengers - the same men whom I had seen arriving in Newburyport that morning -
shambled to the sidewalk and exchanged some faint guttural words with a loafer in a
language I could have sworn was not English. I boarded the empty coach and took the
seat I had taken before, but was hardly settled before Sargent re-appeared and began
mumbling in a throaty voice of peculiar repulsiveness.
I was, it appeared, in very bad luck. There had been something wrong with the engine,
despite the excellent time made from Newburyport, and the bus could not complete the
journey to Arkham. No, it could not possibly be repaired that night, nor was there any
other way of getting transportation out of Innsmouth either to Arkham or elsewhere.
Sargent was sorry, but I would have to stop over at the Gilman. Probably the clerk would
make the price easy for me, but there was nothing else to do. Almost dazed by this
sudden obstacle, and violently dreading the fall of night in this decaying and half-
unlighted town, I left the bus and reentered the hotel lobby; where the sullen queer-
looking night clerk told me I could have Room 428 on next the top floor - large, but
without running water - for a dollar.
Despite what I had heard of this hotel in Newburyport, I signed the register, paid my
dollar, let the clerk take my valise, and followed that sour, solitary attendant up three
creaking flights of stairs past dusty corridors which seemed wholly devoid of life. My
room was a dismal rear one with two windows and bare, cheap furnishings, overlooked a
dingy court-yard otherwise hemmed in by low, deserted brick blocks, and commanded a
view of decrepit westward-stretching roofs with a marshy countryside beyond. At the end
of the corridor was a bathroom - a discouraging relique with ancient marble bowl, tin tub,
faint electric light, and musty wooded paneling around all the plumbing fixtures.
It being still daylight, I descended to the Square and looked around for a dinner of some
sort; noticing as I did so the strange glances I received from the unwholesome loafers.
Since the grocery was closed, I was forced to patronise the restaurant I had shunned
before; a stooped, narrow-headed man with staring, unwinking eyes, and a flat-nosed
wench with unbelievably thick, clumsy hands being in attendance. The service was all of
the counter type, and it relieved me to find that much was evidently served from cans and
packages. A bowl of vegetable soup with crackers was enough for me, and I soon headed
back for my cheerless roam at the Gilman; getting a evening paper and a fly-specked
magazine from the evil-visaged clerk at the rickety stand beside his desk.
As twilight deepened I turned on the one feeble electric bulb over the cheap, iron-framed
bed, and tried as best I could to continue the reading I had begun. I felt it advisable to
keep my mind wholesomely occupied, for it would not do to brood over the abnormalities
of this ancient, blight-shadowed town while I was still within its borders. The insane yarn
I had heard from the aged drunkard did not promise very pleasant dreams, and I felt I
must keep the image of his wild, watery eyes as far as possible from my imagination.
Also, I must not dwell on what that factory inspector had told the Newburyport ticket-
agent about the Gilman House and the voices of its nocturnal tenants - not on that, nor on
the face beneath the tiara in the black church doorway; the face for whose horror my
conscious mind could not account. It would perhaps have been easier to keep my
thoughts from disturbing topics had the room not been so gruesomely musty. As it was,
the lethal mustiness blended hideously with the town's general fishy odour and
persistently focussed one's fancy on death and decay.
Another thing that disturbed me was the absence of a bolt on the door of my room. One
had been there, as marks clearly shewed, but there were signs of recent removal. No
doubt it had been out of order, like so many other things in this decrepit edifice. In my
nervousness I looked around and discovered a bolt on the clothes press which seemed to
be of the same size, judging from the marks, as the one formerly on the door. To gain a
partial relief from the general tension I busied myself by transferring this hardware to the
vacant place with the aid of a handy three-in-one device including a screwdriver which I
kept on my key-ring. The bolt fitted perfectly, and I was somewhat relieved when I knew
that I could shoot it firmly upon retiring. Not that I had any real apprehension of its need,
but that any symbol of security was welcome in an environment of this kind. There were
adequate bolts on the two lateral doors to connecting rooms, and these I proceeded to
fasten.
I did not undress, but decided to read till I was sleepy and then lie down with only my
coat, collar, and shoes off. Taking a pocket flash light from my valise, I placed it in my
trousers, so that I could read my watch if I woke up later in the dark. Drowsiness,
however, did not come; and when I stopped to analyse my thoughts I found to my
disquiet that I was really unconsciously listening for something - listening for something
which I dreaded but could not name. That inspector's story must have worked on my
imagination more deeply than I had suspected. Again I tried to read, but found that I
made no progress.
After a time I seemed to hear the stairs and corridors creak at intervals as if with
footsteps, and wondered if the other rooms were beginning to fill up. There were no
voices, however, and it struck me that there was something subtly furtive about the
creaking. I did not like it, and debated whether I had better try to sleep at all. This town
had some queer people, and there had undoubtedly been several disappearances. Was this
one of those inns where travelers were slain for their money? Surely I had no look of
excessive prosperity. Or were the towns folk really so resentful about curious visitors?
Had my obvious sightseeing, with its frequent map-consultations, aroused unfavorable
notice. It occurred to me that I must be in a highly nervous state to let a few random
creakings set me off speculating in this fashion - but I regretted none the less that I was
unarmed.
At length, feeling a fatigue which had nothing of drowsiness in it, I bolted the newly
outfitted hall door, turned off the light, and threw myself down on the hard, uneven bed -
coat, collar, shoes, and all. In the darkness every faint noise of the night seemed
magnified, and a flood of doubly unpleasant thoughts swept over me. I was sorry I had
put out the light, yet was too tired to rise and turn it on again. Then, after a long, dreary
interval, and prefaced by a fresh creaking of stairs and corridor, there came that soft;
damnably unmistakable sound which seemed like a malign fulfillment of all my
apprehensions. Without the lean shadow of a doubt, the lock of my door was being tried -
cautiously, furtively, tentatively - with a key.
My sensations upon recognising this sign of actual peril were perhaps less rather than
more tumultuous because of my previous vague fear I had about, albeit without definite
reason, instinctively on my guard - and that was to my advantage in the new and real
crisis, whatever it might turn out to be. Nevertheless the change in the menace from
vague premonition to immediate reality was a profound shock, and fell upon me with the
force of a genuine blow. It never once occurred to me that the fumbling might be a mere
mistake. Malign purpose was all I could think of, and I kept deathly quiet, awaiting the
would-he intruder's next move.
After a time the cautious rattling ceased, and I heard the room to the north entered with a
pass key. Then the lock of the connecting door to my room was softly tried. The bolt
held, of course, and I heard the floor creak as the prowler left the room. After a moment
there came another soft rattling, and I knew that the room to the south of me was being
entered. Again a furtive trying of a bolted connecting door, and again a receding
creaking. This time the creaking went along the hall and down the stairs, so I knew that
the prowler had raised the bolted condition of my doors and was giving up his attempt for
a greater or lesser time, as the future would shew.
The readiness with which I fell into a plan of action proves that I must have been
subconsciously fearing some menace and considering possible avenues of escape for
hours. From the first I felt that the unseen fumbler meant a danger not to be met or dealt
with, but only to be fled from as precipitately as possible. The one thing to do was to get
out of that hotel alive as quickly as I could, and through some channel other than the front
stairs and lobby.
Rising softly and throwing my flashlight on the switch, I sought to light the bulb over my
bed in order to choose and pocket some belongings for a swift, valiseless flight. Nothing,
however, happened; and I saw that the power had been cut off. Clearly, some cryptic, evil
movement was afoot on a large scale - just what, I could not say. As I stood pondering
with my hand on the now useless switch I heard a muffled creaking on the floor below,
and thought I could barely distinguish voices in conversation. A moment later I felt less
sure that the deeper sounds were voices, since the apparent hoarse barkings and loose-
syllabled croakings bore so little resemblance to recognized human speech. Then I
thought with renewed force of what the factory inspector had heard in the night in this
mouldering and pestilential building.
Having filled my pockets with the flashlight's aid, I put on my hat and tiptoed to the
windows to consider chances of descent. Despite the state's safety regulations there was
no fire escape on this side of the hotel, and I saw that my windows commanded only a
sheer three story drop to the cobbled courtyard. On the right and left, however, some
ancient brick business blocks abutted on the hotel; their slant roofs coming up to a
reasonable jumping distance from my fourth-story level. To reach either of these lines of
buildings I would have to be in a room two from my own - in one case on the north and
in the other case on the south - and my mind instantly set to work what chances I had of
making the transfer.
I could not, I decided, risk an emergence into the corridor; where my footsteps would
surely be heard, and where the difficulties of entering the desired room would be
insuperable. My progress, if it was to be made at all, would have to be through the less
solidly-built connecting doors of the rooms; the locks and bolts of which I would have to
force violently, using my shoulder as a battering-ram whenever they were set against me.
This, I thought, would be possible owing to the rickety nature of the house and its
fixtures; but I realised I could not do it noiselessly. I would have to count on sheer speed,
and the chance of getting to a window before any hostile forces became coordinated
enough to open the right door toward me with a pass-key. My own outer door I
reinforced by pushing the bureau against it - little by little, in order to make a minimum
of sound.
I perceived that my chances were very slender, and was fully prepared for any calamity.
Even getting to another roof would not solve the problem for there would then remain the
task of reaching the ground and escaping from the town. One thing in my favour was the
deserted and ruinous state of the abutting building and the number of skylights gaping
blackly open in each row.
Gathering from the grocery boy's map that the best route out of town was southward, I
glanced first at the connecting door on the south side of the room. It was designed to open
in my direction, hence I saw - after drawing the bolt and finding other fastening in place -
it was not a favorable one for forcing. Accordingly abandoning it as a route, I cautiously
moved the bedstead against it to hamper any attack which might be made on it later from
the next room. The door on the north was hung to open away from me, and this - though
a test proved it to be locked or bolted from the other side - I knew must be my route. If I
could gain the roofs of the buildings in Paine Street and descend successfully to the
ground level, I might perhaps dart through the courtyard and the adjacent or opposite
building to Washington or Bates - or else emerge in Paine and edge around southward
into Washington. In any case, I would aim to strike Washington somehow and get
quickly out of the Town Square region. My preference would be to avoid Paine, since the
fire station there might be open all night.
As I thought of these things I looked out over the squalid sea of decaying roof below me,
now brightened by the beams of a moon not much past full. On the right the black gash of
the river-gorge clove the panorama; abandoned factories and railway station clinging
barnacle-like to its sides. Beyond it the rusted railway and the Rowley road led off
through a flat marshy terrain dotted with islets of higher and dryer scrub-grown land. On
the left the creek-threaded country-side was nearer, the narrow road to Ipswich gleaming
white in the moonlight. I could not see from my side of the hotel the southward route
toward Arkham which I had determined to take.
I was irresolutely speculating on when I had better attack the northward door, and on how
I could least audibly manage it, when I noticed that the vague noises underfoot had given
place to a fresh and heavier creaking of the stairs. A wavering flicker of light shewed
through my transom, and the boards of the corridor began to groan with a ponderous
load. Muffled sounds of possible vocal origin approached, and at length a firm knock
came at my outer door.
For a moment I simply held my breath and waited. Eternities seemed to elapse, and the
nauseous fishy odour of my environment seemed to mount suddenly and spectacularly.
Then the knocking was repeated - continuously, and with growing insistence. I knew that
the time for action had come, and forthwith drew the bolt of the northward connecting
door, bracing myself for the task of battering it open. The knocking waxed louder, and I
hoped that its volume would cover the sound of my efforts. At last beginning my attempt,
I lunged again and again at the thin paneling with my left shoulder, heedless of shock or
pain. The door resisted even more than I expected, but I did not give in. And all the while
the clamour at the outer door increased.
Finally the connecting door gave, but with such a crash that I knew those outside must
have heard. Instantly the outside knocking became a violent battering, while keys
sounded ominously in the hall doors of the rooms on both sides of me. Rushing through
the newly opened connexion, I succeeded in bolting the northerly hall door before the
lock could he turned; but even as I did so I heard the hall door of the third room-the one
from whose window I had hoped to reach the roof below-being tried with a pass key.
For an instant I felt absolute despair, since my trapping in a chamber with no window
egress seemed complete. A wave of almost abnormal horror swept over me, and invested
with a terrible but unexplainable singularity the flashlight-glimpsed dust prints made by
the intruder who had lately tried my door from this room. Then, with a dazed automatism
which persisted despite hopelessness, I made for the next connecting door and performed
the blind motion of pushing at it in an effort to get through and - granting that fastenings
might be as providentially intact as in this second room - bolt the hall door beyond before
the lock could be turned from outside.
Sheer fortunate chance gave me my reprieve - for the connecting door before me was not
only unlocked but actually ajar. In a second I was though, and had my right knee and
shoulder against a hall door which was visibly opening inward. My pressure took the
opener off guard, for the thing shut as I pushed, so that I could slip the well-conditioned
bolt as I had done with the other door. As I gained this respite I heard the battering at the
two other doors abate, while a confused clatter came from the connecting door I had
shielded with the bedstead. Evidently the bulk of my assailants had entered the southerly
room and were massing in a lateral attack. But at the same moment a pass key sounded in
the next door to the north, and I knew that a nearer peril was at hand.
The northward connecting door was wide open, but there was no time to think about
checking the already turning lock in the hall. All I could do was to shut and bolt the open
connecting door, as well as its mate on the opposite side - pushing a bedstead against the
one and a bureau against the other, and moving a washstand in front of the hall door. I
must, I saw, trust to such makeshift barriers to shield me till I could get out the window
and on the roof of the Paine Street block. But even in this acute moment my chief horror
was something apart from the immediate weakness of my defenses. I was shuddering
because not one of my pursuers, despite some hideous panting, grunting, and subdued
barkings at odd intervals, was uttering an unmuffled or intelligible vocal sound.
As I moved the furniture and rushed toward the windows I heard a frightful scurrying
along the corridor toward the room north of me, and perceived that the southward
battering had ceased. Plainly, most of my opponents were about to concentrate against
the feeble connecting door which they knew must open directly on me. Outside, the moon
played on the ridgepole of the block below, and I saw that the jump would be desperately
hazardous because of the steep surface on which I must land.
Surveying the conditions, I chose the more southerly of the two windows as my avenue
of escape; planning to land on the inner slope of the roof and make for the nearest sky-
light. Once inside one of the decrepit brick structures I would have to reckon with
pursuit; but I hoped to descend and dodge in and out of yawning doorways along the
shadowed courtyard, eventually getting to Washington Street and slipping out of town
toward the south.
The clatter at the northerly connecting door was now terrific, and I saw that the weak
panelling was beginning to splinter. Obviously, the besiegers had brought some
ponderous object into play as a battering-ram. The bedstead, how-ever, still held firm; so
that I had at least a faint chance of making good my escape. As I opened the window I
noticed that it was flanked by heavy velour draperies suspended from a pole by brass
rings, and also that there was a large projecting catch for the shutters on the exterior.
Seeing a possible means of avoiding the dangerous jump, I yanked at the hangings and
brought them down, pole and all; then quickly hooking two of the rings in the shutter
catch and flinging the drapery outside. The heavy folds reached fully to the abutting roof,
and I saw that the rings and catch would be likely to bear my weight. So, climbing out of
the window and down the improvised rope ladder, I left behind me forever the morbid
and horror-infested fabric of the Gilman House.
I landed safely on the loose slates of the steep roof, and succeeded in gaining the gaping
black skylight without a slip. Glancing up at the window I had left, I observed it was still
dark, though far across the crumbling chimneys to the north I could see lights ominously
blazing in the Order of Dagon Hall, the Baptist church, and the Congregational church
which I recalled so shiveringly. There had seemed to be no one in the courtyard below,
and I hoped there would be a chance to get away before the spreading of a general alarm.
Flashing my pocket lamp into the skylight, I saw that there were no steps down. The
distance was slight, however, so I clambered over the brink and dropped; striking a dusty
floor littered with crumbling boxes and barrels.
The place was ghoulish-looking, but I was past minding such impressions and made at
once for the staircase revealed by my flashlight - after a hasty glance at my watch, which
shewed the hour to be 2 a.m. The steps creaked, but seemed tolerably sound; and I raced
down past a barnlike second storey to the ground floor. The desolation was complete, and
only echoes answered my footfalls. At length I reached the lower hall at the end of which
I saw a faint luminous rectangle marking the ruined Paine Street doorway. Heading the
other way, I found the back door also open; and darted out and down five stone steps to
the grass-grown cobblestones of the courtyard.
The moonbeams did not reach down here, but I could just see my way about without
using the flashlight. Some of the windows on the Gilman House side were faintly
glowing, and I thought I heard confused sounds within. Walking softly over to the
Washington Street side I perceived several open doorways, and chose the nearest as my
route out. The hallway inside was black, and when I reached the opposite end I saw that
the street door was wedged immovably shut. Resolved to try another building, I groped
my way back toward the courtyard, but stopped short when close to the doorway.
For out of an opened door in the Gilman House a large crowd of doubtful shapes was
pouring - lanterns bobbing in the darkness, and horrible croaking voices exchanging low
cries in what was certainly not English. The figures moved uncertainly, and I realized to
my relief that they did not know where I had gone; but for all that they sent a shiver of
horror through my frame. Their features were indistinguishable, but their crouching,
shambling gait was abominably repellent. And worst of all, I perceived that one figure
was strangely robed, and unmistakably surmounted by a tall tiara of a design altogether
too familiar. As the figures spread throughout the courtyard, I felt my fears increase.
Suppose I could find no egress from this building on the street side? The fishy odour was
detestable, and I wondered I could stand it without fainting. Again groping toward the
street, I opened a door off the hall and came upon an empty room with closely shuttered
but sashless windows. Fumbling in the rays of my flashlight, I found I could open the
shutters; and in another moment had climbed outside and was fully closing the aperture in
its original manner.
I was now in Washington Street, and for the moment saw no living thing nor any light
save that of the moon. From several directions in the distance, however, I could hear the
sound of hoarse voices, of footsteps, and of a curious kind of pattering which did not
sound quite like footsteps. Plainly I had no time to lose. The points of the compass were
clear to me, and I was glad that all the street lights were turned off, as is often the custom
on strongly moonlit nights in prosperous rural regions. Some of the sounds came from the
south, yet I retained my design of escaping in that direction. There would, I knew, be
plenty of deserted doorways to shelter me in case I met any person or group who looked
like pursuers.
I walked rapidly, softly, and close to the ruined houses. While hatless and dishevelled
after my arduous climb, I did not look especially noticeable; and stood a good chance of
passing unheeded if forced to encounter any casual wayfarer.
At Bates Street I drew into a yawning vestibule while two shambling figures crossed in
front of me, but was soon on my way again and approaching the open space where Eliot
Street obliquely crosses Washington at the intersection of South. Though I had never seen
this space, it had looked dangerous to me on the grocery youth's map; since the
moonlight would have free play there. There was no use trying to evade it, for any
alternative course would involve detours of possibly disastrous visibility and delaying
effect. The only thing to do was to cross it boldly and openly; imitating the typical
shamble of the Innsmouth folk as best I could, and trusting that no one - or at least no
pursuer of mine - would be there.
Just how fully the pursuit was organised - and indeed, just what its purpose might be - I
could form no idea. There seemed to be unusual activity in the town, but I judged that the
news of my escape from the Gilman had not yet spread. I would, of course, soon have to
shift from Washington to some other southward street; for that party from the hotel would
doubtless be after me. I must have left dust prints in that last old building, revealing how
I had gained the street.
The open space was, as I had expected, strongly moonlit; and I saw the remains of a
parklike, iron-railed green in its center. Fortunately no one was about though a curious
sort of buzz or roar seemed to be increasing in the direction of Town Square. South Street
was very wide, leading directly down a slight declivity to the waterfront and commanding
a long view out a sea; and I hoped that no one would be glancing up it from afar as I
crossed in the bright moonlight.
My progress was unimpeded, and no fresh sound arose to hint that I had been spied.
Glancing about me, I involuntarily let my pace slacken for a second to take in the sight of
the sea, gorgeous in the burning moonlight at the street's end. Far out beyond the
breakwater was the dim, dark line of Devil Reef, and as I glimpsed it I could not help
thinking of all the hideous legends I had heard in the last twenty-four hours - legends
which portrayed this ragged rock as a veritable gateway to realms of unfathomed horror
and inconceivable abnormality.
Then, without warning, I saw the intermittent flashes of light on the distant reef. They
were definite and unmistakable, and awaked in my mind a blind horror beyond all
rational proportion. My muscles tightened for panic flight, held in only by a certain
unconscious caution and half-hypnotic fascination. And to make matters worse, there
now flashed forth from the lofty cupola of the Gilman House, which loomed up to the
northeast behind me, a series of analogous though differently spaced gleams which could
be nothingness than an answering signal.
