Authentication-Results: mail-b.sr.ht; dkim=pass header.d=rawtext.club header.i=@rawtext.club Received: from rawtext.club (rawtext.club [45.33.66.185]) by mail-b.sr.ht (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3915B11EF19 for <~mieum/booksin.space@lists.sr.ht>; Tue, 8 Jun 2021 13:08:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: by rawtext.club (Postfix, from userid 1164) id E849662F30; Tue, 8 Jun 2021 13:08:47 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=rawtext.club; s=rtc; t=1623157727; bh=88c83F436LSwExkU6cGCCAnTTGbHWJ2TouHyzS9fb0o=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date; b=mvNo3AkdszoR8lZrYv6fiK7Peso3U3y9jP0/GPRQA3FxQPw94boLoZUegVyh2RLJL yuRIJqvb8y6Wts1vD8txtKlfkHqdFPkmTQC6TD0H0WnNNh6srsKRtecChYRzTN0fHe 4vSw0bA4/1bEQrdqnn+ZI5JG4RNXoenolwIfUI9WlHFHKSrVdwWzkuZ9esKIAfBqQa qzlPnxcAmsv4dQdpHPEQBdam33dUjPyMP8vZNQLvkqWIBburxKIT8tjoldI8SPRy2N itKL8KfJrZBmesMwLlMvoq7njsveIx7KGDLiFWRIR6yWh8TM2BlVDmBa4nYlgRwQgS g4LaQ+uFZSOhQ== From: tiis To: ~mieum/booksin.space@lists.sr.ht Cc: tiis Subject: [PATCH] Add short story The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2021 13:08:12 +0000 Message-Id: <20210608130812.3594782-1-tiis@rawtext.club> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.32.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable --- cataloging/lovecraft_the-call-of-cthulhu.gmi | 237 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 237 insertions(+) create mode 100644 cataloging/lovecraft_the-call-of-cthulhu.gmi diff --git a/cataloging/lovecraft_the-call-of-cthulhu.gmi b/cataloging/love= craft_the-call-of-cthulhu.gmi new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3f954a --- /dev/null +++ b/cataloging/lovecraft_the-call-of-cthulhu.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,237 @@ +--- +title: The Call of Cthulhu +author: H.P. Lovecraft +lang: en +license: public domain +date: February, 1928 +genre: horror +publication: + title: Weird Tales + volume: 11 + issue: 2 + pages: 159-178, 287 +note: This text is produced by digitizing photo-scans published on archive= .org (using Tesseract 4.1.1). The resulting text has been spell-checked, bu= t may still contain errors (both original, and new ones). +--- +(Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston.) + +> =E2=80=9COf such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survi= val . . . a survival of a hugely remote period when . . . consciousness was= manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the t= ide of advancing humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have c= aught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of al= l sorts and kinds. . . .=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94Algernon Blackwood. + +# 1. The Horror in Clay. + +THE most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the hum= an mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignora= nce in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we sh= ould voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hi= therto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated k= nowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightf= ul position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or fle= e from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. + +Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wher= ein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at = strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a = bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse = of forbidden eons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I = dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out fr= om an accidental piecing together of separated things=E2=80=94in this case = an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one= else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never= knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor,= too, intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would= have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him. + +My knowledge of the thing began in the winter of 1926-27 with the death of= my granduncle, George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic langua= ges in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Angell was wid= ely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, and had frequently been = resorted to by the heads of prominent museums; so that his passing at the a= ge of ninety-two may be recalled by many. Locally, interest was intensified= by the obscurity of the cause of death. The professor had been stricken wh= ilst returning from the Newport boat; falling suddenly, as witnesses said, = after having been jostled by a nautical-looking negro who had come from one= of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short = cut from the waterfront to the deceased=E2=80=99s home in Williams Street. = Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder, but concluded after pe= rplexed debate that some obscure lesion of the heart, induced by the brisk = ascent of so steep a hill by so elderly a man, was responsible for the end.= At the time I saw no reason to dissent from this dictum, but latterly I am= inclined to wonder=E2=80=94and more than wonder. + +As my granduncle's heir and executor, for he died a childless widower, I w= as expected to go over his papers with some thoroughness; and for that purp= ose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in Boston. Much = of the material which I correlated will be later published by the American = Archeological Society, but there was one box which I found exceedingly puzz= ling, and which I felt much averse from showing to other eyes. It had been = locked, and I did not find the key till it occurred to me to examine the pe= rsonal ring which the professor carried always in his pocket. Then, indeed,= I succeeded in opening it, but when I did so seemed only to be confronted = by a greater and more closely locked barrier. For what could be the meaning= of the queer clay bas-relief and the disjointed jottings, ramblings, and c= uttings which I found? Had my uncle, in his latter years, become credulous = of the most superficial impostures? I resolved to search out the eccentric = sculptor responsible for this apparent disturbance of an old man=E2=80=99s = peace of mind. + +The bas-relief was a rough rectangle less than an inch thick and about fiv= e by six inches in area; obviously of modern origin. Its designs, however, = were far from modern in atmosphere and suggestion; for, although the vagari= es of cubism and futurism are many and wild, they do not often reproduce th= at cryptic regularity which lurks in prehistoric writing. And writing of so= me kind the bulk of these designs seemed certainly to be; though my memory,= despite much familiarity with the papers and collections of my uncle, fail= ed in any way to identify this particular species, or even hint at its remo= test affiliations. + +Above these apparent hieroglyphics was a figure of evidently pictorial int= ent, though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea of its = nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster= , of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my so= mewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus,= a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit = of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body= with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which = made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion= of a Cyclopean architectural background. + +The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cutt= ings, in Professor Angell=E2=80=99s most recent hand; and made no pretense = to literary style. What seemed to be the main document was headed =E2=80=98= =E2=80=98CTHULHU CULT=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 in characters painstakingly printed= to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheard-of. This manuscript wa= s divided into two sections, the first of which was headed =E2=80=98=E2=80= =981925=E2=80=94Dream and Dream Work of H. A. Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Provide= nce, R. I.,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 and the second, =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Narrative o= f Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 = A. A. S. Mtg=E2=80=94Notes on Same, & Prof. Webb=E2=80=99s Acct.=E2=80=99= =E2=80=99 The other manuscript papers were all brief notes, some of them ac= counts of the queer dreams of different persons, some of them citations fro= m theosophical books and magazines (notably W. Scott-Eliott=E2=80=99s Atlan= tis and the Lost Lemuria), and the rest comments on long-surviving secret s= ocieties and hidden cults, with references to passages in such mythological= and anthropological source-books as Frazer=E2=80=99s Golden Bough and Miss= Murray=E2=80=99s Witch-Cult in Western Europe. The cuttings largely allude= d to outr=C3=A9 mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania in t= he spring of 1925. + +THE first half of the principal manuscript told a very peculiar tale. It a= ppears that on March 1st, 1925, a thin, dark young man of neurotic and exci= ted aspect had called upon Professor Angell bearing the singular clay bas-r= elief, which was then exceedingly damp and fresh. His card bore the name of= Henry Anthony Wilcox, and my uncle had recognized him as the youngest son = of an excellent family slightly known to him, who had latterly been studyin= g sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and living alone at the Fl= eur-de-Lys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious youth of= known genius but great eccentricity, and had from childhood excited attent= ion through the strange stories and odd dreams he was in the habit of relat= ing. He called himself =E2=80=98=E2=80=98psychically hypersensitive=E2=80= =99=E2=80=99, but the staid folk of the ancient commercial city dismissed h= im as merely =E2=80=98=E2=80=98queer=E2=80=99=E2=80=99. Never mingling much= with his kind, he had dropped gradually from social visibility, and was no= w known only to a small group of esthetes from other towns. Even the Provid= ence Art Club, anxious to preserve its conservatism, had found him quite ho= peless. + +On the occasion of the visit, ran the professor=E2=80=99s manuscript, the = sculptor abruptly asked for the benefit of his host=E2=80=99s archeological= knowledge in identifying the hieroglyphics on the bas-relief. He spoke in = a dreamy, stilted manner which suggested pose and alienated sympathy; and m= y uncle showed some sharpness in replying, for the conspicuous freshness of= the tablet implied kinship with anything but archeology. Young Wilcox=E2= =80=99s rejoinder, which impressed my uncle enough to make him recall and = record it verbatim, was of a fantastically poetic cast which must have typi= fied his whole conversation, and which I have since found highly characteri= stic of him. He said, =E2=80=98=E2=80=98It is new, indeed, for I made it la= st night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding T= yre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.