Controlling my muscles, and realising afresh - how plainly visible I was, I resumed my
brisker and feignedly shambling pace; though keeping my eyes on that hellish and
ominous reef as long as the opening of South Street gave me a seaward view. What the
whole proceeding meant, I could not imagine; unless it involved some strange rite
connected with Devil Reef, or unless some party had landed from a ship on that sinister
rock. I now bent to the left around the ruinous green; still gazing toward the ocean as it
blazed in the spectral summer moonlight, and watching the cryptical flashing of those
nameless, unexplainable beacons.
It was then that the most horrible impression of all was borne in upon me - the impression
which destroyed my last vestige of self-control and sent me running frantically southward
past the yawning black doorways and fishily staring windows of that deserted nightmare
street. For at a closer glance I saw that the moonlit waters between the reef and the shore
were far from empty. They were alive with a teeming horde of shapes swimming inward
toward the town; and even at my vast distance and in my single moment of perception I
could tell that the bobbing heads and flailing arms were alien and aberrant in a way
scarcely to be expressed or consciously formulated.
My frantic running ceased before I had covered a block, for at my left I began to hear
something like the hue and cry of organised pursuit. There were footsteps and gutteral
sounds, and a rattling motor wheezed south along Federal Street. In a second all my plans
were utterly changed - for if the southward highway were blocked ahead of me, I must
clearly find another egress from Innsmouth. I paused and drew into a gaping doorway,
reflecting how lucky I was to have left the moonlit open space before these pursuers
came down the parallel street.
A second reflection was less comforting. Since the pursuit was down another street, it
was plain that the party was not following me directly. It had not seen me, but was simply
obeying a general plan of cutting off my escape. This, however, implied that all roads
leading out of Innsmouth were similarly patrolled; for the people could not have known
what route I intended to take. If this were so, I would have to make my retreat across
country away from any road; but how could I do that in view of the marshy and creek-
riddled nature of all the surrounding region? For a moment my brain reeled - both from
sheer hopelessness and from a rapid increase in the omnipresent fishy odour.
Then I thought of the abandoned railway to Rowley, whose solid line of ballasted; weed-
grown earth still stretched off to the northwest from the crumbling station on the edge at
the river-gorge. There was just a chance that the townsfolk would not think of that; since
its briar-choked desertion made it half-impassable, and the unlikeliest of all avenues for a
fugitive to choose. I had seen it clearly from my hotel window and knew about how it
lay. Most of its earlier length was uncomfortably visible from the Rowley road, and from
high places in the town itself; but one could perhaps crawl inconspicuously through the
undergrowth. At any rate, it would form my only chance of deliverance, and there was
nothing to do but try it.
Drawing inside the hall of my deserted shelter, I once more consulted the grocery boy's
map with the aid of the flashlight. The immediate problem was how to reach the ancient
railway; and I now saw that the safest course was ahead to Babson Street; then west to
Lafayette - there edging around but not crossing an open space homologous to the one I
had traversed - and subsequently back northward and westward in a zigzagging line
through Lafayette, Bates, Adam, and Bank streets - the latter skirting the river gorge - to
the abandoned and dilapidated station I had seen from my window. My reason for going
ahead to Babson was that I wished neither to recross the earlier open space nor to begin
my westward course along a cross street as broad as South.
Starting once more, I crossed the street to the right-hand side in order to edge around into
Babeon as inconspicuously as possible. Noises still continued in Federal Street, and as I
glanced behind me I thought I saw a gleam of light near the building through which I had
escaped. Anxious to leave Washington Street, I broke into a quiet dogtrot, trusting to luck
not to encounter any observing eye. Next the corner of Babson Street I saw to my alarm
that one of the houses was still inhabited, as attested by curtains at the window; but there
were no lights within, and I passed it without disaster.
In Babson Street, which crossed Federal and might thus reveal me to the searchers, I
clung as closely as possible to the sagging, uneven buildings; twice pausing in a doorway
as the noises behind me momentarily increased. The open space ahead shone wide and
desolate under the moon, but my route would not force me to cross it. During my second
pause I began to detect a fresh distribution of vague sounds; and upon looking cautiously
out from cover beheld a motor car darting across the open space, bound outward along
Eliot Street, which there intersects both Babson and Lafayette.
As I watched - choked by a sudden rise in the fishy odour after a short abatement - I saw
a band of uncouth, crouching shapes loping and shambling in the same direction; and
knew that this must be the party guarding the Ipswich road, since that highway forms an
extension of Eliot Street. Two of the figures I glimpsed were in voluminous robes, and
one wore a peaked diadem which glistened whitely in the moonlight. The gait of this
figure was so odd that it sent a chill through me - for it seemed to me the creature was
almost hopping.
When the last Of the band was out of sight I resumed my progress; darting around the
corner into Lafayette Street, and crossing Eliot very hurriedly lest stragglers of the party
be still advancing along that thoroughfare. I did hear some croaking and clattering sounds
far off toward Town Square, but accomplished the passage without disaster. My greatest
dread was in re-crossing broad and moonlit South Street - with its seaward view - and I
had to nerve myself for the ordeal. Someone might easily be looking, and possible Eliot
Street stragglers could not fail to glimpse me from either of two points. At the last
moment I decided I had better slacken my trot and make the crossing as before in the
shambling gait of an average Innsmouth native.
When the view of the water again opened out - this time on my right - I was half-
determined not to look at it at all. I could not however, resist; but cast a sidelong glance
as I carefully and imitatively shambled toward the protecting shadows ahead. There was
no ship visible, as I had half-expected there would be. Instead, the first thing which
caught my eye was a small rowboat pulling in toward the abandoned wharves and laden
with some bulky, tarpaulin-covered object. Its rowers, though distantly and indistinctly
seen, were of an especially repellent aspect. Several swimmers were still discernible;
while on the far black reef I could see a faint, steady glow unlike the winking beacon
visible before, and of a curious colour which I could not precisely identify. Above the
slant roofs ahead and to the right there loomed the tall cupola of the Gilman House, but it
was completely dark. The fishy odour, dispelled for a moment by some merciful breeze,
now closed in again with maddening intensity.
I had not quite crossed the street when I heard a muttering band advancing along
Washington from the north. As they reached the broad open space where I had had my
first disquieting glimpse of the moonlit water I could see them plainly only a block away
- and was horrified by the bestial abnormality of their faces and the doglike sub-
humanness of their crouching gait One man moved in a positively simian way, with long
arms frequently touching the ground; while another figure - robed and tiaraed - seemed to
progress in an almost hopping fashion. I judged this party to be the one I had seen in the
Gilman's courtyard - the one, therefore, most closely on my trail. As some of the figures
turned to look in my direction I was transfixed whit fright, yet managed to preserve the
casual, shambling gait I had assumed. To this day I do not know whether they saw me or
not. If they did, my stratagem must have deceived them, for they passed on across the
moonlit space without varying their course - meanwhile croaking and jabbering in more
hateful guttural patois I could not identify.
Once more in shadow, I resumed my former dog-trot past the leaning and decrepit houses
that stared blankly into the night. Having crossed to the western sidewalk I rounded the
nearest corner into Bates Street where I kept close to the buildings on the southern side. I
passed two houses shewing signs of habitation, one of which had faint lights in upper
rooms, yet met with no obstacle. As I tuned into Adams Street I felt measurably safer, but
received a shook when a man reeled out of a black doorway directly in front of me. He
proved, however, too hopelessly drunk to be a menace; so that I reached the dismal ruins
of the Bank Street warehouses in safety.
No one was fluting in that dead street beside the river-gorge, and the roar of the
waterfalls quite drowned my foot steps. It was a long dog-trot to the ruined station, and
the great brick warehouse walls around me seemed somehow more terrifying than the
fronts of private houses. At last I saw the ancient arcaded station - or what was left of it -
and made directly for the tracks that started from its farther end.
The rails were rusty but mainly intact, and not more than half the ties had rotted away.
Walking or running on such a surface was very difficult; but I did my best, and on the
whole made very fair time. For some distance the line kept on along the gorge's brink, but
at length I reached the long covered bridge where it crossed the chasm at a dizzying
height. The condition of this bridge would determine my next step. If humanly possible, I
would use it; if not, l would have to risk more street wandering and take the nearest intact
high-way bridge.
The vast, barnlike length of the old bridge gleamed spectrally in the moonlight, and I saw
that the ties were safe for at least a few feet within. Entering, I began to use my flashlight,
and was almost knocked down by the cloud of bats that flapped past me. About half-way
across there was a perilous gap in the ties which I feared for a moment would halt me; but
in the end I risked a desperate jump which fortunately succeeded.
I was glad to see the moonlight again when I emerged from that macabre tunnel. The old
tracks crossed River Street at grade, and at once veered off into a region increasingly
rural and with less and less of Innsmouth's abhorrent fishy odour. Here the dense growth
of weeds and briers hindered me and cruelly tore at my clothes, but I was none the less
glad that they were there to give me concealment in case of peril. I knew that much of my
route must he visible from the Rowley road.
The marshy region began very abruptly, with the single track on a low, grassy
embankment where the weedy growth was somewhat thinner. Then came a sort of island
of higher ground, where the line passed through a shallow open cut choked with bushes
and brambles. I was very glad of this partial shelter, since at this point the Rowley road
was uncomfortably near according to my window view. At the end of the cut it would
cross the track and swerve off to a safer distance; but meanwhile I must be exceedingly
careful. I was by this time thankfully certain that the railway itself was not patrolled.
Just before entering the cut I glanced behind me, but saw no pursuer. The ancient spires
and roofs of decaying Inns-month gleamed lovely and ethereal in the magic yellow
moonlight, and I thought of how they must have looked in the old days before the shadow
fell. Then, as my gaze circled inland from the town, something less tranquil arrested my
notice and held me immobile for a second.
What I saw - or fancied I saw - was a disturbing suggestion of undulant motion far to the
south; a suggestion which made me conclude that a very large horde must be pouring out
of the city along the level Ipswich road. The distance was great and I could distinguish
nothing in detail; but I did not at all like the look of that moving column. It undulated too
much, and glistened too brightly in the rays of the now westering moon. There was a
suggestion of sound, too, though the wind was blowing the other way - a suggestion of
bestial scraping and bellowing even worse than the muttering of the parties I had lately
overheard.
All sorts of unpleasant conjectures crossed my mind. I thought of those very extreme
Innsmouth types said to be hidden in crumbling, centuried warrens near the waterfront; I
thought, too, of those nameless swimmers I had seen. Counting the parties so far
glimpsed, as well as those presumably covering other roads, the number of my pursuers
must be strangely large for a town as depopulated as Innsmouth.
Whence could come the dense personnel of such a column as I now beheld? Did those
ancient, unplumbed warrens teem with a twisted, uncatalogued, and unsuspected life? Or
had some unseen ship indeed landed a legion of unknown outsiders on that hellish reef?
Who were they? Why were they here? And if such a column of them was scouring the
Ipswich road, would the patrols on the other roads be likewise augmented?
I had entered the brush-grown cut and was struggling along at a very slow pace when that
damnable fishy odour again waxed dominant. Had the wind suddenly changed eastward,
so that it blew in from the sea and over the town? It must have, I concluded, since I now
began to hear shocking guttural murmurs from that hitherto silent direction. There was
another sound, too - a kind of wholesale, colossal flopping or pattering which somehow
called up images of the most detestable sort. It made me think illogically of that
unpleasantly undulating column on the far-off Ipswich road.
And then both stench and sounds grew stronger, so that I paused shivering and grateful
for the cut's protection. It was here, I recalled, that the Rowley road drew so close to the
old railway before crossing westward and diverging. Something was coming along that
road, and. I must lie low till its passage and vanishment in the distance. Thank heaven
these creatures employed no dogs for tracking - though perhaps that would have been
impossible amidst the omnipresent regional odour. Crouched in the bushes of that sandy
cleft I felt reasonably safe, even though I knew the searchers would have to cross the
track in front of me not much more than a hundred yards away. I would be able to see
them, but they could not, except by a malign miracle, see me.
All at once I began dreading to look at them as they passed. I saw the close moonlit space
where they would surge by, and had curious thoughts about the irredeemable pollution of
that space. They would perhaps be the worst of all Innsmouth types - something one
would not care to remember.
The stench waxed overpowering, and the noises swelled to a bestial babel of croaking,
baying and barking without the least suggestion of human speech. Were these indeed the
voices of my pursuers? Did they have dogs after all? So far I had seen none of the lower
animals in Innsmouth. That flopping or pattering was monstrous - I could not look upon
the degenerate creatures responsible for it. I would keep my eyes shut till the sound
receded toward the west. The horde was very close now - air foul with their hoarse
snarlings, and the ground almost shaking with their alien-rhythmed footfalls. My breath
nearly ceased to come, and I put every ounce of will-power into the task of holding my
eyelids down.
I am not even yet willing to say whether what followed was a hideous actuality or only a
nightmare hallucination. The later action of the government, after my frantic appeals,
would tend to confirm it as a monstrous truth; but could not an hallucination have been
repeated under the quasi-hypnotic spell of that ancient, haunted, and shadowed town?
Such places have strange properties, and the legacy of insane legend might well have
acted on more than one human imagination amidst those dead, stench-cursed streets and
huddles of rotting roofs and crumbling steeples. Is it not possible that the germ of an
actual contagious madness lurks in the depths of that shadow over Innsmouth? Who can
be sure of reality after hearing things like the tale of old Zadok Allen? The government
men never found poor Zadok, and have no conjectures to make as to what became of him.
Where does madness leave off and reality begin? Is it possible that even my latest fear is
sheer delusion?
But I must try to tell what I thought I saw that night under the mocking yellow moon -
saw surging and hopping down the Rowley road in plain sight in front of me as I
crouched among the wild brambles of that desolate railway cut. Of course my resolution
to keep my eyes shut had failed. It was foredoomed to failure - for who could crouch
blindly while a legion of croaking, baying entities of unknown source flopped noisomely
past, scarcely more than a hundred yards away?
I thought I was prepared for the worst, and I really ought to have been prepared
considering what I had seen before.
My other pursuers had been accursedly abnormal - so should I not have been ready to
face a strengthening of the abnormal element; to look upon forms in which there was no
mixture of the normal at all? I did not open my eyes until the raucous clamour came
loudly from a point obviously straight ahead. Then I knew that a long section of them
must be plainly in sight where the sides of the cut flattened Girt and the road crossed the
track - and I could no longer keep myself from sampling whatever honor that leering
yellow moon might have to shew.
It was the end, for whatever remains to me of life on the surface of this earth, of every
vestige of mental peace and confidence in the integrity of nature and of the human mind.
Nothing that I could have imagined - nothing, even, that I could have gathered had I
credited old Zadok's crazy tale in the most literal way - would be in any way comparable
to the demoniac, blasphemous reality that I saw - or believe I saw. I have tied to hint what
it was in order to postpone the horror of writing it down baldly. Can it be possible that
dim planet has actually spawned such things; that human eyes have truly seen, as
objective flesh, what man has hitherto known only in febrile phantasy and tenuous
legend?
And yet I saw them in a limitless stream - flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating - urging
inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic
nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish-gold metal . . . and
some were strangely robed . . . and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly
humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man's felt hat perched on the shapeless
thing that answered for a head.
I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They
were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms
vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with
prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating
gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs
and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their
croaking, baying voices, clearly wed tar articulate speech, held all the dark shades of
expression which their staring faces lacked.
But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what
they must be - for was not the memory of the evil tiara at Newburyport still fresh? They
were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible - and as I
saw them I knew also of what that humped, tiaraed priest in the black church basement
had fearsomely reminded me. Their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there
were limitless swarms of them and certainly my momentary glimpse could have shewn
only the least fraction. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of
fainting; the first I had ever had.
V
It was a gentle daylight rain that awaked me front my stupor in the brush-grown railway
cut, and when I staggered out to the roadway ahead I saw no trace of any prints in the
fresh mud. The fishy odour, too, was gone, Innsmouth's ruined roofs and toppling
steeples loomed up greyly toward the southeast, but not a living creature did I spy in all
the desolate salt marshes around. My watch was still going, and told me that the hour was
past noon.
The reality of what I had been through was highly uncertain in my mind, but I felt that
something hideous lay in the background. I must get away from evil-shadowed
Innsmouth - and accordingly I began to test my cramped, wearied powers of locomotion.
Despite weakness hunger, horror, and bewilderment I found myself after a time able to
walk; so started slowly along the muddy road to Rowley. Before evening I was in village,
getting a meal and providing myself with presentable cloths. I caught the night train to
Arkham, and the next day talked long and earnestly with government officials there; a
process I later repeated in Boston. With the main result of these colloquies the public is
now familiar - and I wish, for normality's sake, there were nothing more to tell. Perhaps it
is madness that is overtaking me - yet perhaps a greater horror - or a greater marvel - is
reaching out.
As may well be imagined, I gave up most of the forplanned features of the rest of my tour
- the scenic, architectural, and antiquarian diversions on which I had counted so heavily.
Nor did I dare look for that piece of strange jewelry said to be in the Miskatonic
University Museum. I did, however, improve my stay in Arkham by collecting some
genealogical notes I had long wished to possess; very rough and hasty data, it is true, but
capable of good use later no when I might have time to collate and codify them. The
curator of the historical society there - Mr. B. Lapham Peabody - was very courteous
about assisting me, and expressed unusual interest when I told him I was a grandson of
Eliza Orne of Arkham, who was born in 1867 and had married James Williamson of Ohio
at the age of seventeen.
It seemed that a material uncle of mine had been there many years before on a quest
much like my own; and that my grandmother's family was a topic of some local curiosity.
There had, Mr. Peabody said, been considerable discussion about the marriage of her
father, Benjamin Orne, just after the Civil War; since the ancestry of the bride was
peculiarly puzzling. That bride was understood to have been an orphaned Marsh of New
Hampshire - a cousin of the Essex County Marshes - but her education had been in
France and she knew very little of her family. A guardian had deposited funds in a
Boston bank to maintain her and her French governess; but that guardian's name was
unfamiliar to Arkham people, and in time he dropped out of sight, so that the governess
assumed the role by court appointment. The Frenchwoman - now long dead - was very
taciturn, and there were those who said she would have told more than she did.
But the most baffling thing was the inability of anyone to place the recorded parents of
the young woman - Enoch and Lydia (Meserve) Marsh - among the known families of
New Hampshire. Possibly, many suggested, she was the natural daughter of some Marsh
of prominence - she certainly had the true Marsh eyes. Most of the puzzling was done
after her early death, which took place at the birth of my grandmother - her only child.
Having formed some disagreeable impressions connected with the name of Marsh, I did
not welcome the news that it belonged on my own ancestral tree; nor was I pleased by
Mr. Peabody's suggestion that I had the true Marsh eyes myself. However, I was grateful
for data which I knew would prove valuable; and took copious notes and lists of book
references regarding the well-documented Orne family.
I went directly home to Toledo from Boston, and later spent a month at Maumee
recuperating from my ordeal. In September I entered Oberlin for my final year, and from
then till the next June was busy with studies and other wholesome activities - reminded of
the bygone terror only by occasional official visits from government men in connexion
with the campaign which my pleas and evidence had started. Around the middle of July -
just a year after the Innsmouth experience - I spent a week with my late mother's family
in Cleveland; checking some of my new genealogical data with the various notes,
traditions, and bits of heirloom material in existence there, and seeing what kind of a
connected chart I could construct.
I did not exactly relish this task, for the atmosphere of the Williamson home had always
depressed me. There was a strain of morbidity there, and my mother had never
encouraged my visiting her parents as a child, although she always welcomed her father
when he came to Toledo. My Arkham-born grandmother had seemed strange and almost
terrifying to me, and I do not think I grieved when she disappeared. I was eight years old
then, and it was said that she had wandered off in grief after the suicide of my Uncle
Douglas, her eldest son. He had shot himself after a trip to New England - the same trip,
no doubt, which had caused him to be recalled at the Arkham Historical Society.
This uncle had resembled her, and I had never liked him either. Something about the
staring, unwinking expression of both of them had given me a vague, unaccountable
uneasiness. My mother and Uncle Walter had not looked like that. They were like their
father, though poor little cousin Lawrence - Walter's son - had been almost perfect
duplicate of his grandmother before his condition took him to the permanent seclusion of
a sanitarium at Canton. I had not seen him in four years, but my uncle once implied that
his state, both mental and physical, was very bad. This worry had probably been a major
cause of his mother's death two years before.