=E2=80=9D=E2=80= =99 + +It was then that he began that rambling tale which suddenly played upon a = sleeping memory and won the fevered interest of my uncle. There had been a = slight earthquake tremor the night before, the most considerable felt in Ne= w England for some years; and Wilcox=E2=80=99s imagination had been keenly = affected. Upon retiring, he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclope= an cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green = ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics had covered the walls a= nd pillars, and from some undetermined point below had come a voice that wa= s not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into so= und, but which he attempted to render by the almost unpronounceable jumble = of letters, =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Cthulhu fhtagn=E2=80=99=E2=80=99. + +This verbal jumble was the key to the recollection which excited and distu= rbed Professor Angell. He questioned the sculptor with scientific minutenes= s; and studied with almost frantic intensity the bas-relief on which the yo= uth had found himself working, chilled and clad only in his nightclothes, w= hen waking had stolen bewilderingly over him. My uncle blamed his old age, = Wilcox afterward said, for his slowness in recognizing both hieroglyphics a= nd pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out of place to hi= s visitor, especially those which tried to connect the latter with strange = cults or societies; and Wilcox could not understand the repeated promises o= f silence which he was offered in exchange for an admission of membership i= n some widespread mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell= became convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or syst= em of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor with demands for future reports= of dreams. This bore regular fruit, for after the first interview the manu= script records daily calls of the young man, during which he related startl= ing fragments of nocturnal imagery whose burden was always some terrible Cy= clopean vista of dark and dripping stone, with a subterrene voice or intell= igence shouting monotonously in enigmatical sense-impacts uninscribable sav= e as gibberish. The two sounds most frequently repeated are those rendered = by the letters =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Cthulhu=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 and =E2=80=98=E2= =80=98R=E2=80=99lyeh=E2=80=99=E2=80=99. + +On March 23rd, the manuscript continued, Wilcox failed to appear; and inqu= iries at his quarters revealed that he had been stricken with an obscure so= rt of fever and taken to the home of his family in Waterman Street. He had = cried out in the night, arousing several other artists in the building, and= had manifested since then only alternations of unconsciousness and deliriu= m. My uncle at once telephoned the family, and from that time forward kept = close watch of the case; calling often at the Thayer Street office of Dr. T= obey, whom he learned to be in charge. The youth=E2=80=99s febrile mind, ap= parently, was dwelling on strange things; and the doctor shuddered now and = then as he spoke of them. They included not only a repetition of what he ha= d formerly dreamed, but touched wildly on a gigantic thing =E2=80=98=E2=80= =98miles high=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 which walked or lumbered about. He at no ti= me fully described this object, but occasional frantic words, as repeated b= y Dr. Tobey, convinced the professor that it must be identical with the nam= eless monstrosity he had sought to depict in his dream-sculpture. Reference= to this object, the doctor added, was invariably a prelude to the young ma= n's subsidence into lethargy. His temperature, oddly enough, was not greatl= y above normal; but the whole condition was otherwise such as to suggest tr= ue fever rather than mental disorder. + +On April 2nd at about 3 p. m. every trace of Wilcox=E2=80=99s malady sudde= nly ceased. He sat upright in bed, astonished to find himself at home and c= ompletely ignorant of what had happened in dream or reality since the night= of March 22nd. Pronounced well by his physician, he returned to his quart= ers in three days; but to Professor Angell he was of no further assistance.= All traces of strange dreaming had vanished with his recovery, and my uncl= e kept no record of his night-thoughts after a week of pointless and irrele= vant accounts of thoroughly usual visions. + +HERE the first part of the manuscript ended, but references to certain of = the scattered notes gave me much material for thought=E2=80=94so much, in f= act, that only the ingrained skepticism then forming my philosophy can acco= unt for my continued distrust of the artist. The notes in question were tho= se descriptive of the dreams of various persons covering the same period as= that in which young Wilcox had had his strange visitations. My uncle, it s= eems, had quickly instituted a prodigiously far-flung body of inquiries amo= ngst nearly all the friends whom he could question without impertinence, as= king for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visi= ons for some time past. The reception of his request seems to have been var= ied; but he must, at the very least, have received more responses than any = ordinary man could have handled without a secretary. This original correspo= ndence was not preserved, but his notes formed a thorough and really signif= icant digest. Average people in society and business=E2=80=94New England=E2= =80=99s traditional =E2=80=98=E2=80=98salt of the earth=E2=80=99=E2=80=99= =E2=80=94gave an almost completely negative result, though scattered cases = of uneasy but formless nocturnal impressions appear here and there, always = between March 23rd and April 2nd=E2=80=94the period of young Wilcox's delir= ium. Scientific men were little more affected, though four cases of vague d= escription suggest fugitive glimpses of strange landscapes, and in one case= there is mentioned a dread of something abnormal. + +It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came, and I k= now that panic would have broken loose had they been able to compare notes.