My grandfather and his widowed son Walter now comprised the Cleveland household,
but the memory of older times hung thickly over it. I still disliked the place, and tried to
get my researches done as quickly as possible. Williamson records and traditions were
supplied in abundance by my grandfather; though for Orne material I had to depend on
my uncle Walter, who put at my disposal the contents of all his files, including notes,
letters, cuttings, heirlooms, photographs, and miniatures.
It was in going over the letters and pictures on the Orne side that I began to acquire a
kind of terror of my own ancestry. As I have said, my grandmother and Uncle Douglas
had always disturbed me. Now, years after their passing, I gazed at their pictured faces
with a measurably heightened feeling of repulsion and alienation. I could not at first
understand the change, but gradually a horrible sort of comparison began to obtrude itself
on my unconscious mind despite the steady refusal of my consciousness to admit even
the least suspicion of it. It was clear that the typical expression of these faces now
suggested something it had not suggested before - something which would bring stark
panic if too openly thought of.
But the worst shock came when my uncle shewed me the Orne jewellery in a downtown
safe deposit vault. Some of the items were delicate and inspiring enough, but there was
one box of strange old pieces descended from my mysterious great-grandmother which
my uncle was almost reluctant to produce. They were, he said, of very grotesque and
almost repulsive design, and had never to his knowledge been publicly worn; though my
grandmother used to enjoy looking at them. Vague legends of bad luck clustered around
them, and my great-grandmother's French governess had said they ought not to be worn
in New England, though it would be quite safe to wear them in Europe.
As my uncle began slowly and grudgingly to unwrap the things he urged me not to be
shocked by the strangeness and frequent hideousness of the designs. Artists and
archaeologists who had seen them pronounced their workmanship superlatively and
exotically exquisite, though no one seemed able to define their exact material or assign
them to any specific art tradition. There were two armlets, a tiara, and a kind of pectoral;
the latter having in high relief certain figures of almost unbearable extravagance.
During this description I had kept a tight rein on my emotions, but my face must have
betrayed my mounting fears. My uncle looked concerned, and paused in his unwrapping
to study my countenance. I motioned to him to continue, which he did with renewed
signs of reluctance. He seemed to expect some demonstration when the first piece - the
tiara - became visible, but I doubt if he expected quite what actually happened. I did not
expect it, either, for I thought I was thoroughly forewarned regarding what the jewellery
would turn out to be. What I did was to faint silently away, just as I had done in that brier
choked railway cut a year before.
From that day on my life has been a nightmare of brooding and apprehension nor do I
know how much is hideous truth and how much madness. My great-grandmother had
been a Marsh of unknown source whose husband lived in Arkham - and did not old
Zadok say that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an
Arkham man trough trick? What was it the ancient toper had muttered about the line of
my eyes to Captain Obed's? In Arkham, too, the curator had told me I had the true Marsh
eyes. Was Obed Marsh my own great-great-grandfather? Who - or what - then, was my
great-great-grandmother? But perhaps this was all madness. Those whitish-gold
ornaments might easily have been bought from some Innsmouth sailor by the father of
my great-grand-mother, whoever he was. And that look in the staring-eyed faces of my
grandmother and self-slain uncle might be sheer fancy on my part - sheer fancy, bolstered
up by the Innsmouth shadow which had so darkly coloured my imagination. But why had
my uncle killed himself after an ancestral quest in New England?
For more than two years l fought off these reflections with partial success. My father
secured me a place in an insurance office, and I buried myself in routine as deeply as
possible. In the winter of 1930-31, however, the dreams began. They were very sparse
and insidious at first, but increased in frequency and vividness as the weeks went by.
Great watery spaces opened out before me, and I seemed to wander through titanic
sunken porticos and labyrinths of weedy cyclopean walls with grotesque fishes as my
companions. Then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless horror the
moment I awoke. But during the dreams they did not horrify me at all - I was one with
them; wearing their unhuman trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying
monstrously at their evil sea-bottom temples.
There was much more than I could remember, but even what I did remember each
morning would be enough to stamp me as a madman or a genius if ever I dared write it
down. Some frightful influence, I felt, was seeking gradually to drag me out of the sane
world of wholesome life into up namable abysses of blackness and alienage; and the
process told heavily on me. My health and appearance grew steadily worse, till finally I
was forced to give up my position and adopt the static, secluded life of an invalid. Some
odd nervous affliction had me in its grip, and I found myself at times almost unable to
shut my eyes.
It was then that I began to study the mirror with mounting alarm. The slow ravages of
disease are not pleasant to watch, but in my case there was something subtler and more
puzzling in the background. My father seemed to notice it, too, for he began looking at
me curiously and almost affrightedly. What was taking place in me? Could it be that I
was coming to resemble my grandmother and uncle Douglas?
One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived
in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and
grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been
sardonic. She had changed - as those who take to the water change - and told me she had
never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had
leaped to a realm whose wonders - destined for him as well - he had spurned with a
smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too - I could not escape it. I would never die,
but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.
I met also that which had been her grandmother. For eighty thousand years Pth'thya-l'yi
had lived in Y'ha-nthlei, and thither she had gone back after Obed Marsh was dead. Y'ha-
nthlei was not destroyed when the upper-earth men shot death into the sea. It was hurt,
but not destroyed. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed, even though the palaeogean
magic of the forgotten Old Ones might sometimes check them. For the present they
would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great
Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time. They had planned to
spread, and had brought up that which would help them, but now they must wait once
more. For bringing the upper-earth men's death I must do a penance, but that would not
be heavy. This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight
set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. That morning the mirror definitely told me I had
acquired the Innsmouth look.
So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost
took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening,
and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear
and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do
not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father
would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up.
Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Ia-
R'lyehl Cihuiha flgagnl id Ia! No, I shall not shoot myself - I cannot be made to shoot
myself!
I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton mad-house, and together we shall go to
marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive
down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that
lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.
The Whisperer in Darkness
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 24 Feb-26 Sept 1930
Published August 1931 in Weird Tales, Vol. 18, No. 1, p. 32-73
I
Bear in mind closely that I did not see any actual visual horror at the end. To say that a
mental shock was the cause of what I inferred - that last straw which sent me racing out
of the lonely Akeley farmhouse and through the wild domed hills of Vermont in a
commandeered motor at night - is to ignore the plainest facts of my final experience.
Notwithstanding the deep things I saw and heard, and the admitted vividness the
impression produced on me by these things, I cannot prove even now whether I was right
or wrong in my hideous inference. For after all Akeley's disappearance establishes
nothing. People found nothing amiss in his house despite the bullet-marks on the outside
and inside. It was just as though he had walked out casually for a ramble in the hills and
failed to return. There was not even a sign that a guest had been there, or that those
horrible cylinders and machines had been stored in the study. That he had mortally feared
the crowded green hills and endless trickle of brooks among which he had been born and
reared, means nothing at all, either; for thousands are subject to just such morbid fears.
Eccentricity, moreover, could easily account for his strange acts and apprehensions
toward the last.
The whole matter began, so far as I am concerned, with the historic and unprecedented
Vermont floods of November 3, 1927. I was then, as now, an instructor of literature at
Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, and an enthusiastic amateur student of
New England folklore. Shortly after the flood, amidst the varied reports of hardship,
suffering, and organized relief which filled the press, there appeared certain odd stories of
things found floating in some of the swollen rivers; so that many of my friends embarked
on curious discussions and appealed to me to shed what light I could on the subject. I felt
flattered at having my folklore study taken so seriously, and did what I could to belittle
the wild, vague tales which seemed so clearly an outgrowth of old rustic superstitions. It
amused me to find several persons of education who insisted that some stratum of
obscure, distorted fact might underlie the rumors.
The tales thus brought to my notice came mostly through newspaper cuttings; though one
yarn had an oral source and was repeated to a friend of mine in a letter from his mother in
Hardwick, Vermont. The type of thing described was essentially the same in all cases,
though there seemed to be three separate instances involved - one connected with the
Winooski River near Montpelier, another attached to the West River in Windham County
beyond Newfane, and a third centering in the Passumpsic in Caledonia County above
Lyndonville. Of course many of the stray items mentioned other instances, but on
analysis they all seemed to boil down to these three. In each case country folk reported
seeing one or more very bizarre and disturbing objects in the surging waters that poured
down from the unfrequented hills, and there was a widespread tendency to connect these
sights with a primitive, half-forgotten cycle of whispered legend which old people
resurrected for the occasion.
What people thought they saw were organic shapes not quite like any they had ever seen
before. Naturally, there were many human bodies washed along by the streams in that
tragic period; but those who described these strange shapes felt quite sure that they were
not human, despite some superficial resemblances in size and general outline. Nor, said
the witnesses, could they have been any kind of animal known to Vermont. They were
pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal
fins or membranous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of
convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would
ordinarily be. It was really remarkable how closely the reports from different sources
tended to coincide; though the wonder was lessened by the fact that the old legends,
shared at one time throughout the hill country, furnished a morbidly vivid picture which
might well have coloured the imaginations of all the witnesses concerned. It was my
conclusion that such witnesses - in every case naive and simple backwoods folk - had
glimpsed the battered and bloated bodies of human beings or farm animals in the whirling
currents; and had allowed the half-remembered folklore to invest these pitiful objects
with fantastic attributes.
The ancient folklore, while cloudy, evasive, and largely forgotten by the present
generation, was of a highly singular character, and obviously reflected the influence of
still earlier Indian tales. I knew it well, though I had never been in Vermont, through the
exceedingly rare monograph of Eli Davenport, which embraces material orally obtained
prior to 1839 among the oldest people of the state. This material, moreover, closely
coincided with tales which I had personally heard from elderly rustics in the mountains of
New Hampshire. Briefly summarized, it hinted at a hidden race of monstrous beings
which lurked somewhere among the remoter hills - in the deep woods of the highest
peaks, and the dark valleys where streams trickle from unknown sources. These beings
were seldom glimpsed, but evidences of their presence were reported by those who had
ventured farther than usual up the slopes of certain mountains or into certain deep, steep-
sided gorges that even the wolves shunned.
There were queer footprints or claw-prints in the mud of brook-margins and barren
patches, and curious circles of stones, with the grass around them worn away, which did
not seem to have been placed or entirely shaped by Nature. There were, too, certain caves
of problematical depth in the sides of the hills; with mouths closed by boulders in a
manner scarcely accidental, and with more than an average quota of the queer prints
leading both toward and away from them - if indeed the direction of these prints could be
justly estimated. And worst of all, there were the things which adventurous people had
seen very rarely in the twilight of the remotest valleys and the dense perpendicular woods
above the limits of normal hill-climbing.
It would have been less uncomfortable if the stray accounts of these things had not agreed
so well. As it was, nearly all the rumors had several points in common; averring that the
creatures were a sort of huge, light-red crab with many pairs of legs and with two great
batlike wings in the middle of the back. They sometimes walked on all their legs, and
sometimes on the hindmost pair only, using the others to convey large objects of
indeterminate nature. On one occasion they were spied in considerable numbers, a
detachment of them wading along a shallow woodland watercourse three abreast in
evidently disciplined formation. Once a specimen was seen flying - launching itself from
the top of a bald, lonely hill at night and vanishing in the sky after its great flapping
wings had been silhouetted an instant against the full moon
These things seemed content, on the whole, to let mankind alone; though they were at
times held responsible for the disappearance of venturesome individuals - especially
persons who built houses too close to certain valleys or too high up on certain mountains.
Many localities came to be known as inadvisable to settle in, the feeling persisting long
after the cause was forgotten. People would look up at some of the neighbouring
mountain-precipices with a shudder, even when not recalling how many settlers had been
lost, and how many farmhouses burnt to ashes, on the lower slopes of those grim, green
sentinels.
But while according to the earliest legends the creatures would appear to have harmed
only those trespassing on their privacy; there were later accounts of their curiosity
respecting men, and of their attempts to establish secret outposts in the human world.
There were tales of the queer claw-prints seen around farmhouse windows in the
morning, and of occasional disappearances in regions outside the obviously haunted
areas. Tales, besides, of buzzing voices in imitation of human speech which made
surprising offers to lone travelers on roads and cart-paths in the deep woods, and of
children frightened out of their wits by things seen or heard where the primal forest
pressed close upon their door-yards. In the final layer of legends - the layer just preceding
the decline of superstition and the abandonment of close contact with the dreaded places -
there are shocked references to hermits and remote farmers who at some period of life
appeared to have undergone a repellent mental change, and who were shunned and
whispered about as mortals who had sold themselves to the strange beings. In one of the
northeastern counties it seemed to be a fashion about 1800 to accuse eccentric and
unpopular recluses of being allies or representatives of the abhorred things.
As to what the things were - explanations naturally varied. The common name applied to
them was "those ones," or "the old ones," though other terms had a local and transient
use. Perhaps the bulk of the Puritan settlers set them down bluntly as familiars of the
devil, and made them a basis of awed theological speculation. Those with Celtic legendry
in their heritage - mainly the Scotch-Irish element of New Hampshire, and their kindred
who had settled in Vermont on Governor Wentworth's colonial grants - linked them
vaguely with the malign fairies and "little people" of the bogs and raths, and protected
themselves with scraps of incantation handed down through many generations. But the
Indians had the most fantastic theories of all. While different tribal legends differed, there
was a marked consensus of belief in certain vital particulars; it being unanimously agreed
that the creatures were not native to this earth.
The Pennacook myths, which were the most consistent and picturesque, taught that the
Winged Ones came from the Great Bear in the sky, and had mines in our earthly hills
whence they took a kind of stone they could not get on any other world. They did not live
here, said the myths, but merely maintained outposts and flew back with vast cargoes of
stone to their own stars in the north. They harmed only those earth-people who got too
near them or spied upon them. Animals shunned them through instinctive hatred, not
because of being hunted. They could not eat the things and animals of earth, but brought
their own food from the stars. It was bad to get near them, and sometimes young hunters
who went into their hills never came back. It was not good, either, to listen to what they
whispered at night in the forest with voices like a bee's that tried to be like the voices of
men. They knew the speech of all kinds of men - Pennacooks, Hurons, men of the Five
Nations - but did not seem to have or need any speech of their own. They talked with
their heads, which changed colour in different ways to mean different things.
All the legendry, of course, white and Indian alike, died down during the nineteenth
century, except for occasional atavistical flareups. The ways of the Vermonters became
settled; and once their habitual paths and dwellings were established according to a
certain fixed plan, they remembered less and less what fears and avoidances had
determined that plan, and even that there had been any fears or avoidances. Most people
simply knew that certain hilly regions were considered as highly unhealthy, unprofitable,
and generally unlucky to live in, and that the farther one kept from them the better off one
usually was. In time the ruts of custom and economic interest became so deeply cut in
approved places that there was no longer any reason for going outside them, and the
haunted hills were left deserted by accident rather than by design. Save during infrequent
local scares, only wonder-loving grandmothers and retrospective nonagenarians ever
whispered of beings dwelling in those hills; and even such whispers admitted that there
was not much to fear from those things now that they were used to the presence of houses
and settlements, and now that human beings let their chosen territory severely alone.
All this I had long known from my reading, and from certain folk tales picked up in New
Hampshire; hence when the flood-time rumours began to appear, I could easily guess
what imaginative background had evolved them. I took great pains to explain this to my
friends, and was correspondingly amused when several contentious souls continued to
insist on a possible element of truth in the reports. Such persons tried to point out that the
early legends had a significant persistence and uniformity, and that the virtually
unexplored nature of the Vermont hills made it unwise to be dogmatic about what might
or might not dwell among them; nor could they be silenced by my assurance that all the
myths were of a well-known pattern common to most of mankind and determined by
early phases of imaginative experience which always produced the same type of delusion.
It was of no use to demonstrate to such opponents that the Vermont myths differed but
little in essence from those universal legends of natural personification which filled the
ancient world with fauns and dryads and satyrs, suggested the kallikanzarai of modern
Greece, and gave to wild Wales and Ireland their dark hints of strange, small, and terrible
hidden races of troglodytes and burrowers. No use, either, to point out the even more
startlingly similar belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded Mi-Go or "Abominable
Snow-Men" who lurk hideously amidst the ice and rock pinnacles of the Himalayan
summits. When I brought up this evidence, my opponents turned it against me by
claiming that it must imply some actual historicity for the ancient tales; that it must argue
the real existence of some queer elder earth-race, driven to hiding after the advent and
dominance of mankind, which might very conceivably have survived in reduced numbers
to relatively recent times - or even to the present.
The more I laughed at such theories, the more these stubborn friends asseverated them;
adding that even without the heritage of legend the recent reports were too clear,
consistent, detailed, and sanely prosaic in manner of telling, to be completely ignored.
Two or three fanatical extremists went so far as to hint at possible meanings in the
ancient Indian tales which gave the hidden beings a nonterrestrial origin; citing the
extravagant books of Charles Fort with their claims that voyagers from other worlds and
outer space have often visited the earth. Most of my foes, however, were merely
romanticists who insisted on trying to transfer to real life the fantastic lore of lurking
"little people" made popular by the magnificent horror-fiction of Arthur Machen.
II
As was only natural under the circumstances, this piquant debating finally got into print
in the form of letters to the Arkham Advertiser; some of which were copied in the press
of those Vermont regions whence the flood-stories came. The Rutland Herald gave half a
page of extracts from the letters on both sides, while the Brattleboro Reformer reprinted
one of my long historical and mythological summaries in full, with some accompanying
comments in "The Pendrifter's" thoughtful column which supported and applauded my
skeptical conclusions. By the spring of 1928 I was almost a well-known figure in
Vermont, notwithstanding the fact that I had never set foot in the state. Then came the
challenging letters from Henry Akeley which impressed me so profoundly, and which
took me for the first and last time to that fascinating realm of crowded green precipices
and muttering forest streams.
Most of what I know of Henry Wentworth Akeley was gathered by correspondence with
his neighbours, and with his only son in California, after my experience in his lonely
farmhouse. He was, I discovered, the last representative on his home soil of a long,
locally distinguished line of jurists, administrators, and gentlemen-agriculturists. In him,
however, the family mentally had veered away from practical affairs to pure scholarship;
so that he had been a notable student of mathematics, astronomy, biology, anthropology,
and folklore at the University of Vermont. I had never previously heard of him, and he
did not give many autobiographical details in his communications; but from the first I
saw he was a man of character, education, and intelligence, albeit a recluse with very
little worldly sophistication.
Despite the incredible nature of what he claimed, I could not help at once taking Akeley
more seriously than I had taken any of the other challengers of my views. For one thing,
he was really close to the actual phenomena - visible and tangible - that he speculated so
grotesquely about; and for another thing, he was amazingly willing to leave his
conclusions in a tenative state like a true man of science. He had no personal preferences
to advance, and was always guided by what he took to be solid evidence. Of course I
began by considering him mistaken, but gave him credit for being intelligently mistaken;
and at no time did I emulate some of his friends in attributing his ideas, and his fear of the
lonely green hills, to insanity. I could see that there was a great deal to the man, and knew
that what he reported must surely come from strange circumstance deserving
investigation, however little it might have to do with the fantastic causes he assigned.
Later on I received from him certain material proofs which placed the matter on a
somewhat different and bewilderingly bizarre basis.
I cannot do better than transcribe in full, so far as is possible, the long letter in which
Akeley introduced himself, and which formed such an important landmark in my own
intellectual history. It is no longer in my possession, but my memory holds almost every
word of its portentous message; and again I affirm my confidence in the sanity of the man
who wrote it. Here is the text - a text which reached me in the cramped, archaic-looking
scrawl of one who had obviously not mingled much with the world during his sedate,
scholarly life.
R.F.D. #2,
Townshend, Windham Co., Vermont.
May 5,1928
Albert N. Wilmarth, Esq.,
118 Saltonstall St.,
Arkham, Mass.
My Dear Sir:
I have read with great interest the Brattleboro Reformer's reprint (Apr. 23,
'28) of your letter on the recent stories of strange bodies seen floating in
our flooded streams last fall, and on the curious folklore they so well agree
with. It is easy to see why an outlander would take the position you take,
and even why "Pendrifter" agrees with you. That is the attitude generally
taken by educated persons both in and out of Vermont, and was my own
attitude as a young man (I am now 57) before my studies, both general and
in Davenport's book, led me to do some exploring in parts of the hills
hereabouts not usually visited.
I was directed toward such studies by the queer old tales I used to hear
from elderly farmers of the more ignorant sort, but now I wish I had let the
whole matter alone. I might say, with all proper modesty, that the subject
of anthropology and folklore is by no means strange to me. I took a good
deal of it at college, and am familiar with most of the standard authorities
such as Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer, Quatrefages, Murray, Osborn, Keith,
Boule, G. Elliott Smith, and so on. It is no news to me that tales of hidden
races are as old as all mankind. I have seen the reprints of letters from you,
and those agreeing with you, in the Rutland Herald, and guess I know
about where your controversy stands at the present time.
What I desire to say now is, that I am afraid your adversaries are nearer
right than yourself, even though all reason seems to be on your side. They
are nearer right than they realise themselves - for of course they go only
by theory, and cannot know what I know. If I knew as little of the matter
as they, I would feel justified in believing as they do. I would be wholly
on your side.
You can see that I am having a hard time getting to the point, probably
because I really dread getting to the point; but the upshot of the matter is
that I have certain evidence that monstrous things do indeed live in the
woods on the high hills which nobody visits. I have not seen any of the
things floating in the rivers, as reported, but I have seen things like them
under circumstances I dread to repeat. I have seen footprints, and of late
have seen them nearer my own home (I live in the old Akeley place south
of Townshend Village, on the side of Dark Mountain) than I dare tell you
now. And I have overheard voices in the woods at certain points that I will
not even begin to describe on paper.
At one place I heard them so much that I took a phonograph therewith a
dictaphone attachment and wax blank - and I shall try to arrange to have
you hear the record I got. I have run it on the machine for some of the old
people up here, and one of the voices had nearly scared them paralysed by
reason of its likeness to a certain voice (that buzzing voice in the woods
which Davenport mentions) that their grandmothers have told about and
mimicked for them. I know what most people think of a man who tells
about "hearing voices" - but before you draw conclusions just listen to this
record and ask some of the older backwoods people what they think of it.
If you can account for it normally, very well; but there must be something
behind it. Ex nihilo nihil fit, you know.
Now my object in writing you is not to start an argument but to give you
information which I think a man of your tastes will find deeply interesting.
This is private. Publicly I am on your side, for certain things show me that
it does not do for people to know too much about these matters. My own
studies are now wholly private, and I would not think of saying anything
to attract people's attention and cause them to visit the places I have
explored. It is true - terribly true - that there are non-human creatures
watching us all the time; with spies among us gathering information. It is
from a wretched man who, if he was sane (as I think he was) was one of
those spies, that I got a large part of my clues to the matter. He later killed
himself, but I have reason to think there are others now.
The things come from another planet, being able to live in interstellar
space and fly through it on clumsy, powerful wings which have a way of
resisting the aether but which are too poor at steering to be of much use in
helping them about on earth. I will tell you about this later if you do not
dismiss me at once as a madman. They come here to get metals from
mines that go deep under the hills, and I think I know where they come
from. They will not hurt us if we let them alone, but no one can say what
will happen if we get too curious about them. Of course a good army of
men could wipe out their mining colony. That is what they are afraid of.
But if that happened, more would come from outside - any number of
them. They could easily conquer the earth, but have not tried so far
because they have not needed to. They would rather leave things as they
are to save bother.
I think they mean to get rid of me because of what I have discovered.
There is a great black stone with unknown hieroglyphics half worn away
which I found in the woods on Round Hill, east of here; and after I took it
home everything became different. If they think I suspect too much they
will either kill me or take me off the earth to where they come from. They
like to take away men of learning once in a while, to keep informed on the
state of things in the human world.
This leads me to my secondary purpose in addressing you - namely, to
urge you to hush up the present debate rather than give it more publicity.
People must be kept away from these hills, and in order to effect this, their
curiosity ought not to be aroused any further. Heaven knows there is peril
enough anyway, with promoters and real estate men flooding Vermont
with herds of summer people to overrun the wild places and cover the hills
with cheap bungalows.
I shall welcome further communication with you, and shall try to send you
that phonograph record and black stone (which is so worn that
photographs don't show much) by express if you are willing. I say "try"
because I think those creatures have a way of tampering with things
around here. There is a sullen furtive fellow named Brown, on a farm near
the village, who I think is their spy. Little by little they are trying to cut me
off from our world because I know too much about their world.
They have the most amazing way of finding out what I do. You may not
even get this letter. I think I shall have to leave this part of the country and
go live with my son in San Diego, Cal., if things get any worse, but it is
not easy to give up the place you were born in, and where your family has
lived for six generations. Also, I would hardly dare sell this house to
anybody now that the creatures have taken notice of it. They seem to be
trying to get the black stone back and destroy the phonograph record, but I
shall not let them if I can help it. My great police dogs always hold them
back, for there are very few here as yet, and they are clumsy in getting
about. As I have said, their wings are not much use for short flights on
earth. I am on the very brink of deciphering that stone - in a very terrible
way - and with your knowledge of folklore you may be able to supply the
missing links enough to help me. I suppose you know all about the fearful
myths antedating the coming of man to the earth - the Yog-Sothoth and
Cthulhu cycles - which are hinted at in the Necronomicon. I had access to
a copy of that once, and hear that you have one in your college library
under lock and key.
To conclude, Mr. Wilmarth, I think that with our respective studies we can
be very useful to each other. I don't wish to put you in any peril, and
suppose I ought to warn you that possession of the stone and the record
won't be very safe; but I think you will find any risks worth running for
the sake of knowledge. I will drive down to Newfane or Brattleboro to
send whatever you authorize me to send, for the express offices there are
more to be trusted. I might say that I live quite alone now, since I can't
keep hired help any more. They won't stay because of the things that try to
get near the house at night, and that keep the dogs barking continually. I
am glad I didn't get as deep as this into the business while my wife was
alive, for it would have driven her mad.
Hoping that I am not bothering you unduly, and that you will decide to get
in touch with me rather than throw this letter into the waste basket as a
madman's raving, I am
Yrs. very truly,
Henry W. Akeley
P.S. I am making some extra prints of certain photographs taken by me,
which I think will help to prove a number of the points I have touched on.
The old people think they are monstrously true. I shall send you these very
soon if you are interested.
H. W. A.
It would be difficult to describe my sentiments upon reading this strange document for
the first time. By all ordinary rules, I ought to have laughed more loudly at these
extravagances than at the far milder theories which had previously moved me to mirth;
yet something in the tone of the letter made me take it with paradoxical seriousness. Not
that I believed for a moment in the hidden race from the stars which my correspondent
spoke of; but that, after some grave preliminary doubts, I grew to feel oddly sure of his
sanity and sincerity, and of his confrontation by some genuine though singular and
abnormal phenomenon which he could not explain except in this imaginative way. It
could not be as he thought it, I reflected, yet on the other hand, it could not be otherwise
than worthy of investigation. The man seemed unduly excited and alarmed about
something, but it was hard to think that all cause was lacking. He was so specific and
logical in certain ways - and after all, his yarn did fit in so perplexingly well with some of
the old myths - even the wildest Indian legends.
That he had really overheard disturbing voices in the hills, and had really found the black
stone he spoke about, was wholly possible despite the crazy inferences he had made -
inferences probably suggested by the man who had claimed to be a spy of the outer
beings and had later killed himself. It was easy to deduce that this man must have been
wholly insane, but that he probably had a streak of perverse outward logic which made
the naive Akeley - already prepared for such things by his folklore studies - believe his
tale. As for the latest developments - it appeared from his inability to keep hired help that
Akeley's humbler rustic neighbours were as convinced as he that his house was besieged
by uncanny things at night. The dogs really barked, too.
And then the matter of that phonograph record, which I could not but believe he had
obtained in the way he said. It must mean something; whether animal noises deceptively
like human speech, or the speech of some hidden, night-haunting human being decayed
to a state not much above that of lower animals. From this my thoughts went back to the
black hieroglyphed stone, and to speculations upon what it might mean. Then, too, what
of the photographs which Akeley said he was about to send, and which the old people
had found so convincingly terrible?
As I re-read the cramped handwriting I felt as never before that my credulous opponents
might have more on their side than I had conceded. After all, there might be some queer
and perhaps hereditarily misshapen outcasts in those shunned hills, even though no such
race of star-born monsters as folklore claimed. And if there were, then the presence of
strange bodies in the flooded streams would not be wholly beyond belief. Was it too
presumptuous to suppose that both the old legends and the recent reports had this much
of reality behind them? But even as I harboured these doubts I felt ashamed that so
fantastic a piece of bizarrerie as Henry Akeley's wild letter had brought them up.
In the end I answered Akeley's letter, adopting a tone of friendly interest and soliciting
further particulars. His reply came almost by return mail; and contained, true to promise,
a number of Kodak views of scenes and objects illustrating what he had to tell. Glancing
at these pictures as I took them from the envelope, I felt a curious sense of fright and
nearness to forbidden things; for in spite of the vagueness of most of them, they had a
damnably suggestive power which was intensified by the fact of their being genuine
photographs - actual optical links with what they portrayed, and the product of an
impersonal transmitting process without prejudice, fallibility, or mendacity.
The more I looked at them, the more I saw that my senous estimate of Akeley and his
story had not been unjustified. Certainly, these pictures carried conclusive evidence of
something in the Vermont hills which was at least vastly outside the radius of our
common knowledge and belief. The worst thing of all was the footprint - a view taken
where the sun shone on a mud patch somewhere in a deserted upland. This was no
cheaply counterfeited thing, I could see at a glance; for the sharply defined pebbles and
grassblades in the field of vision gave a clear index of scale and left no possibility of a
tricky double exposure. I have called the thing a "footprint," but "claw-print" would be a
better term. Even now I can scarcely describe it save to say that it was hideously crablike,
and that there seemed to be some ambiguity about its direction. It was not a very deep or
fresh print, but seemed to be about the size of an average man's foot. From a central pad,
pairs of saw-toothed nippers projected in opposite directions - quite baffling as to
function, if indeed the whole object were exclusively an organ of locomotion.
Another photograph - evidently a time-exposure taken in deep shadow - was of the mouth
of a woodland cave, with a boulder of, rounded regularity choking the aperture. On the
bare ground in front of, it one could just discern a dense network of curious tracks, and
when I studied the picture with a magnifier I felt uneasily sure that the tracks were like
the one in the other view. A third pictured showed a druid-like circle of standing stones
on the summit of a wild hill. Around the cryptic circle the grass was very much beaten
down and worn away, though I could not detect any footprints even with the glass. The
extreme remoteness of the place was apparent from the veritable sea of tenantless:
mountains which formed the background and stretched away toward a. misty horizon.
But if the most disturbing of all the views was that of the footprint, the' most curiously
suggestive was that of the great black stone found in the Round Hill woods. Akeley had
photographed it on what was evidently his study table, for I could see rows of books and
a bust of Milton in the background. The thing, as nearly as one might guess, had faced the
camera vertically with a somewhat irregularly curved surface of one by two feet; but to
say anything definite about that surface, or about the general shape of the whole mass,
almost defies the power of language. What outlandish geometrical principles had guided
its cutting - for artificially cut it surely was - I could not even begin to guess; and never
before had I seen anything which struck me as so strangely and unmistakably alien to this
world. Of the hieroglyphics on the surface I could discern very few, but one or two that I
did see gave rather a shock. Of course they might be fraudulent, for others besides myself
had read the monstrous and abhorred Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred;
but it nevertheless made me shiver to recognise certain ideographs which study had
taught me to link with the most blood-curdling and blasphemous whispers of things that
had had a kind of mad half-existence before the earth and the other inner worlds of the
solar system were made.
Of the five remaining pictures, three were of swamp and hill scenes which seemed to bear
traces of hidden and unwholesome tenancy. Another was of a queer mark in the ground
very near Akeley's house, which he said he had photographed the morning after a night
on which the dogs had barked more violently than usual. It was very blurred, and one
could really draw no certain conclusions from it; but it did seem fiendishly like that other
mark or claw-print photographed on the deserted upland. The final picture was of the
Akeley place itself; a trim white house of two stories and attic, about a century and a
quarter old, and with a well-kept lawn and stone-bordered path leading up to a tastefully
carved Georgian doorway. There were several huge police dogs on the lawn, squatting
near a pleasant-faced man with a close-cropped grey beard whom I took to be Akeley
himself - his own photographer, one might infer from the tube-connected bulb in his right
hand.
From the pictures I turned to the bulky, closely-written letter itself; and for the next three
hours was immersed in a gulf of unutterable horror. Where Akeley had given only
outlines before, he now entered into minute details; presenting long transcripts of words
overheard in the woods at night, long accounts of monstrous pinkish forms spied in
thickets at twilight on the hills, and a terrible cosmic narrative derived from the
application of profound and varied scholarship to the endless bygone discourses of the
mad self-styled spy who had killed himself. I found myself faced by names and terms that
I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections - Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu,
Tsathoggua, YogSothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake
of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L'mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum
Innominandum - and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable
dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the
Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way. I was told of the pits of primal life,
and of the streams that had trickled down therefrom; and finally, of the tiny rivulets from
one of those streams which had become entangled with the destinies of our own earth.
My brain whirled; and where before I had attempted to explain things away, I now began
to believe in the most abnormal and incredible wonders. The array of vital evidence was
damnably vast and overwhelming; and the cool, scientific attitude of Akeley - an attitude
removed as far as imaginable from the demented, the fanatical, the hysterical, or even the.
extravagantly speculative - had a tremendous effect on my thought and judgment. By the
time I laid the frightful letter aside I could understand the fears he had come to entertain,
and was ready to do anything in my power to keep people away from those wild, haunted
hills. Even now, when time has dulled the impression and made me half-question my own
experience and horrible doubts, there are things in that letter of Akeley's which I would
not quote, or even form into words on paper. I am almost glad that the letter and record
and photographs are gone now - and I wish, for reasons I shall soon make clear, that the
new planet beyond Neptune had not been discovered.
With the reading of that letter my public debating about the Vermont horror permanently
ended. Arguments from opponents remained unanswered or put off with promises, and
eventually the controversy petered out into oblivion. During late May and June I was in
constant correspondence with Akeley; though once in a while a letter would be lost, so
that we would have to retrace our ground and perform considerable laborious copying.
What we were trying to do, as a whole, was to compare notes in matters of obscure
mythological scholarship and arrive at a clearer correlation of the Vermont horrors with
the general body of primitive world legend.
For one thing, we virtually decided that these morbidities and the hellish Himalayan Mi-
Go were one and the same order of incarnated nightmare. There was also absorbing
zoological conjectures, which I would have referred to Professor Dexter in my own
college but for Akeley's imperative command to tell no one of the matter before us. If I
seem to disobey that command now, it is only because I think that at this stage a warning
about those farther Vermont hills - and about those Himalayan peaks which bold
explorers are more and more determined to ascend - is more conducive to public safety
than silence would be. One specific thing we were leading up to was a deciphering of the
hieroglyphics on that infamous black stone - a deciphering which might well place us in
possession of secrets deeper and more dizzying than any formerly known to man.
III
Toward the end of June the phonograph record came - shipped from Brattleboro, since
Akeley was unwilling to trust conditions on the branch line north of there. He had begun
to feel an increased sense of espionage, aggravated by the loss of some of our letters; and
said much about the insidious deeds of certain men whom he considered tools and agents
of the hidden beings. Most of all he suspected the surly farmer Walter Brown, who lived
alone on a run-down hillside place near the deep woods, and who was often seen loafing
around corners in Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Newfane, and South Londonderry in the
most inexplicable and seemingly unmotivated way. Brown's voice, he felt convinced, was
one of those he had overheard on a certain occasion in a very terrible conversation; and
he had once found a footprint or clawprint near Brown's house which might possess the
most ominous significance. It had been curiously near some of Brown's own footprints -
footprints that faced toward it.
So the record was shipped from Brattleboro, whither Akeley drove in his Ford car along
the lonely Vermont back roads. He confessed in an accompanying note that he was
beginning to be afraid of those roads, and that he would not even go into Townshend for
supplies now except in broad daylight. It did not pay, he repeated again and again, to
know too much unless one were very remote from those silent and problematical hills. He
would be going to California pretty soon to live with his son, though it was hard to leave
a place where all one's memories and ancestral feelings centered.
Before trying the record on the commercial machine which I borrowed from the college
administration building I carefully went over all the explanatory matter in Akeley's
various letters. This record, he had said, was obtained about 1 A.M. on the 1st of May,
1915, near the closed mouth of a cave where the wooded west slope of Dark Mountain
rises out of Lee's swamp. The place had always been unusually plagued with strange
voices, this being the reason he had brought the phonograph, dictaphone, and blank in
expectation of results. Former experience had told him that May Eve - the hideous
Sabbat-night of underground European legend - would probably be more fruitful than any
other date, and he was not disappointed. It was noteworthy, though, that he never again
heard voices at that particular spot.
Unlike most of the overheard forest voices, the substance of the record was quasi-
ritualistic, and included one palpably human voice which Akeley had never been able to
place. It was not Brown's, but seemed to be that of a man of greater cultivation. The
second voice, however, was the real crux of the thing - for this was the accursed buzzing
which had no likeness to humanity despite the human words which it uttered in good
English grammar and a scholarly accent.
The recording phonograph and dictaphone had not worked uniformly well, and had of
course been at a great disadvantage because of the remote and muffled nature of the
overheard ritual; so that the actual speech secured was very fragmentary. Akeley had
given me a transcript of what he believed the spoken words to be, and I glanced through
this again as I prepared the machine for action. The text was darkly mysterious rather
than openly horrible, though a knowledge of its origin and manner of gathering gave it all
the associative horror which any words could well possess. I will present it here in full as
I remember it - and I am fairly confident that I know it correctly by heart, not only from
reading the transcript, but from playing the record itself over and over again. It is not a
thing which one might readily forget!
(Indistinguishable Sounds)
(A Cultivated Male Human Voice)
...is the Lord of the Wood, even to... and the gifts of the men of Leng... so
from the wells of night to the gulfs of space, and from the gulfs of space to
the wells of night, ever the praises of Great Cthulhu, of Tsathoggua, and of
Him Who is not to be Named. Ever Their praises, and abundance to the
Black Goat of the Woods. Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand
Young!
(A Buzzing Imitation of Human Speech)
Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand
Young!
(Human Voice)
And it has come to pass that the Lord of the Woods, being... seven and
nine, down the onyx steps . . . (tri)butes to Him in the Gulf, Azathoth, He
of Whom Thou has taught us marv(els). . . on the wings of night out
beyond space, out beyond th... to That whereof Yuggoth is the youngest
child, rolling alone in black aether at the rim...
(Buzzing Voice)
...go out among men and find the ways thereof, that He in the Gulf may
know. To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And
He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that
hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock...
(Human Voice)
(Nyarl)athotep, Great Messenger, bringer of strange joy to Yuggoth
through the void, Father of the Million Favoured Ones, Stalker among...
(Speech Cut Off by End of Record)
Such were the words for which I was to listen when I started the phonograph. It was with
a trace of genuine dread and reluctance that I pressed the lever and heard the preliminary
scratching of the sapphire point, and I was glad that the first faint, fragmentary words
were in a human voice - a mellow, educated voice which seemed vaguely Bostonian in
accent, and which was certainly not that of any native of the Vermont hills. As I listened
to the tantalisingly feeble rendering, I seemed to find the speech identical with Akeley's
carefully prepared transcript. On it chanted, in that mellow Bostonian voice. . . "Ia! Shub-
Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!..."
And then I heard the other voice. To this hour I shudder retrospectively when I think of
how it struck me, prepared though I was by Akeley's accounts. Those to whom I have
since described the record profess to find nothing but cheap imposture or madness in it;
but could they have the accursed thing itself, or read the bulk of Akeley's
correspondence, (especially that terrible and encyclopaedic second letter), I know they
would think differently. It is, after all, a tremendous pity that I did not disobey Akeley
and play the record for others - a tremendous pity, too, that all of his letters were lost. To
me, with my first-hand impression of the actual sounds, and with my knowledge of the
background and surrounding circumstances, the voice was a monstrous thing. It swiftly
followed the human voice in ritualistic response, but in my imagination it was a morbid
echo winging its way across unimaginable abysses from unimaginable outer hells. It is
more than two years now since I last ran off that blasphemous waxen cylinder; but at this
moment, and at all other moments, I can still hear that feeble, fiendish buzzing as it
reached me for the first time.
"Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"
But though the voice is always in my ears, I have not even yet been able to analyse it well
enough for a graphic description. It was like the drone of some loathsome, gigantic insect
ponderously shaped into the articulate speech of an alien species, and I am perfectly
certain that the organs producing it can have no resemblance to the vocal organs of man,
or indeed to those of any of the mammalia. There were singularities in timbre, range, and
overtones which placed this phenomenon wholly outside the sphere of humanity and
earth-life. Its sudden advent that first time almost stunned me, and I heard the rest of the
record through in a sort of abstracted daze. When the longer passage of buzzing came,
there was a sharp intensification of that feeling of blasphemous infinity which had struck
me during the shorter and earlier passage. At last the record ended abruptly, during an
unusually clear speech of the human and Bostonian voice; but I sat stupidly staring long
after the machine had automatically stopped.
I hardly need say that I gave that shocking record many another playing, and that I made
exhaustive attempts at analysis and comment in comparing notes with Akeley. It would
be both useless and disturbing to repeat here all that we concluded; but I may hint that we
agreed in believing we had secured a clue to the source of some of the most repulsive
primordial customs in the cryptic elder religions of mankind. It seemed plain to us, also,
that there were ancient and elaborate alliance; between the hidden outer creatures and
certain members of the human race. How extensive these alliances were, and how their
state today might compare with their state in earlier ages, we had no means of’ guessing;
yet at best there was room for a limitless amount of horrified speculation. There seemed
to be an awful, immemorial linkage in several definite stages betwixt man and nameless
infinity. The blasphemies which appeared on earth, it was hinted, came from the dark
planet Yuggoth, at the rim of the solar system; but this was itself merely the populous
outpost of a frightful interstellar race whose ultimate source must lie far outside even the
Einsteinian space-time continuum or greatest known cosmos.
Meanwhile we continued to discuss the black stone and the best way of getting it to
Arkham - Akeley deeming it inadvisable to have me visit him at the scene of his
nightmare studies. For some reason or other, Akeley was afraid to trust the thing to any
ordinary or expected transportation route. His final idea was to take it across country to
Bellows Falls and ship it on the Boston and Maine system through Keene and
Winchendon and Fitchburg, even though this would necessitate his driving along
somewhat lonelier and more forest-traversing hill roads than the main highway to
Brattleboro. He said he had noticed a man around the express office at Brattleboro when
he had sent the phonograph record, whose actions and expression had been far from
reassuring. This man had seemed too anxious to talk with the clerks, and had taken the
train on which the record was shipped. Akeley confessed that he had not felt strictly at
ease about that record until he heard from me of its safe receipt.
About this time - the second week in July - another letter of mine went astray, as I
learned through an anxious communication from Akeley. After that he told me to address
him no more at Townshend, but to send all mail in care of the General Delivery at
Brattleboro; whither he would make frequent trips either in his car or on the motor-coach
line which had lately replaced passenger service on the lagging branch railway. I could
see that he was getting more and more anxious, for he went into much detail about the
increased barking of the dogs on moonless nights, and about the fresh claw-prints he
sometimes found in the road and in the mud at the back of his farmyard when morning
came. Once he told about a veritable army of prints drawn up in a line facing an equally
thick and resolute line of dog-tracks, and sent a loathsomely disturbing Kodak picture to
prove it. That was after a night on which the dogs had outdone themselves in barking and
howling.
On the morning of Wednesday, July 18, I received a telegram from Bellows Falls, in
which Akeley said he was expressing the black stone over the B. & M. on Train No.
5508, leaving Bellows Falls at 12:15 P.M., standard time, and due at the North Station in
Boston at 4:12 P.M. It ought, I calculated, to get up to Arkham at least by the next noon;
and accordingly I stayed in all Thursday morning to receive it. But noon came and went
without its advent, and when I telephoned down to the express office I was informed that
no shipment for me had arrived. My next act, performed amidst a growing alarm, was to
give a long-distance call to the express agent at the Boston North Station; and I was
scarcely surprised to learn that my consignment had not appeared. Train No. 5508 had
pulled in only 35 minutes late on the day before, but had contained no box addressed to
me. The agent promised, however, to institute a searching inquiry; and I ended the day by
sending Akeley a night-letter outlining the situation.
With commendable promptness a report came from the Boston office on the following
afternoon, the agent telephoning as soon as he learned the facts. It seemed that the
railway express clerk on No. 5508 had been able to recall an incident which might have
much bearing on my loss - an argument with a very curious-voiced man, lean, sandy, and
rustic-looking, when the train was waiting at Keene, N. H., shortly after one o’clock
standard time. The man, he said, was greatly excited about a heavy box which he claimed
to expect, but which was neither on the train nor entered on the company’s books. He had
given the name of Stanley Adams, and had had such a queerly thick droning voice, that it
made the clerk abnormally dizzy and sleepy to listen to him. The clerk could not
remember quite how the conversation had ended, but recalled starting into a fuller
awakeness when the train began to move. The Boston agent added that this clerk was a
young man of wholly unquestioned veracity and reliability, of known antecedents and
long with the company.
That evening I went to Boston to interview the clerk in person, having obtained his name
and address from the office. He was a frank, prepossessing fellow, but I saw that he could
add nothing to his original account. Oddly, he was scarcely sure that he could even
recognise the strange inquirer again. Realising that he had no more to tell, I returned to
Arkham and sat up till morning writing letters to Akeley, to the express company and to
the police department and station agent in Keene. I felt that the strange-voiced man who
had so queerly affected the clerk must have a pivotal place in the ominous business, and
hoped that Keene station employees and telegraph-office records might tell something
about him and about how he happened to make his inquiry when and where he did.
I must admit, however, that all my investigations came to nothing. The queer-voiced man
had indeed been noticed around the Keene station in the early afternoon of July 18, and
one lounger seemed to couple him vaguely with a heavy box; but he was altogether
unknown, and had not been seen before or since. He had not visited the telegraph office
or received any message so far as could be learned, nor had any message which might
justly be considered a notice of the black stone’s presence on No. 5508 come through the
office for anyone. Naturally Akeley joined with me in conducting these inquiries, and
even made a personal trip to Keene to question the people around the station; but his
attitude toward the matter was more fatalistic than mine. He seemed to find the loss of the
box a portentous and menacing fulfillment of inevitable tendencies, and had no real hope
at all of its recovery. He spoke of the undoubted telepathic and hypnotic powers of the
hill creatures and their agents, and in one letter hinted that he did not believe the stone
was on this earth any longer. For my part, I was duly enraged, for I had felt there was at
least a chance of learning profound and astonishing things from the old, blurred
hieroglyphs. The matter would have rankled bitterly in my mind had not Akeley’s
immediately subsequent letters brought up a new phase of the whole horrible hill problem
which at once seized all my attention.
IV
The unknown things, Akeley wrote in a script grown pitifully tremulous, had begun to
close in on him with a wholly new degree of determination. The nocturnal barking of the
dogs whenever the moon. was dim or absent was hideous now, and there had been
attempts to molest him on the lonely roads he had to traverse by day. On the second of
August, while bound for the village in his car, he had found a tree-trunk laid in his path at
a point where the highway ran through a deep patch of woods; while the savage barking
of the two great dogs he had with him told all too well of the things which must have
been lurking near. What would have happened had the dogs not been there, he did not
dare guess - but he never went out now without at least two of his faithful and powerful
pack. Other road experiences had occurred on August fifth and sixth; a shot grazing his
car on one occasion, and the barking of the dogs telling of unholy woodland presences on
the other.
On August fifteenth I received a frantic letter which disturbed me greatly, and which
made me wish Akeley could put aside his lonely reticence and call in the aid of the law.
There had been frightful happening on the night of the 12-13th, bullets flying outside the
farmhouse, and three of the twelve great dogs being found shot dead in the morning.
There were myriads of claw-prints in the road, with the human prints of Walter Brown
among them. Akeley had started to telephone to Brattleboro for more dogs, but the wire
had gone dead before he had a chance to say much. Later he went to Brattleboro in his
car, and learned there that linemen had found the main cable neatly cut at a point where it
ran through the deserted hills north of Newfane. But he was about to start home with four
fine new dogs, and several cases of ammunition for his big-game repeating rifle. The
letter was written at the post office in Brattleboro, and came through to me without delay.
My attitude toward the matter was by this time quickly slipping from a scientific to an
alarmedly personal one. I was afraid for Akeley in his remote, lonely farmhouse, and half
afraid for myself because of my now definite connection with the strange hill problem.
The thing was reaching out so. Would it suck me in and engulf me? In replying to his
letter I urged him to seek help, and hinted that I might take action myself if he did not. I
spoke of visiting Vermont in person in spite of his wishes, and of helping him explain the
situation to the proper authorities. In return, however, I received only a telegram from
Bellows Falls which read thus:
APPRECIATE YOUR POSITION BUT CAN DO NOTHING TAKE NO
ACTION YOURSELF FOR IT COULD ONLY HARM BOTH WAIT
FOR EXPLANATION
HENRY AKELY
But the affair was steadily deepening. Upon my replying to the telegram I received a
shaky note from Akeley with the astonishing news that he had not only never sent the
wire, but had not received the letter from me to which it was an obvious reply. Hasty
inquiries by him at Bellows Falls had brought out that the message was deposited by a
strange sandy-haired man with a curiously thick, droning voice, though more than this he
could not learn. The clerk showed him the original text as scrawled in pencil by the
sender, but the handwriting was wholly unfamiliar. It was noticeable that the signature
was misspelled - A-K-E-L-Y, without the second "E." Certain conjectures were
inevitable, but amidst the obvious crisis he did not stop to elaborate upon them,
He spoke of the death of more dogs and the purchase of still others, and of the exchange
of gunfire which had become a settled feature each moonless night. Brown’s prints, and
the prints of at least one or two more shod human figures, were now found regularly
among the claw-prints in the road, and at the back of the farmyard. It was, Akeley
admitted, a pretty bad business; and before long he would probably have to go to live
with his California son whether or not he could sell the old place. But it was not easy to
leave the only spot one could really think of as home. He must try to hang on a little
longer; perhaps he could scare off the intruders - especially if he openly gave up all
further attempts to penetrate their secrets.
Writing Akeley at once, I renewed my offers of aid, and spoke again of visiting him and
helping him convince the authorities of his dire peril. In his reply he seemed less set
against that plan than his past attitude would have led one to predict, but said he would
like to hold off a little while longer - long enough to get his things in order and reconcile
himself to the idea of leaving an almost morbidly cherished birthplace. People looked
askance at his studies and speculations and it would be better to get quietly off without
setting the countryside in a turmoil and creating widespread doubts of his own sanity. He
had had enough, he admitted, but he. wanted to make a dignified exit if he could.
This letter reached me on the 28th of August, and I prepared and mailed as encouraging a
reply as I could. Apparently the encouragement had effect, for Akeley had fewer terrors
to report when he acknowledged my note. He was not very optimistic, though, and
expressed the belief that it was only the full moon season which was holding the
creatures off. He hoped there would not be many densely cloudy nights, and talked
vaguely of boarding in Brattleboro when the moon waned. Again I wrote him
encouragingly but on September 5th there came a fresh communication which had
obviously crossed my letter in the mails; and to this I could not give any such hopeful
response. In view of its importance I believe I had better give it in full - as best I can do
from memory of the shaky script. It ran substantially as follows:
Monday
Dear Wilmarth
A rather discouraging P. S. to my last. Last night was thickly cloudy -
though no rain - and not a bit of moonlight got through. Things were
pretty bad, and I think the end is getting near, in spite of all we have
hoped. After midnight something landed on the roof of the house, and the
dogs all rushed up to see what it was. I could hear them snapping and
tearing around, and then one managed to get on the roof by jumping from
the low ell. There was a terrible fight up there, and I heard a frightful
buzzing which I’ll never forget. And then there was a shocking smell.
About the same time bullets came through the window and nearly grazed
me. I think the main line of the hill creatures had got close to the house
when the dogs divided because of the roof business. What was up there I
don’t know yet, but I’m afraid the creatures are learning to steer better
with their space wings. I put out the light and used the windows for
loopholes, and raked all around the house with rifle fire aimed just high
enough not to hit the dogs. That seemed to end the business, but in the
morning I found great pools of blood in the yard, besides pools of a green
sticky stuff that had the worst odour I have ever smelled. I climbed up on
the roof and found more of the sticky stuff there. Five of the dogs were
killed - I’m afraid I hit one myself by aiming too low, for he was shot in
the back. Now I am setting the panes the shots broke, and am going to
Brattleboro for more dogs. I guess the men at the kennels think I am crazy.
Will drop another note later. Suppose I’ll be ready for moving in a week
or two, though it nearly kills me to think of it.
Hastily - Akeley
But this was not the only letter from Akeley to cross mine. On the next morning -
September 6th - still another came; this time a frantic scrawl which utterly unnerved me
and put me at a loss what to say or do next. Again I cannot do better than quote the text as
faithfully as memory will let me.
Tuesday
Clouds didn’t break, so no moon again - and going into the wane anyhow.
I’d have the house wired for electricity and put in a searchlight if I didn’t
know they’d cut the cables as fast as they could be mended.
I think I am going crazy. It may be that all I have ever written you is a
dream or madness. It was bad enough before, but this time it is too much.
They talked to me last night - talked in that cursed buzzing voice and told
me things that I dare not repeat to you. I heard them plainly above the
barking of the dogs, and once when they were drowned out a human voice
helped them. Keep out of this, Wilmarth - it is worse than either you or I
ever suspected. They don’t mean to let me get to California now - they
want to take me off alive, or what theoretically and mentally amounts to
alive - not only to Yuggoth, but beyond that - away outside the galaxy and
possibly beyond the last curved rim of space. I told them I wouldn’t go
where they wish, or in the terrible way they propose to take me, but I’m
afraid it will be no use. My place is so far out that they may come by day
as well as by night before long. Six more dogs killed, and I felt presences
all along the wooded parts of the road when I drove to Brattleboro today.
It was a mistake for me to try to send you that phonograph record and
black stone. Better smash the record before it’s too late. Will drop you
another line tomorrow if I’m still here. Wish I could arrange to get my
books and things to Brattleboro and board there. I would run off without
anything if I could but something inside my mind holds me back. I can
slip out to Brattleboro, where I ought to be safe, but I feel just as much a
prisoner there as at the house. And I seem to know that I couldn’t get
much farther even if I dropped everything and tried. It is horrible - don’t
get mixed up in this.
Yrs - Akeley
I did not sleep at all the night after receiving this terrible thing, and was utterly baffled as
to Akeley’s remaining degree of sanity. The substance of the note was wholly insane, yet
the manner of expression - in view of all that had gone before - had a grimly potent
quality of convincingness. I made no attempt to answer it, thinking it better to wait until
Akeley might have time to reply to my latest communication. Such a reply indeed came
on the following day, though the fresh material in it quite overshadowed any of the points
brought up by the letter nominally answered. Here is what I recall of the text, scrawled
and blotted as it was in the course of a plainly frantic and hurried composition.
Wednesday
W-
Your letter came, but it’s no use to discuss anything any more. I am fully
resigned. Wonder that I have even enough will power left to fight them
off. Can’t escape even if I were willing to give up everything and run.
They’ll get me.
Had a letter from them yesterday - R.F.D. man brought it while I was at
Brattleboro. Typed and postmarked Bellows Falls. Tells what they want to
do with me - I can’t repeat it. Look out for yourself, too! Smash that
record. Cloudy nights keep up, and moon waning all the time. Wish I
dared to get help - it might brace up my will power - but everyone who
would dare to come at all would call me crazy unless there happened to be
some proof. Couldn’t ask people to come for no reason at all - am all out
of touch with everybody and have been for years.
But I haven’t told you the worst, Wilmarth. Brace up to read this, for it
will give you a shock. I am telling the truth, though. It is this - I have seen
and touched one of the things, or part of one of the things. God, man, but
it’s awful! It was dead, of course. One of the dogs had it, and I found it
near the kennel this morning. I tried to save it in the woodshed to convince
people of the whole thing, but it all evaporated in a few hours. Nothing
left. You know, all those things in the rivers were seen only on the first
morning after the flood. And here’s the worst. I tried to photograph it for
you, but when I developed the film there wasn’t anything visible except
the woodshed. What can the thing have been made of? I saw it and felt it,
and they all leave footprints. It was surely made of matter - but what kind
of matter? The shape can’t be described. It was a great crab with a lot of
pyramided fleshy rings or knots of thick, ropy stuff covered with feelers
where a man’s head would be. That green sticky stuff is its blood or juice.
And there are more of them due on earth any minute.
Walter Brown is missing - hasn’t been seen loafing around any of his
usual corners in the villages hereabouts. I must have got him with one of
my shots, though the creatures always seem to try to take their dead and
wounded away.
Got into town this afternoon without any trouble, but am afraid they’re
beginning to hold off because they’re sure of me. Am writing this in
Brattleboro P. 0. This may be goodbye - if it is, write my son George
Goodenough Akeley, 176 Pleasant St., San Diego, Cal., but don’t come up
here. Write the boy if you don’t hear from me in a week, and watch the
papers for news.
I’m going to play my last two cards now - if I have the will power left.
First to try poison gas on the things (I’ve got the right chemicals and have
fixed up masks for myself and the dogs) and then if that doesn’t work, tell
the sheriff. They can lock me in a madhouse if they want to - it’ll be better
than what the other creatures would do. Perhaps I can get them to pay
attention to the prints around the house - they are faint, but I can find them
every morning. Suppose, though, police would say I faked them somehow;
for they all think I’m a queer character.
Must try to have a state policeman spend a night here and see for himself -
though it would be just like the creatures to learn about it and hold off that
night. They cut my wires whenever I try to telephone in the night - the
linemen think it is very queer, and may testify for me if they don’t go and
imagine I cut them myself. I haven’t tried to keep them repaired for over a
week now.
I could get some of the ignorant people to testify for me about the reality
of the horrors, but everybody laughs at what they say, and anyway, they
have shunned my place for so long that they don’t know any of the new
events. You couldn’t get one of those rundown farmers to come within a
mile of my house for love or money. The mail-carrier hears what they say
and jokes me about it - God! If I only dared tell him how real it is! I think
I’ll try to get him to notice the prints, but he comes in the afternoon and
they’re usually about gone by that time. If I kept one by setting a box or
pan over it, he’d think surely it was a fake or joke.
Wish I hadn’t gotten to be such a hermit, so folks don’t drop around as
they used to. I’ve never dared show the black stone or the Kodak pictures,
or play that record, to anybody but the ignorant people. The others would
say I faked the whole business and do nothing but laugh. But I may yet try
showing the pictures. They give those claw-prints clearly, even if the
things that made them can’t be photographed. What a shame nobody else
saw that thing this morning before it went to nothing!
But I don’t know as I care. After what I’ve been through, a madhouse is as
good a place as any. The doctors can help me make up my mind to get
away from this house, and that is all that will save me.
Write my son George if you don’t hear soon. Goodbye, smash that record,
and don’t mix up in this.
Yrs - Akeley
This letter frankly plunged me into the blackest of terror. I did not know what to say in
answer, but scratched off some incoherent words of advice and encouragement and sent
them by registered mail. I recall urging Akeley to move to Brattleboro at once, and place
himself under the protection of the authorities; adding that I would come to that town
with the phonograph record and help convince the courts of his sanity. It was time, too, I
think I wrote, to alarm the people generally against this thing in their midst. It will be
observed that at this moment of stress my own belief in all Akeley had told and claimed
was virtually complete, though I did think his failure to get a picture of the dead monster
was due not to any freak of Nature but to some excited slip of his own.
V
Then, apparently crossing my incoherent note and reaching me Saturday afternoon,
September 8th, came that curiously different and calming letter neatly typed on a new
machine; that strange letter of reassurance and invitation which must have marked so
prodigious a transition in the whole nightmare drama of the lonely hills. Again I will
quote from memory - seeking for special reasons to preserve as much of the flavour of
the style as I can. It was postmarked Bellows Falls, and the signature as well as the body
of the letter was typed - as is frequent with beginners in typing. The text, though, was
marvellously accurate for a tyro’s work; and I concluded that Akeley must have used a
machine at some previous period - perhaps in college. To say that the letter relieved me
would be only fair, yet beneath my relief lay a substratum of uneasiness. If Akeley had
been sane in his terror, was he now sane in his deliverance? And the sort of "improved
rapport" mentioned . . . what was it? The entire thing implied such a diametrical reversal
of Akeley’s previous attitude! But here is the substance of the text, carefully transcribed
from a memory in which I take some pride.
Townshend, Vermont,
Thursday, Sept. 6, 1928.
My dear Wilmarth: -
It gives me great pleasure to be able to set you at rest regarding all the silly
things I’ve been writing you. I say "silly," although by that I mean my
frightened attitude rather than my descriptions of certain phenomena.
Those phenomena are real and important enough; my mistake had been in
establishing an anomalous attitude toward them.
I think I mentioned that my strange visitors were beginning to
communicate with me, and to attempt such communication. Last night this
exchange of speech became actual. In response to certain signals I
admitted to the house a messenger from those outside - a fellow-human,
let me hasten to say. He told me much that neither you nor I had even
begun to guess, and showed clearly how totally we had misjudged and
misinterpreted the purpose of the Outer Ones in maintaining their secret
colony on this planet.
It seems that the evil legends about what they have offered to men, and
what they wish in connection with the earth, are wholly the result of an
ignorant misconception of allegorical speech - speech, of course, moulded
by cultural backgrounds and thought-habits vastly different from anything
we dream of. My own conjectures, I freely own, shot as widely past the
mark as any of the guesses of illiterate farmers and savage Indians. What I
had thought morbid and shameful and ignominious is in reality awesome
and mind-expanding and even glorious - my previous estimate being
merely a phase of man’s eternal tendency to hate and fear and shrink from
the utterly different.
Now I regret the harm I have inflicted upon these alien and incredible
beings in the course of our nightly skirmishes. If only I had consented to
talk peacefully and reasonably with them in the first place! But they bear
me no grudge, their emotions being organised very differently from ours.
It is their misfortune to have had as their human agents in Vermont some
very inferior specimens - the late Walter Brown, for example. He
prejudiced me vastly against them. Actually, they have never knowingly
harmed men, but have often been cruelly wronged and spied upon by our
species. There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical
erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow
Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on
behalf of monstrous powers from other dimensions. It is against these
aggressors - not against normal humanity - that the drastic precautions of
the Outer Ones are directed. Incidentally, I learned that many of our lost
letters were stolen not by the Outer Ones but by the emissaries of this
malign cult.
All that the Outer Ones wish of man is peace and non-molestation and an
increasing intellectual rapport. This latter is absolutely necessary now that
our inventions and devices are expanding our knowledge and motions, and
making it more and more impossible for the Outer Ones’ necessary
outposts to exist secretly on this planet. The alien beings desire to know
mankind more fully, and to have a few of mankind’s philosophic and
scientific leaders know more about them. With such an exchange of
knowledge all perils will pass, and a satisfactory modus vivendi be
established. The very idea of any attempt to enslave or degrade mankind
is ridiculous.
As a beginning of this improved rapport, the Outer Ones have naturally
chosen me - whose knowledge of them is already so considerable - as their
primary interpreter on earth. Much was told me last night - facts of the
most stupendous and vista-opening nature - and more will be subsequently
communicated to me both orally and in writing. I shall not be called upon
to make any trip outside just yet, though I shall probably wish to do so
later on - employing special means and transcending everything which we
have hitherto been accustomed to regard as human experience. My house
will be besieged no longer. Everything has reverted to normal, and the
dogs will have no further occupation. In place of terror I have been given a
rich boon of knowledge and intellectual adventure which few other
mortals have ever shared.
The Outer Beings are perhaps the most marvellous organic things in or
beyond all space and time-members of a cosmos-wide race of which all
other life-forms are merely degenerate variants. They are more vegetable
than animal, if these terms can be applied to the sort of matter composing
them, and have a somewhat fungoid structure; though the presence of a
chlorophyll-like substance and a very singular nutritive system
differentiate them altogether from true cormophytic fungi. Indeed, the type
is composed of a form of matter totally alien to our part of space - with
electrons having a wholly different vibration-rate. That is why the beings
cannot be photographed on the ordinary camera films and plates of our
known universe, even though our eyes can see them. With proper
knowledge, however, any good chemist could make a photographic
emulsion which would record their images.
The genus is unique in its ability to traverse the heatless and airless
interstellar void in full corporeal form, and some of its variants cannot do
this without mechanical aid or curious surgical transpositions. Only a few
species have the ether-resisting wings characteristic of the Vermont
variety. Those inhabiting certain remote peaks in the Old World were
brought in other ways. Their external resemblance to animal life, and to
the sort of structure we understand as material, is a matter of parallel
evolution rather than of close kinship. Their brain-capacity exceeds that of
any other surviving life-form, although the winged types of our hill
country are by no means the most highly developed. Telepathy is their
usual means of discourse, though we have rudimentary vocal organs
which, after a slight operation (for surgery is an incredibly expert and
everyday thing among them), can roughly duplicate the speech of such
types of organism as still use speech.
Their main immediate abode is a still undiscovered and almost lightless
planet at the very edge of our solar system - beyond Neptune, and the
ninth in distance from the sun. It is, as we have inferred, the object
mystically hinted at as "Yuggoth" in certain ancient and forbidden
writings; and it will soon be the scene of a strange focussing of thought
upon our world in an effort to facilitate mental rapport. I would not be
surprised if astronomers become sufficiently sensitive to these thought-
currents to discover Yuggoth when the Outer Ones wish them to do so.
But Yuggoth, of course, is only the stepping-stone. The main body of the
beings inhabits strangely organized abysses wholly beyond the utmost
reach of any human imagination. The space-time globule which we
recognize as the totality of all cosmic entity is only an atom in the genuine
infinity which is theirs. And as much of this infinity as any human brain
can hold is eventually to be opened up to me, as it has been to not more
than fifty other men since the human race has existed.
You will probably call this raving at first, Wilmarth, but in time you will
appreciate the titanic opportunity I have stumbled upon. I want you to
share as much of it as is possible, and to that end must tell you thousands
of things that won’t go on paper. In the past I have warned you not to
come to see me. Now that all is safe, I take pleasure in rescinding that
warning and inviting you.
Can’t you make a trip up here before your college term opens? It would be
marvelously delightful if you could. Bring along the phonograph record
and all my letters to you as consultative data - we shall need them in
piecing together the whole tremendous story. You might bring the Kodak
prints, too, since I seem to have mislaid the negatives and my own prints
in all this recent excitement. But what a wealth of facts I have to add to all
this groping and tentative material - and what a stupendous device I have
to supplement my additions!
Don’t hesitate - I am free from espionage now, and you will not meet
anything unnatural or disturbing. Just come along and let my car meet you
at the Brattleboro station - prepare to stay as long as you can, and expect
many an evening of discussion of things beyond all human conjecture.
Don’t tell anyone about it, of course - for this matter must not get to the
promiscuous public.
The train service to Brattleboro is not bad - you can get a timetable in
Boston. Take the B. & M. to Greenfield, and then change for the brief
remainder of the way. I suggest your taking the convenient 4:10 P.M. -
standard-from Boston. This gets into Greenfield at 7:35, and at 9:19 a train
leaves there which reaches Brattleboro at 10:01. That is weekdays. Let me
know the date and I’ll have my car on hand at the station.
Pardon this typed letter, but my handwriting has grown shaky of late, as
you know, and I don’t feel equal to long stretches of script. I got this new
Corona in Brattleboro yesterday - it seems to work very well.
Awaiting word, and hoping to see you shortly with the phonograph record
and all my letters - and the Kodak prints -
I am
Yours in anticipation,
Henry W. Akeley
TO ALBERT N. WILMARTH, ESQ.,
MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY,
ARKHAM, MASS.
The complexity of my emotions upon reading, re-reading, and pondering over this
strange and unlooked-for letter is past adequate description. I have said that I was at once
relieved and made uneasy, but this expresses only crudely the overtones of diverse and
largely subconscious feelings which comprised both the relief and the uneasiness. To
begin with, the thing was so antipodally at variance with the whole chain of horrors
preceding it - the change of mood from stark terror to cool complacency and even
exultation was so unheralded, lightning-like, and complete! I could scarcely believe that a
single day could so alter the psychological perspective of one who had written that final
frenzied bulletin of Wednesday, no matter what relieving disclosures that day might have
brought. At certain moments a sense of conflicting unrealities made me wonder whether
this whole distantly reported drama of fantastic forces were not a kind of half-illusory
dream created largely within my own mind. Then I thought of the phonograph record and
gave way to still greater bewilderment.
The letter seemed so unlike anything which could have been expected! As I analysed my
impression, I saw that it consisted of two distinct phases. First, granting that Akeley had
been sane before and was still sane, the indicated change in the situation itself was so
swift and unthinkable. And secondly, the change in Akeley’s own manner, attitude, and
language was so vastly beyond the normal or the predictable. The man’s whole
personality seemed to have undergone an insidious mutation - a mutation so deep that one
could scarcely reconcile his two aspects with the supposition that both represented equal
sanity. Word-choice, spelling - all were subtly different. And with my academic
sensitiveness to prose style, I could trace profound divergences in his commonest
reactions and rhythm-responses. Certainly, the emotional cataclysm or revelation which
could produce so radical an overturn must be an extreme one indeed! Yet in another way
the letter seemed quite characteristic of Akeley. The same old passion for infinity - the
same old scholarly inquisitiveness. I could not a moment - or more than a moment -
credit the idea of spuriousness or malign substitution. Did not the invitation - the
willingness to have me test the truth of the letter in person - prove its genuineness?
I did not retire Saturday night, but sat up thinking of the shadows and marvels behind the
letter I had received. My mind, aching from the quick succession of monstrous
conceptions it had been forced to confront during the last four months, worked upon this
startling new material in a cycle of doubt and acceptance which repeated most of the
steps experienced in facing the earlier wonders; till long before dawn a burning interest
and curiosity had begun to replace the original storm of perplexity and uneasiness. Mad
or sane, metamorphosed or merely relieved, the chances were that Akeley had actually
encountered some stupendous change of perspective in his hazardous research; some
change at once diminishing his danger - real or fancied - and opening dizzy new vistas of
cosmic and superhuman knowledge. My own zeal for the unknown flared up to meet his,
and I felt myself touched by the contagion of the morbid barrier-breaking. To shake off
the maddening and wearying limitations of time and space and natural law - to be linked
with the vast outside - to come close to the nighted and abysmal secrets of the infinite and
the ultimate - surely such a thing was worth the risk of one’s life, soul, and sanity! And
Akeley had said there was no longer any peril - he had invited me to visit him instead of
warning me away as before. I tingled at the thought of what he might now have to tell me
- there was an almost paralysing fascination in the thought of sitting in that lonely and
lately-beleaguered farmhouse with a man who had talked with actual emissaries from
outer space; sitting there with the terrible record and the pile of letters in which Akeley
had summarised his earlier conclusions.
So late Sunday morning I telegraphed Akeley that I would meet him in Brattleboro on the
following Wednesday - September 12th - if that date were convenient for him. In only
one respect did I depart from his suggestions, and that concerned the choice of a train.
Frankly, I did not feel like arriving in that haunted Vermont region late at night; so
instead of accepting the train he chose I telephoned the station and devised another
arrangement. By rising early and taking the 8:07 A.M. (standard) into Boston, I could
catch the 9:25 for Greenfield; arriving there at 12:22 noon. This connected exactly with a
train reaching Brattleboro at 1:08 p.m. - a much more comfortable hour than 10:01 for
meeting Akeley and riding with him into the close-packed, secret-guarding hills.
I mentioned this choice in my telegram, and was glad to learn in the reply which came
toward evening that it had met with my prospective host’s endorsement. His wire ran
thus:
ARRANGEMENT SATISFACTORY WILL MEET ONE EIGHT TRAIN
WEDNESDAY DONT FORGET RECORD AND LETTERS AND
PRINTS KEEP DESTINATION QUIET EXPECT GREAT
REVELATIONS
AKELEY
Receipt of this message in direct response to one sent to Akeley - and necessarily
delivered to his house from the Townshend station either by official messenger or by a
restored telephone service - removed any lingering subconscious doubts I may have had
about the authorship of the perplexing letter. My relief was marked - indeed, it was
greater than I could account for at the time; since all such doubts had been rather deeply
buried. But I slept soundly and long that night, and was eagerly busy with preparations
during the ensuing two days.
VI
On Wednesday I started as agreed,. taking with me a valise full of simple necessities and
scientific data, including the hideous phonograph record, the Kodak prints, and the entire
file of Akeley’s correspondence. As requested, I had told no one where I was going; for I
could see that the matter demanded utmost privacy, even allowing for its most favourable
turns. The thought of actual mental contact with alien, outside entities was stupefying
enough to my trained and somewhat prepared mind; and this being so, what might one
think of its effect on the vast masses of uninformed laymen? I do not know whether dread
or adventurous expectancy was uppermost in me as I changed trains at Boston and began
the long westward run out of familiar regions into those I knew less thoroughly. Waltham
- Concord - Ayer - Fitchburg - Gardner - Athol -
My train reached Greenfield seven minutes late, but the northbound connecting express
had been held. Transferring in haste, I felt a curious breathlessness as the cars rumbled on
through the early afternoon sunlight into territories I had always read of but had never
before visited. I knew I was entering an altogether older-fashioned and more primitive
New England than the mechanised, urbanised coastal and southern areas where all my
life had been spent; an unspoiled, ancestral New England without the foreigners and
factory-smoke, bill-boards and concrete roads, of the sections which modernity has
touched. There would be odd survivals of that continuous native life whose deep roots
make it the one authentic outgrowth of the landscape - the continuous native life which
keeps alive strange ancient memories, and fertilises the soil for shadowy, marvellous, and
seldom-mentioned beliefs.
Now and then I saw the blue Connecticut River gleaming in the sun, and after leaving
Northfield we crossed it. Ahead loomed green and cryptical hills, and when the conductor
came around I learned that I was at last in Vermont. He told me to set my watch back an
hour, since the northern hill country will have no dealings with new-fangled daylight time
schemes. As I did so it seemed to me that I was likewise turning the calendar back a
century.
The train kept close to the river, and across in New Hampshire I could see the
approaching slope of steep Wantastiquet, about which singular old legends cluster. Then
streets appeared on my left, and a green island showed in the stream on my right. People
rose and filed to the door, and I followed them. The car stopped, and I alighted beneath
the long train-shed of the Brattleboro station.
Looking over the line of waiting motors I hesitated a moment to see which one might turn
out to be the Akeley Ford, but my identity was divined before I could take the initiative.
And yet it was clearly not Akeley himself who advanced to meet me with an outstretched
hand and a mellowly phrased query as to whether I was indeed Mr. Albert N. Wilmarth
of Arkham. This man bore no resemblance to the bearded, grizzled Akeley of the
snapshot; but was a younger and more urbane person, fashionably dressed, and wearing
only a small, dark moustache. His cultivated voice held an odd and almost disturbing hint
of vague familiarity, though I could not definitely place it in my memory.
As I surveyed him I heard him explaining that he was a friend of my prospective host’s
who had come down from Townshend in his stead. Akeley, he declared, had suffered a
sudden attack of some asthmatic trouble, and did not feel equal to making a trip in the
outdoor air. It was not serious, however, and there was to be no change in plans regarding
my visit. I could not make out just how much this Mr. Noyes - as he announced himself -
knew of Akeley’s researches and discoveries, though it seemed to me that his casual
manner stamped him as a comparative outsider. Remembering what a hermit Akeley had
been, I was a trifle surprised at the ready availability of such a friend; but did not let my
puzzlement deter me from entering the motor to which he gestured me. It was not the
small ancient car I had expected from Akeley’s descriptions, but a large and immaculate
specimen of recent pattern - apparently Noyes’s own, and bearing Massachusetts license
plates with the amusing "sacred codfish" device of that year. My guide, I concluded, must
be a summer transient in the Townshend region.
Noyes climbed into the car beside me and started it at once. I was glad that he did not
overflow with conversation, for some peculiar atmospheric tensity made me feel
disinclined to talk. The town seemed very attractive in the afternoon sunlight as we swept
up an incline and turned to the right into the main street. It drowsed like the older New
England cities which one remembers from boyhood, and something in the collocation of
roofs and steeples and chimneys and brick walls formed contours touching deep viol-
strings of ancestral emotion. I could tell that I was at the gateway of a region half-
bewitched through the piling-up of unbroken time-accumulations; a region where old,
strange things have had a chance to grow and linger because they have never been stirred
up.
As we passed out of Brattleboro my sense of constraint and foreboding increased, for a
vague quality in the hill-crowded countryside with its towering, threatening, close-
pressing green and granite slopes hinted at obscure secrets and immemorial survivals
which might or might not be hostile to mankind. For a time our course followed a broad,
shallow river which flowed down from unknown hills in the north, and I shivered when
my companion told me it was the West River. It was in this stream, I recalled from
newspaper items, that one of the morbid crablike beings had been seen floating after the
floods.
Gradually the country around us grew wilder and more deserted. Archaic covered bridges
lingered fearsomely out of the past in pockets of the hills, and the half-abandoned railway
track paralleling the river seemed to exhale a nebulously visible air of desolation. There
were awesome sweeps of vivid valley where great cliffs rose, New England’s virgin
granite showing grey and austere through the verdure that scaled the crests. There were
gorges where untamed streams leaped, bearing down toward the river the unimagined
secrets of a thousand pathless peaks. Branching away now and then were narrow, half-
concealed roads that bored their way through solid, luxuriant masses of forest among
whose primal trees whole armies of elemental spirits might well lurk. As I saw these I
thought of how Akeley had been molested by unseen agencies on his drives along this
very route, and did not wonder that such things could be.
The quaint, sightly village of Newfane, reached in less than an hour, was our last link
with that world which man can definitely call his own by virtue of conquest and complete
occupancy. After that we cast off all allegiance to immediate, tangible, and time-touched
things, and entered a fantastic world of hushed unreality in which the narrow, ribbon-like
road rose and fell and curved with an almost sentient and purposeful caprice amidst the
tenantless green peaks and half-deserted valleys. Except for the sound of the motor, and
the faint stir of the few lonely farms we passed at infrequent intervals, the only thing that
reached my ears was the gurgling, insidious trickle of strange waters from numberless
hidden fountains in the shadowy woods.
The nearness and intimacy of the dwarfed, domed hills now became veritably breath-
taking. Their steepness and abruptness were even greater than I had imagined from
hearsay, and suggested nothing in common with the prosaic objective world we know.
The dense, unvisited woods on those inaccessible slopes seemed to harbour alien and
incredible things, and I felt that the very outline of the hills themselves held some strange
and aeon-forgotten meaning, as if they were vast hieroglyphs left by a rumoured titan
race whose glories live only in rare, deep dreams. All the legends of the past, and all the
stupefying imputations of Henry Akeley’s letters and exhibits, welled up in my memory
to heighten the atmosphere of tension and growing menace. The purpose of my visit, and
the frightful abnormalities it postulated struck at me all at once with a chill sensation that
nearly over-balanced my ardour for strange delvings.
My guide must have noticed my disturbed attitude; for as the road grew wilder and more
irregular, and our motion slower and more jolting, his occasional pleasant comments
expanded into a steadier flow of discourse. He spoke of the beauty and weirdness of the
country, and revealed some acquaintance with the folklore studies of my prospective
host. From his polite questions it was obvious that he knew I had come for a scientific
purpose, and that I was bringing data of some importance; but he gave no sign of
appreciating the depth and awfulness of the knowledge which Akeley had finally
reached.
His manner was so cheerful, normal, and urbane that his remarks ought to have calmed
and reassured me; but oddly enough. I felt only the more disturbed as we bumped and
veered onward into the unknown wilderness of hills and woods. At times it seemed as if
he were pumping me to see what I knew of the monstrous secrets of the place, and with
every fresh utterance that vague, teasing, baffling familiarity in his voice increased. It
was not an ordinary or healthy familiarity despite the thoroughly wholesome and
cultivated nature of the voice. I somehow linked it with forgotten nightmares, and felt
that I might go mad if I recognised it. If any good excuse had existed, I think I would
have turned back from my visit. As it was, I could not well do so - and it occurred to me
that a cool, scientific conversation with Akeley himself after my arrival would help
greatly to pull me together.
Besides, there was a strangely calming element of cosmic beauty in the hypnotic
landscape through which we climbed and plunged fantastically. Time had lost itself in the
labyrinths behind, and around us stretched only the flowering waves of faery and the
recaptured loveliness of vanished centuries - the hoary groves, the untainted pastures
edged with gay autumnal blossoms, and at vast intervals the small brown farmsteads
nestling amidst huge trees beneath vertical precipices of fragrant brier and meadow-grass.
Even the sunlight assumed a supernal glamour, as if some special atmosphere or
exhalation mantled the whole region. I had seen nothing like it before save in the magic
vistas that sometimes form the backgrounds of Italian primitives. Sodoma and Leonardo
conceived such expanses, but only in the distance, and through the vaultings of
Renaissance arcades. We were now burrowing bodily through the midst of the picture,
and I seemed to find in its necromancy a thing I had innately known or inherited and for
which I had always been vainly searching.
Suddenly, after rounding an obtuse angle at the top of a sharp ascent, the car came to a
standstill. On my left, across a well-kept lawn which stretched to the road and flaunted a
border of whitewashed stones, rose a white, two-and-a-half-story house of unusual size
and elegance for the region, with a congenes of contiguous or arcade-linked barns, sheds,
and windmill behind and to the right. I recognised it at once from the snapshot I had
received, and was not surprised to see the name of Henry Akeley on the galvanised-iron
mailbox near the road. For some distance back of the house a level stretch of marshy and
sparsely-wooded land extended, beyond which soared a steep, thickly-forested hillside
ending in a jagged leafy crest. This latter, I knew, was the summit of Dark Mountain, half
way up which we must have climbed already.
Alighting from the car and taking my valise, Noyes asked me to wait while he went in
and notified Akeley of my advent. He himself, he added, had important business
elsewhere, and could not stop for more than a moment. As he briskly walked up the path
to the house I climbed out of the car myself, wishing to stretch my legs a little before
settling down to a sedentary conversation. My feeling of nervousness and tension had
risen to a maximum again now that I was on the actual scene of the morbid beleaguering
described so hauntingly in Akeley’s letters, and I honestly dreaded the coming
discussions which were to link me with such alien and forbidden worlds.
Close contact with the utterly bizarre is often more terrifying than inspiring, and it did not
cheer me to think that this very bit of dusty road was the place where those monstrous
tracks and that foetid green ichor had been found after moonless nights of fear and death.
Idly I noticed that none of Akeley’s dogs seemed to be about. Had he sold them all as
soon as the Outer Ones made peace with him? Try as I might, I could not have the same
confidence in the depth and sincerity of that peace which appeared in Akeley’s final and
queerly different letter. After all, he was a man of much simplicity and with little worldly
experience. Was there not, perhaps, some deep and sinister undercurrent beneath the
surface of the new alliance?
Led by my thoughts, my eyes turned downward to the powdery road surface which had
held such hideous testimonies. The last few days had been dry, and tracks of all sorts
cluttered the rutted, irregular highway despite the unfrequented nature of the district.
With a vague curiosity I began to trace the outline of some of the heterogeneous
impressions, trying meanwhile to curb the flights of macabre fancy which the place and
its memories suggested. There was something menacing and uncomfortable in the
funereal stillness, in the muffled, subtle trickle of distant brooks, and in the crowding
green peaks and black-wooded precipices that choked the narrow horizon.
And then an image shot into my consciousness which made those vague menaces and
flights of fancy seem mild and insignificant indeed. I have said that I was scanning the
miscellaneous prints in the road with a kind of idle curiosity - but all at once that
curiosity was shockingly snuffed out by a sudden and paralysing gust of active terror. For
though the dust tracks were in general confused and overlapping, and unlikely to arrest
any casual gaze, my restless vision had caught certain details near the spot where the path
to the house joined the highway; and had recognised beyond doubt or hope the frightful
significance of those details. It was not for nothing, alas, that I had pored for hours over
the Kodak views of the Outer Ones’ claw-prints which Akeley had sent. Too well did I
know the marks of those loathsome nippers, and that hint of ambiguous direction which
stamped the horrors as no creatures of this planet. No chance had been left me for
merciful mistake. Here, indeed, in objective form before my own eyes, and surely made
not many hours ago, were at least three marks which stood out blasphemously among the
surprising plethora of blurred footprints leading to and from the Akeley farmhouse. They
were the hellish tracks of the living fungi from Yuggoth.
I pulled myself together in time to stifle a scream. After all, what more was there than I
might have expected, assuming that I had really believed Akeley’s letters? He had spoken
of making peace with the things. Why, then, was it strange that some of them had visited
his house? But the terror was stronger than the reassurance. Could any man be expected
to look unmoved for the first time upon the claw-marks of animate beings from outer
depths of space? Just then I saw Noyes emerge from the door and approach with a brisk
step. I must, I reflected, keep command of myself, for the chances were that this genial
friend knew nothing of Akeley’s profoundest and most stupendous probings into the
forbidden.
Akeley, Noyes hastened to inform me, was glad and ready to see me; although his sudden
attack of asthma would prevent him from being a very competent host for a day or two.
These spells hit him hard when they came, and were always accompanied by a
debilitating fever and general weakness. He never was good for much while they lasted -
had to talk in a whisper, and was very clumsy and feeble in getting about. His feet and
ankles swelled, too, so that he had to bandage them like a gouty old beef-eater. Today he
was in rather bad shape, so that I would have to attend very largely to my own needs; but
he was none the less eager for conversation. I would find him in the study at the left of
the front hall - the room where the blinds were shut. He had to keep the sunlight out when
he was ill, for his eyes were very sensitive.
As Noyes bade me adieu and rode off northward in his car I began to walk slowly toward
the house. The door had been left ajar for me; but before approaching and entering I cast
a searching glance around the whole place, trying to decide what had struck me as so
intangibly queer about it. The barns and sheds looked trimly prosaic enough, and I
noticed Akeley’s battered Ford in its capacious, unguarded shelter. Then the secret of the
queerness reached me. It was the total silence. Ordinarily a farm is at least moderately
murmurous from its various kinds of livestock, but here all signs of life were missing.
What of the hens and the dogs? The cows, of which Akeley had said he possessed
several, might conceivably be out to pasture, and the dogs might possibly have been sold;
but the absence of any trace of cackling or grunting was truly singular.
I did not pause long on the path, but resolutely entered the open house door and closed it
behind me. It had cost me a distinct psychological effort to do so, and now that I was shut
inside I had a momentary longing for precipitate retreat. Not that the place was in the
least sinister in visual suggestion; on the contrary, I thought the graceful late-colonial
hallway very tasteful and wholesome, and admired the evident breeding of the man who
had furnished it. What made me wish to flee was something very attenuated and
indefinable. Perhaps it was a certain odd odour which I thought I noticed - though I well
knew how common musty odours are in even the best of ancient farmhouses.
VII
Refusing to let these cloudy qualms overmaster me, I recalled Noyes’s instructions and
pushed open the six-panelled, brass-latched white door on my left. The room beyond was
darkened as I had known before; and as I entered it I noticed that the queer odour was
stronger there. There likewise appeared to be some faint, half-imaginary rhythm or
vibration in the air. For a moment the closed blinds allowed me to see very little, but then
a kind of apologetic hacking or whispering sound drew my attention to a great easy-chair
in the farther, darker corner of the room. Within its shadowy depths I saw the white blur
of a man’s face and hands; and in a moment I had crossed to greet the figure who had
tried to speak. Dim though the light was, I perceived that this was indeed my host. I had
studied the Kodak picture repeatedly, and there could be no mistake about this firm,
weather-beaten face with the cropped, grizzled beard.
But as I looked again my recognition was mixed with sadness and anxiety; for certainly,
his face was that of a very sick man. I felt that there must be something more than asthma
behind that strained, rigid, immobile expression and unwinking glassy stare; and realised
how terribly the strain of his frightful experiences must have told on him. Was it not
enough to break any human being - even a younger man than this intrepid delver into the
forbidden? The strange and sudden relief, I feared, had come too late to save him from
something like a general breakdown. There was a touch of the pitiful in the limp, lifeless
way his lean hands rested in his lap. He had on a loose dressing-gown, and was swathed
around the head and high around the neck with a vivid yellow scarf or hood.
And then I saw that he was trying to talk in the same hacking whisper with which he had
greeted me. It was a hard whisper to catch at first, since the grey moustache concealed all
movements of the lips, and something in its timbre disturbed me greatly; but by
concentrating my attention I could soon make out its purport surprisingly well. The
accent was by no means a rustic one, and the language was even more polished than
correspondence had led me to expect.
"Mr. Wilmarth, I presume? You must pardon my not rising. I am quite ill, as Mr. Noyes
must have told you; but I could not resist having you come just the same. You know what
I wrote in my last letter - there is so much to tell you tomorrow when I shall feel better. I
can’t say how glad I am to see you in person after all our many letters. You have the file
with you, of course? And the Kodak prints and records? Noyes put your valise in the hall
- I suppose you saw it. For tonight I fear you’ll have to wait on yourself to a great extent.
Your room is upstairs - the one over this - and you’ll see the bathroom door open at the
head of the staircase. There’s a meal spread for you in the dining-room - right through
this door at your right - which you can take whenever you feel like it. I’ll be a better host
tomorrow - but just now weakness leaves me helpless.
"Make yourself at home - you might take out the letters and pictures and records and put
them on the table here before you go upstairs with your bag. It is here that we shall
discuss them - you can see my phonograph on that corner stand.
"No, thanks - there’s nothing you can do for me. I know these spells of old. Just come
back for a little quiet visiting before night, and then go to bed when you please. I’ll rest
right here - perhaps sleep here all night as I often do. In the morning I’ll be far better able
to go into the things we must go into. You realise, of course, the utterly stupendous
nature of the matter before us. To us, as to only a few men on this earth, there will be
opened up gulfs of time and space and knowledge beyond anything within the conception
of human science or philosophy.
"Do you know that Einstein is wrong, and that certain objects and forces can move with a
velocity greater than that of light? With proper aid I expect to go backward and forward
in time, and actually see and feel the earth of remote past and future epochs. You can’t
imagine the degree to which those beings have carried science. There is nothing they
can’t do with the mind and body of living organisms. I expect to visit other planets, and
even other stars and galaxies. The first trip will be to Yuggoth, the nearest world fully
peopled by the beings. It is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system -
unknown to earthly astronomers as yet. But I must have written you about this. At the
proper time, you know, the beings there will direct thought-currents toward us and cause
it to be discovered - or perhaps let one of their human allies give the scientists a hint.
"There are mighty cities on Yuggoth - great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone
like the specimen I tried to send you. That came from Yuggoth. The sun shines there no
brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put
no windows in their great houses and temples. Light even hurts and hampers and
confuses them, for it does not exist at all in the black cosmos outside time and space
where they came from originally. To visit Yuggoth would drive any weak man mad - yet
I am going there. The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean
bridges - things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to
Yuggoth from the ultimate voids - ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if
he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen.
"But remember - that dark world of fungoid gardens and windowless cities isn’t really
terrible. It is only to us that it would seem so. Probably this world seemed just as terrible
to the beings when they first explored it in the primal age. You know they were here long
before the fabulous epoch of Cthulhu was over, and remember all about sunken R’lyeh
when it was above the waters. They’ve been inside the earth, too - there are openings
which human beings know nothing of - some of them in these very Vermont hills - and
great worlds of unknown life down there; blue-litten K’n-yan, red-litten Yoth, and black,
lightless N’kai. It’s from N’kai that frightful Tsathoggua came - you know, the
amorphous, toad-like god-creature mentioned in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the
Necronomicon and the Commoriom myth-cycle preserved by the Atlantean high-priest
Klarkash-Ton.
"But we will talk of all this later on. It must be four or five o’clock by this time. Better
bring the stuff from your bag, take a bite, and then come back for a comfortable chat."
Very slowly I turned and began to obey my host; fetching my valise, extracting and
depositing the desired articles, and finally ascending to the room designated as mine.
With the memory of that roadside claw-print fresh in my mind, Akeley’s whispered
paragraphs had affected me queerly; and the hints of familiarity with this unknown world
of fungous life - forbidden Yuggoth - made my flesh creep more than I cared to own. I
was tremendously sorry about Akeley’s illness, but had to confess that his hoarse whisper
had a hateful as well as pitiful quality. If only he wouldn’t gloat so about Yuggoth and its
black secrets!
My room proved a very pleasant and well-furnished one, devoid alike of the musty odour
and disturbing sense of vibration; and after leaving my valise there I descended again to
greet Akeley and take the lunch he had set out for me. The dining-room was just beyond
the study, and I saw that a kitchen elI extended still farther in the same direction. On the
dining-table an ample array of sandwiches, cake, and cheese awaited me, and a Thermos-
bottle beside a cup and saucer testified that hot coffee had not been forgotten. After a
well-relished meal I poured myself a liberal cup of coffee, but found that the culinary
standard had suffered a lapse in this one detail. My first spoonful revealed a faintly
unpleasant acrid taste, so that I did not take more. Throughout the lunch I thought of
Akeley sitting silently in the great chair in the darkened next room.
Once I went in to beg him to share the repast, but he whispered that he could eat nothing
as yet. Later on, just before he slept, he would take some malted milk - all he ought to
have that day.
After lunch I insisted on clearing the dishes away and washing them in the kitchen sink -
incidentally emptying the coffee which I had not been able to appreciate. Then returning
to the darkened study I drew up a chair near my host’s corner and prepared for such
conversation as he might feel inclined to conduct. The letters, pictures, and record were
still on the large centre-table, but for the nonce we did not have to draw upon them.
Before long I forgot even the bizarre odour and curious suggestions of vibration.
I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters - especially the second and
most voluminous one - which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on
paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that
evening in the darkened room among the lonely hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors
unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before,
but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too
much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refused to believe what he implied about
the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful
position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-
atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and
semi-material electronic organisation.
Never was a sane man more dangerously close to the arcana of basic entity - never was
an organic brain nearer to utter annihilation in the chaos that transcends form and force
and symmetry. I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary
stars of history had flared forth. I guessed - from hints which made even my informant
pause timidly - the secret behind the Magellanic Clouds and globular nebulae, and the
black truth veiled by the immemorial allegory of Tao. The nature of the Doels was
plainly revealed, and I was told the essence (though not the source) of the Hounds of
Tindalos. The legend of Yig, Father of Serpents, remained figurative no longer, and I
started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space
which the Necronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth. It was
shocking to have the foulest nightmares of secret myth cleared up in concrete terms
whose stark, morbid hatefulness exceeded the boldest hints of ancient and mediaeval
mystics. Ineluctably I was led to believe that the first whisperers of these accursed tales
must have had discourse with Akeley’s Outer Ones, and perhaps have visited outer
cosmic realms as Akeley now proposed visiting them.
I was told of the Black Stone and what it implied, and was glad that it had not reached
me. My guesses about those hieroglyphics had been all too correct! And yet Akeley now
seemed reconciled to the whole fiendish system he had stumbled upon; reconciled and
eager to probe farther into the monstrous abyss. I wondered what beings he had talked
with since his last letter to me, and whether many of them had been as human as that first
emissary he had mentioned. The tension in my head grew insufferable, and I built up all
sorts of wild theories about that queer, persistent odour and those insidious hints of
vibration in the darkened room.
Night was falling now, and as I recalled what Akeley had written me about those earlier
nights I shuddered to think there would be no moon. Nor did I like the way the farmhouse
nestled in the lee of that colossal forested slope leading up to Dark Mountain’s unvisited
crest. With Akeley’s permission I lighted a small oil lamp, turned it low, and set it on a
distant bookcase beside the ghostly bust of Milton; but afterward I was sorry I had done
so, for it made my host’s strained, immobile face and listless hands look damnably
abnormal and corpselike. He seemed half-incapable of motion, though I saw him nod
stiffly once in awhile.
After what he had told, I could scarcely imagine what profounder secrets he was saving
for the morrow; but at last it developed that his trip to Yuggoth and beyond - and my own
possible participation in it - was to be the next day’s topic. He must have been amused by
the start of horror I gave at hearing a cosmic voyage on my part proposed, for his head
wabbled violently when I showed my fear. Subsequently he spoke very gently of how
human beings might accomplish - and several times had accomplished - the seemingly
impossible flight across the interstellar void. It seemed that complete human bodies did
not indeed make the trip, but that the prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and
mechanical skill of the Outer Ones had found a way to convey human brains without
their concomitant physical structure.
There was a harmless way to extract a brain, and a way to keep the organic residue alive
during its absence. The bare, compact cerebral matter was then immersed in an
occasionally replenished fluid within an ether-tight cylinder of a metal mined in Yuggoth,
certain electrodes reaching through and connecting at will with elaborate instruments
capable of duplicating the three vital faculties of sight, hearing, and speech. For the
winged fungus-beings to carry the brain-cylinders intact through space was an easy
matter. Then, on every planet covered by their civilisation, they would find plenty of
adjustable faculty-instruments capable of being connected with the encased brains; so
that after a little fitting these travelling intelligences could be given a full sensory and
articulate life - albeit a bodiless and mechanical one - at each stage of their journeying
through and beyond the space-time continuum. It was as simple as carrying a phonograph
record about and playing it wherever a phonograph of corresponding make exists. Of its
success there could be no question. Akeley was not afraid. Had it not been brilliantly
accomplished again and again?
For the first time one of the inert, wasted hands raised itself and pointed stiffly to a high
shelf on the farther side of the room. There, in a neat row, stood more than a dozen
cylinders of a metal I had never seen before - cylinders about a foot high and somewhat
less in diameter, with three curious sockets set in an isosceles triangle over the front
convex surface of each. One of them was linked at two of the sockets to a pair of
singular-looking machines that stood in the background. Of their purport I did not need to
be told, and I shivered as with ague. Then I saw the hand point to a much nearer corner
where some intricate instruments with attached cords and plugs, several of them much
like the two devices on the shelf behind the cylinders, were huddled together.
"There are four kinds of instruments here, Wilmarth," whispered the voice. "Four kinds -
three faculties each - makes twelve pieces in all. You see there are four different sorts of
beings represented in those cylinders up there. Three humans, six fungoid beings who
can’t navigate space corporeally, two beings from Neptune (God! if you could see the
body this type has on its own planet!), and the rest entities from the central caverns of an
especially interesting dark star beyond the galaxy. In the principal outpost inside Round
Hill you’ll now and then find more cylinders and machines - cylinders of extra-cosmic
brains with different senses from any we know - allies and explorers from the uttermost
Outside - and special machines for giving them impressions and expression in the several
ways suited at once to them and to the comprehensions of different types of listeners.
Round Hill, like most of the beings’ main outposts all through the various universes, is a
very cosmopolitan place. Of course, only the more common types have been lent to me
for experiment.
"Here - take the three machines I point to and set them on the table. That tall one with the
two glass lenses in front - then the box with the vacuum tubes and sounding-board - and
now the one with the metal disc on top. Now for the cylinder with the label ‘B-67’ pasted
on it. Just stand in that Windsor chair to reach the shelf. Heavy? Never mind! Be sure of
the number - B-67. Don’t bother that fresh, shiny cylinder joined to the two testing
instruments - the one with my name on it. Set B-67 on the table near where you’ve put
the machines - and see that the dial switch on all three machines is jammed over to the
extreme left.
"Now connect the cord of the lens machine with the upper socket on the cylinder - there!
Join the tube machine to the lower left-hand socket, and the disc apparatus to the outer
socket. Now move all the dial switches on the machine over to the extreme right - first
the lens one, then the disc one, and then the tube one. That’s right. I might as well tell
you that this is a human being - just like any of us. I’ll give you a taste of some of the
others tomorrow."
To this day I do not know why I obeyed those whispers so slavishly, or whether I thought
Akeley was mad or sane. After what had gone before, I ought to have been prepared for
anything; but this mechanical mummery seemed so like the typical vagaries of crazed
inventors and scientists that it struck a chord of doubt which even the preceding discourse
had not excited. What the whisperer implied was beyond all human belief - yet were not
the other things still farther beyond, and less preposterous only because of their
remoteness from tangible concrete proof?
As my mind reeled amidst this chaos, I became conscious of a mixed grating and
whirring from all three of the machines lately linked to the cylinder - a grating and
whirring which soon subsided into a virtual noiselessness. What was about to happen?
Was I to hear a voice? And if so, what proof would I have that it was not some cleverly
concocted radio device talked into by a concealed but closely watched speaker? Even
now I am unwilling to swear just what I heard, or just what phenomenon really took place
before me. But something certainly seemed to take place.
To be brief and plain, the machine with the tubes and sound-box began to speak, and with
a point and intelligence which left no doubt that the speaker was actually present and
observing us. The voice was loud, metallic, lifeless, and plainly mechanical in every
detail of its production. It was incapable of inflection or expressiveness, but scraped and
rattled on with a deadly precision and deliberation.
"Mr. Wilmarth," it said, "I hope I do not startle you. I am a human being like yourself,
though my body is now resting safely under proper vitalising treatment inside Round
Hill, about a mile and a half east of here. I myself am here with you - my brain is in that
cylinder and I see, hear, and speak through these electronic vibrators. In a week I am
going across the void as I have been many times before, and I expect to have the pleasure
of Mr. Akeley’s company. I wish I might have yours as well; for I know you by sight and
reputation, and have kept close track of your correspondence with our friend. I am, of
course, one of the men who have become allied with the outside beings visiting our
planet. I met them first in the Himalayas, and have helped them in various ways. In return
they have given me experiences such as few men have ever had.
"Do you realise what it means when I say I have been on thirty-seven different celestial
bodies - planets, dark stars, and less definable objects - including eight outside our galaxy
and two outside the curved cosmos of space and time? All this has not harmed me in the
least. My brain has been removed from my body by fissions so adroit that it would be
crude to call the operation surgery. The visiting beings have methods which make these
extractions easy and almost normal - and one’s body never ages when the brain is out of
it. The brain, I may add, is virtually immortal with its mechanical faculties and a limited
nourishment supplied by occasional changes of the preserving fluid.
"Altogether, I hope most heartily that you will decide to come with Mr. Akeley and me.
The visitors are eager to know men of knowledge like yourself, and to show them the
great abysses that most of us have had to dream about in fanciful ignorance. It may seem
strange at first to meet them, but I know you will be above minding that. I think Mr.
Noyes will go along, too - the man who doubtless brought you up here in his car. He has
been one of us for years - I suppose you recognised his voice as one of those on the
record Mr. Akeley sent you."
At my violent start the speaker paused a moment before concluding. "So Mr. Wilmarth, I
will leave the matter to you; merely adding that a man with your love of strangeness and
folklore ought never to miss such a chance as this. There is nothing to fear. All transitions
are painless; and there is much to enjoy in a wholly mechanised state of sensation. When
the electrodes are disconnected, one merely drops off into a sleep of especially vivid and
fantastic dreams.
"And now, if you don’t mind, we might adjourn our session till tomorrow. Good night -
just turn all the switches back to the left; never mind the exact order, though you might
let the lens machine be last. Good night, Mr. Akeley - treat our guest well! Ready now
with those switches?"
That was all. I obeyed mechanically and shut off all three switches, though dazed with
doubt of everything that had occurred. My head was still reeling as I heard Akeley’s
whispering voice telling me that I might leave all the apparatus on the table just as it was.
He did not essay any comment on what had happened, and indeed no comment could
have conveyed much to my burdened faculties. I heard him telling me I could take the
lamp to use in my room, and deduced that he wished to rest alone in the dark. It was
surely time he rested, for his discourse of the afternoon and evening had been such as to
exhaust even a vigorous man. Still dazed, I bade my host good night and went upstairs
with the lamp, although I had an excellent pocket flashlight with me.
I was glad to be out of that downstairs study with the queer odour and vague suggestions
of vibration, yet could not of course escape a hideous sense of dread and peril and cosmic
abnormality as I thought of the place I was in and the forces I was meeting. The wild,
lonely region, the black, mysteriously forested slope towering so close behind the house;
the footprint in the road, the sick, motionless whisperer in the dark, the hellish cylinders
and machines, and above all the invitations to strange surgery and stranger voyagings -
these things, all so new and in such sudden succession, rushed in on me with a
cumulative force which sapped my will and almost undermined my physical strength.
To discover that my guide Noyes was the human celebrant in that monstrous bygone
Sabbat-ritual on the phonograph record was a particular shock, though I had previously
sensed a dim, repellent familiarity in his voice. Another special shock came from my own
attitude toward my host whenever I paused to analyse it; for much as I had instinctively
liked Akeley as revealed in his correspondence, I now found that he filled me with a
distinct repulsion. His illness ought to have excited my pity; but instead, it gave me a
kind of shudder. He was so rigid and inert and corpselike - and that incessant whispering
was so hateful and unhuman!
It occurred to me that this whispering was different from anything else of the kind I had
ever heard; that, despite the curious motionlessness of the speaker’s moustache-screened
lips, it had a latent strength and carrying-power remarkable for the wheezing of an
asthmatic. I had been able to understand the speaker when wholly across the room, and
once or twice it had seemed to me that the faint but penetrant sounds represented not so
much weakness as deliberate repression - for what reason I could not guess. From the
first I had felt a disturbing quality in their timbre. Now, when I tried to weigh the matter,
I thought I could trace this impression to a kind of subconscious familiarity like that
which had made Noyes’s voice so hazily ominous. But when or where I had encountered
the thing it hinted at, was more than I could tell.
One thing was certain - I would not spend another night here. My scientific zeal had
vanished amidst fear and loathing, and I felt nothing now but a wish to escape from this
net of morbidity and unnatural revelation. I knew enough now. It must indeed be true that
strange cosmic linkages do exist - but such things are surely not meant for normal human
beings to meddle with.
Blasphemous influences seemed to surround me and press chokingly upon my senses.
Sleep, I decided, would be out of the question; so I merely extinguished the lamp and
threw myself on the bed fully dressed. No doubt it was absurd, but I kept ready for some
unknown emergency; gripping in my right hand the revolver I had brought along, and
holding the pocket flashlight in my left. Not a sound came from below, and I could
imagine how my host was sitting there with cadaverous stiffness in the dark.
Somewhere I heard a clock ticking, and was vaguely grateful for the normality of the
sound. It reminded me, though, of another thing about the region which disturbed me -
the total absence of animal life. There were certainly no farm beasts about, and now I
realised that even the accustomed night-noises of wild living things were absent. Except
for the sinister trickle of distant unseen waters, that stillness was anomalous -
interplanetary - and I wondered what star-spawned, intangible blight could be hanging
over the region. I recalled from old legends that dogs and other beasts had always hated
the Outer Ones, and thought of what those tracks in the road might mean.
VIII
Do not ask me how long my unexpected lapse into slumber lasted, or how much of what
ensued was sheer dream. If I tell you that I awakened at a certain time, and heard and saw
certain things, you will merely answer that I did not wake then; and that everything was a
dream until the moment when I rushed out of the house, stumbled to the shed where I had
seen the old Ford, and seized that ancient vehicle for a mad, aimless race over the
haunted hills which at last landed me - after hours of jolting and winding through forest-
threatened labyrinths - in a village which turned out to be Townshend.
You will also, of course, discount everything else in my report; and declare that all the
pictures, record-sounds, cylinder-and-machine sounds, and kindred evidences were bits
of pure deception practiced on me by the missing Henry Akeley. You will even hint that
he conspired with other eccentrics to carry out a silly and elaborate hoax - that he had the
express shipment removed at Keene, and that he had Noyes make that terrifying wax
record. It is odd, though, that Noyes has not ever yet’ been identified; that he was
unknown at any of the villages near Akeley’s place, though he must have been frequently
in the region. I wish I had stopped to memorize the license-number of his car - or perhaps
it is better after all that I did not. For I, despite all you can say, and despite all I
sometimes try to say to myself, know that loathsome outside influences must be lurking
there in the half-unknown hills - and that, those influences have spies and emissaries in
the world of men. To keep as far as possible from such influences and such emissaries is
all that I ask of life in future.
When my frantic story sent a sheriff’s posse out to the farmhouse, Akeley was gone
without leaving a trace. His loose dressing gown, yellow scarf, and foot-bandages lay on
the study floor near his corner. easy-chair, and it could not be decided whether any of his
other apparel had vanished with him. The dogs and livestock were indeed missing, and
there were some curious bullet-holes both on the house’s exterior and on some of the
walls within; but beyond this nothing unusual could be detected. No cylinders or
machines, none of the evidences I had brought in my valise, no queer odour or vibration-
sense, no foot-prints in the road, and none of the problematical things I glimpsed at the
very last.
I stayed a week in Brattleboro after my escape, making inquiries among people of every
kind who had known Akeley; and the results convince me that the matter is no figment of
dream or delusion.’ Akeley’s queer purchase of dogs and ammunition and chemicals, and
the cutting of his telephone wires, are matters of record; while all who knew him -
including his son in California - concede that his occasional remarks on strange studies
had a certain consistency. Solid citizens believe he was mad, and unhesitatingly
pronounce all reported evidences mere hoaxes devised with insane cunning and perhaps
abetted by eccentric associates; but the lowlier country folk sustain his statements in
every detail. He had showed some of these rustics his photographs and black stone, and
had played the hideous record for them; and they all said the footprints and buzzing voice
were like those described in ancestral legends.
They said, too, that suspicious sights and sounds had been noticed increasingly around
Akeley’s house after he found the black stone, and that the place was now avoided by
everybody except the mail man and other casual, tough-minded people. Dark Mountain
and Round Hill were both notoriously haunted spots, and I could find no one who had
ever closely explored either. Occasional disappearances of natives throughout the
district’s history were well attested, and these now included the semi-vagabond Walter
Brown, whom Akeley’s letters had mentioned. I even came upon one farmer who thought
he had personally glimpsed one of the queer bodies at flood-time in the swollen West
River, but his tale was too confused to be really valuable.
When I left Brattleboro I resolved never to go back to Vermont, and I feel quite certain I
shall keep my resolution. Those wild hills are surely the outpost of a frightful cosmic race
- as I doubt all the less since reading that a new ninth planet has been glimpsed beyond
Neptune, just as those influences had said it would be glimpsed. Astronomers, with a
hideous appropriateness they little suspect, have named this thing "Pluto." I feel, beyond
question, that it is nothing less than nighted Yuggoth - and I shiver when I try to figure
out the real reason why its monstrous denizens wish it to be known in this way at this
especial time. I vainly try to assure myself that these daemoniac creatures are not
gradually leading up to some new policy hurtful to the earth and its normal inhabitants.
But I have still to tell of the ending of that terrible night in the farmhouse. As I have said,
I did finally drop into a troubled doze; a doze filled with bits of dream which involved
monstrous landscape-glimpses. Just what awaked me I cannot yet say, but that I did
indeed awake at this given point I feel very certain. My first confused impression was of
stealthily creaking floor-boards in the hall outside my door, and of a clumsy, muffled
fumbling at the latch. This, however, ceased almost at once; so that my really clear
impressions begin with the voices heard from the study below. There seemed to be
several speakers, and I judged that they were controversially engaged.
By the time I had listened a few seconds I was broad awake, for the nature of the voices
was such as to make all thought of sleep ridiculous. The tones were curiously varied, and
no one who had listened to that accursed phonograph record could harbour any doubts
about the nature of at least two of them. Hideous though the idea was, I knew that I was
under the same roof with nameless things from abysmal space; for those two voices were
unmistakably the blasphemous buzzings which the Outside Beings used in their
communication with men. The two were individually different - different in pitch, accent,
and tempo - but they were both of the same damnable general kind.
A third voice was indubitably that of a mechanical utterance-machine connected with one
of the detached brains in the cylinders. There was as little doubt about that as about the
buzzings; for the loud, metallic, lifeless voice of the previous evening, with its
inflectionless, expressionless scraping and rattling, and its impersonal precision and
deliberation, had been utterly unforgettable. For a time I did not pause to question
whether the intelligence behind the scraping was the identical one which had formerly
talked to me; but shortly afterward I reflected that any brain would emit vocal sounds of
the same quality if linked to the same mechanical speech-producer; the only possible
differences being in language, rhythm, speed, and pronunciation. To complete the
eldritch colloquy there were two actually human voices - one the crude speech of an
unknown and evidently rustic man, and the other the suave Bostonian tones of my
erstwhile guide Noyes.
As I tried to catch the words which the stoutly-fashioned floor so bafflingly intercepted, I
was also conscious of a great deal of stirring and scratching and shuffling in the room
below; so that I could not escape the impression that it was full of living beings - many
more than the few whose speech I could single out. The exact nature of this stirring is
extremely hard to describe, for very few good bases of comparison exist. Objects seemed
now and then to move across the room like conscious entities; the sound of their footfalls
having something about it like a loose, hard-surfaced clattering - as of the contact of ill-
coordinated surfaces of horn or hard rubber. It was, to use a more concrete but less
accurate comparison, as if people with loose, splintery wooden shoes were shambling and
rattling about on the polished board floor. Of the nature and appearance of those
responsible for the sounds, I did not care to speculate.
Before long I saw that it would be impossible to distinguish any connected discourse.
Isolated words - including the names of Akeley and myself - now and then floated up,
especially when uttered by the mechanical speech-producer; but their true significance
was lost for want of continuous context. Today I refuse to form any definite deductions
from them, and even their frightful effect on me was one of suggestion rather than of
revelation. A terrible and abnormal conclave, I felt certain, was assembled below me; but
for what shocking deliberations I could not tell. It was curious how this unquestioned
sense of the malign and the blasphemous pervaded me despite Akeley’s assurances of the
Outsider’s friendliness.
With patient listening I began to distinguish clearly between voices, even though I could
not grasp much of what any of the voices said. I seemed to catch certain typical emotions
behind some of the speakers. One of the buzzing voices, for example, held an
unmistakable note of authority; whilst the mechanical voice, notwithstanding its artificial
loudness and regularity, seemed to be in a position of subordination and pleading.
Noyes’s tones exuded a kind of conciliatory atmosphere. The others I could make no
attempt to interpret. I did not hear the familiar whisper of Akeley, but well knew that
such a sound could never penetrate the solid flooring of my room.
I will try to set down some of the few disjointed words and other sounds I caught,
labelling the speakers of the words as best I know how. It was from the speech-machine
that I first picked up a few recognisable phrases.
(The Speech-Machine)
"...brought it on myself... sent back the letters and the record... end on it...
taken in... seeing and hearing... damn you... impersonal force, after all...
fresh, shiny cylinder... great God..."
(First Buzzing Voice)
"...time we stopped... small and human... Akeley... brain... saying..."
(Second Buzzing Voice)
"Nyarlathotep... Wilmarth... records and letters... cheap imposture..."
(Noyes)
"...(an unpronounceable word or name, possibly N’gah-Kthun) harmless...
peace... couple of weeks... theatrical... told you that before..."
(First Buzzing Voice)
"...no reason... original plan... effects... Noyes can watch Round Hill...
fresh cylinder... Noyes’s car..."
(Noyes)
"...well... all yours... down here... rest... place..."
(Several Voices at Once in Indistinguishable Speech)
(Many Footsteps, Including the Peculiar Loose Stirring or Clattering)
(A Curious Sort of Flapping Sound)
(The Sound of an Automobile Starting and Receding)
(Silence)
That is the substance of what my ears brought me as I lay rigid upon that strange upstairs
bed in the haunted farmhouse among the daemoniac hills - lay there fully dressed, with a
revolver clenched in my right hand and a pocket flashlight gripped in my left. I became,
as I have said, broad awake; but a kind of obscure paralysis nevertheless kept me inert till
long after the last echoes of the sounds had died away. I heard the wooden, deliberate
ticking of the ancient Connecticut clock somewhere far below, and at last made out the
irregular snoring of a sleeper. Akeley must have dozed off after the strange session, and I
could well believe that he needed to do so.
Just what to think or what to do was more than I could decide After all, what had I heard
beyond things which previous information might have led me to expect? Had I not known
that the nameless Outsiders were now freely admitted to the farmhouse? No doubt
Akeley had been surprised by an unexpected visit from them. Yet something in that
fragmentary discourse had chilled me immeasurably, raised the most grotesque and
horrible doubts, and made me wish fervently that I might wake up and prove everything a
dream. I think my subconscious mind must have caught something which my
consciousness has not yet recognised. But what of Akeley? Was he not my friend, and
would he not have protested if any harm were meant me? The peaceful snoring below
seemed to cast ridicule on all my suddenly intensified fears.
Was it possible that Akeley had been imposed upon and used as a lure to draw me into
the hills with the letters and pictures and phonograph record? Did those beings mean to
engulf us both in a common destruction because we had come to know too much? Again
I thought of the abruptness and unnaturalness of that change in the situation which must
have occurred between Akeley’s penultimate and final letters. Something, my instinct
told me, was terribly wrong. All was not as it seemed. That acrid coffee which I refused -
had there not been an attempt by some hidden, unknown entity to drug it? I must talk to
Akeley at once, and restore his sense of proportion. They had hypnotised him with their
promises of cosmic revelations, but now he must listen to reason. We. must get out of this
before it would be too late. If he lacked the will power to make the break for liberty. I
would supply it. Or if I could not persuade him to go, I could at least go myself. Surely he
would let me take his Ford and leave it in a garage in Brattleboro. I had noticed it in the
shed - the door being left unlocked and open now that peril was deemed past - and I
believed there was a good chance of its being ready for instant use. That momentary
dislike of Akeley which I had felt during and after the evening’s conversation was all
gone now. He was in a position much like my own, and we must stick together. Knowing
his indisposed condition, I hated to wake him at this juncture, but I knew that I must. I
could not stay in this place till morning as matters stood.
At last I felt able to act, and stretched myself vigorously to regain command of my
muscles. Arising with a caution more impulsive than deliberate, I found and donned my
hat, took my valise, and started downstairs with the flashlight’s aid. In my nervousness I
kept the revolver clutched in my right hand, being able to take care of both valise and
flashlight with my left. Why I exerted these precautions I do not really know, since I was
even then on my way to awaken the only other occupant of the house.
As I half-tiptoed down the creaking stairs to the lower hall I could hear the sleeper more
plainly, and noticed that he must be in the room on my left - the living-room I had not
entered. On my right was the gaping blackness of the study in which I had heard the
voices. Pushing open the unlatched door of the living-room I traced a path with the
flashlight toward the source of the snoring, and finally turned the beams on the sleeper’s
face. But in the next second I hastily turned them away and commenced a catlike retreat
to the hall, my caution this time springing from reason as well as from instinct. For the
sleeper on the couch was not Akeley at all, but my quondam guide Noyes.
Just what the real situation was, I could not guess; but common sense told me that the
safest thing was to find out as much as possible before arousing anybody. Regaining the
hall, I silently closed and latched the living-room door after me; thereby lessening the
chances of awakening Noyes. I now cautiously entered the dark study, where I expected
to find Akeley, whether asleep or awake, in the great corner chair which was evidently
his favorite resting-place. As I advanced, the beams of my flashlight caught the great
centre-table, revealing one of the hellish cylinders with sight and hearing machines
attached, and with a speech machine standing close by, ready to be connected at any
moment. This, I reflected, must be the encased brain I had heard talking during the
frightful conference; and for a second I had a perverse impulse to attach the speech
machine and see what it would say.
It must, I thought, be conscious of my presence even now; since the sight and hearing
attachments could not fail to disclose the rays of my flashlight and the faint creaking of
the floor beneath my feet. But in the end I did not dare meddle with the thing. I idly saw
that it was the fresh shiny cylinder with Akeley’s name on it, which I had noticed on the
shelf earlier in the evening and which my host had told me not to bother. Looking back at
that moment, I can only regret my timidity and wish that I had boldly caused the
apparatus to speak. God knows what mysteries and horrible doubts and questions of
identity it might have cleared up! But then, it may be merciful that I let it alone.
From the table I turned my flashlight to the corner where I thought Akeley was, but found
to my perplexity that the great easy-chair was empty of any human occupant asleep or
awake. From the seat to the floor there trailed voluminously the familiar old dressing-
gown, and near it on the floor lay the yellow scarf and the huge foot-bandages I had
thought so odd. As I hesitated, striving to conjecture where Akeley might be, and why he
had so suddenly discarded his necessary sick-room garments, I observed that the queer
odour and sense of vibration were no longer in the room. What had been their cause?
Curiously it occurred to me that I had noticed them only in Akeley’s vicinity. They had
been strongest where he sat, and wholly absent except in the room with him or just
outside the doors of that room. I paused, letting the flashlight wander about the dark
study and racking my brain for explanations of the turn affairs had taken.
Would to Heaven I had quietly left the place before allowing that light to rest again on
the vacant chair. As it turned out, I did not leave quietly; but with a muffled shriek which
must have disturbed, though it did not quite awake, the sleeping sentinel across the hall.
That shriek, and Noyes’s still-unbroken snore, are the last sounds I ever heard in that
morbidity-choked farmhouse beneath the black-wooded crest of haunted mountain - that
focus of transcosmic horror amidst the lonely green hills and curse-muttering brooks of a
spectral rustic land.
It is a wonder that I did not drop flashlight, valise, and revolver in my wild scramble, but
somehow I failed to lose any of these. I actually managed to get out of that room and that
house without making any further noise, to drag myself and my belongings safely into the
old Ford in the shed, and to set that archaic vehicle in motion toward some unknown
point of safety in the black, moonless night. The ride that followed was a piece of
delirium out of Poe or Rimbaud or the drawings of Dore, but finally I reached
Townshend. That is all. If my sanity is still unshaken, I am lucky. Sometimes I fear what
the years will bring, especially since that new planet Pluto has been so curiously
discovered.
As I have implied, I let my flashlight return to the vacant easy-chair after its circuit of the
room; then noticing for the first time the presence of certain objects in the seat, made
inconspicuous by the adjacent loose folds of the empty dressing-gown. These are the
objects, three in number, which the investigators did not find when they came later on. As
I said at the outset, there was nothing of actual visual horror about them. The trouble was
in what they led one to infer. Even now I have my moments of half-doubt - moments in
which I half-accept the scepticism of those who attribute my whole experience to dream
and nerves and delusion.
The three things were damnably clever constructions of their kind, and were furnished
with ingenious metallic clamps to attach them to organic developments of which I dare
not form any conjecture. I hope - devoutly hope-that they were the waxen products of a
master artist, despite what my inmost fears tell me. Great God! That whisperer in
darkness with its morbid odour and vibrations! Sorcerer, emissary, changeling, outsider..
. that hideous repressed buzzing. . . and all the time in that fresh, shiny cylinder on the
shelf. . . poor devil . . . "Prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill.. .
For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance -
or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.
END