= As it was, lacking their original letters, I half suspected the compiler o= f having asked leading questions, or of having edited the correspondence in= corroboration of what he had latently resolved to see. That is why I conti= nued to feel that Wilcox, somehow cognizant of the old data which my uncle = had possessed, had been imposing on the veteran scientist. These responses = from esthetes told a disturbing tale. From February 28th to April 2nd a lar= ge proportion of them had dreamed very bizarre things, the intensity of the= dreams being immeasurably the stronger during the period of the sculptor's= delirium. Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported scenes an= d half-sounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described; and some of the = dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward= the last. One case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. = The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and oc= cultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox=E2=80=99s seizur= e, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved = from some escaped denizen of hell. Had my uncle referred to these cases by = name instead of merely by number, I should have attempted some corroboratio= n and personal investigation; but as it was, I succeeded in tracing down on= ly a few. All of these, however, bore out the notes in full. I have often w= ondered if all the objects of the professor=E2=80=99s questioning felt as p= uzzled as did this fraction. It is well that no explanation shall ever reac= h them. + +The press cuttings, as I have intimated, touched on cases of panic, mania,= and eccentricity during the given period. Professor Angell must have emplo= yed a cutting bureau, for the number of extracts was tremendous, and the so= urces scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in Londo= n, where a lone sleeper had leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here= likewise a rambling letter to the editor of a paper in South America, wher= e a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen. A dispatch from= California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse = for some =E2=80=98=E2=80=98glorious fulfilment=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 which neve= r arrives, whilst items from India speak guardedly of serious native unrest= toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiply in Haiti, and African outp= osts report ominous mutterings. American officers in the Philippines find c= ertain tribes bothersome about this time, and New York policemen are mobbed= by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 22-23. The west of Ireland,= too, is full of wild rumor and legendry, and a fantastic painter named Ard= ois-Bonnot hangs a blasphemous Dream Landscape in the Paris spring salon of= 1926. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums that onl= y a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange par= allelisms and drawing mystified conclusions. A weird bunch of cuttings, all= told; and I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism wit= h which I set them aside. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had kn= own of the older matters mentioned by the professor. + +# 2. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse. + +THE older matters which had made the sculptor=E2=80=99s dream and bas-reli= ef so significant to my uncle formed the subject of the second half of his = long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hel= lish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, puzzled over the unknown hierogl= yphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered only as =E2= =80=98=E2=80=98Cthulhu=E2=80=99=E2=80=99; and all this in so stirring and h= orrible a connection that it is small wonder he pursued young Wilcox with q= ueries and demands for data. + +This earlier experience had come in 1908, seventeen years before, when the= American Archeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Profe= ssor Angell, as befitted one of his authority and attainments, had had a pr= ominent part in all the deliberations; and was one of the first to be appro= ached by the several outsiders who took advantage of the convocation to off= er questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution. + +The chief of these outsiders, and in a short time the focus of interest fo= r the entire meeting, was a commonplace-looking middle-aged man who had tra= veled all the way from New Orleans for certain special information unobtain= able from any local source. His name was John Raymond Legrasse, and he was = by profession an inspector of police. With him he bore the subject of his v= isit, a grotesque, repulsive, and apparently very ancient stone statuette w= hose origin he was at a loss to determine. + +It must not be fancied that Inspector Legrasse had the least interest in a= rcheology. On the contrary, his wish for enlightenment was prompted by pure= ly professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it= was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of Ne= w Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and h= ideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but real= ize that they had stumbled on a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infi= nitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. = Of its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales extorted from = the captured members, absolutely nothing was to be discovered; hence the an= xiety of the police for any antiquarian lore which might help them to place= the frightful symbol, and through it track down the cult to its fountainhe= ad. + +Inspector Legrasse was scarcely prepared for the sensation which his offer= ing created. One sight of the thing had been enough to throw the assembled = men of science into a state of tense excitement, and they lost no time in c= rowding around him to gaze at the diminutive figure whose utter strangeness= and air of genuinely abysmal antiquity hinted so potently at unopened and = archaic vistas. No recognized school of sculpture had animated this terribl= e object, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its = dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone. + +The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and = careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisi= tely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid o= utline, but with an octopuslike head whose face was a mass of feelers, a sc= aly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long= , narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome an= d unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted = evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable chara= cters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat o= ccupied the center, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouch= ing hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down= toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, s= o that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge forepaws wh= ich clasped the croucher=E2=80=99s elevated knees. The aspect of the whole = was abnormally lifelike, and the more subtly fearful because its source was= so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakab= le; yet not one link did it show with any known type of art belonging to ci= vilization=E2=80=99s youth=E2=80=94or indeed to any other time. + +Totally separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy= , greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations = resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along t= he base were equally baffling; and no member present, despite a representat= ion of half the world=E2=80=99s expert learning in this field, could form t= he least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the s= ubject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct fro= m mankind as we know it; something frightfully suggestive of old and unhall= owed cycles of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part. + +And yet, as the members severally shook their heads and confessed defeat a= t the inspector=E2=80=99s problem, there was one man in that gathering who = suspected a touch of bizarre familiarity in the monstrous shape and writing= , and who presently told with some diffidence of the odd trifle he knew. Th= is person was the late William Channing Webb, professor of anthropology in = Princeton University, and an explorer of no slight note. + +Professor Webb had been engaged, forty-eight years before, in a tour of Gr= eenland and Iceland in search of some Runic inscriptions which he failed to= unearth; and whilst high up on the West Greenland coast had encountered a = singular tribe or cult of degenerate Eskimos whose religion, a curious form= of devil-worship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and rep= ulsiveness. It was a faith of which other Eskimos knew little, and which th= ey mentioned only with shudders, saying that it had come down from horribly= ancient eons before ever the world was made. Besides nameless rites and hu= man sacrifices there were certain queer hereditary rituals addressed to a s= upreme elder devil or tornasuk; and of this Professor Webb had taken a care= ful phonetic copy from an aged angekok or wizard-priest, expressing the sou= nds in Roman letters as best he knew how. But just now of prime significanc= e was the fetish which this cult had cherished, and around which they dance= d when the aurora leaped high over the ice cliffs. It was, the professor st= ated, a very crude bas-relief of stone, comprising a hideous picture and so= me cryptic writing. And as far as he could tell, it was a rough parallel in= all essential features of the bestial thing now lying before the meeting. + +These data, received with suspense and astonishment by the assembled membe= rs, proved doubly exciting to Inspector Legrasse; and he began at once to p= ly his informant with questions. Having noted and copied an oral ritual amo= ng the swamp cult-worshipers his men had arrested, he besought the professo= r to remember as best he might the syllables taken down amongst the diaboli= st Eskimos. There then followed an exhaustive comparison of details, and a = moment of really awed silence when both detective and scientist agreed on t= he virtual identity of the phrase common to two hellish rituals so many wor= lds of distance apart. What, in substance, both the Eskimo wizards and the = Louisiana swamp-priests had chanted to their kindred idols was something ve= ry like this=E2=80=94the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional b= reaks in the phrase as chanted aloud: + +=E2=80=9CPh'nglui mglw=E2=80=99nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah=E2=80=99nagl fhtag= n.=E2=80=9D + +Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his= mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them = the words meant. This text, as given, ran something like this: + +=E2=80=9CIn his house at R=E2=80=99lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.=E2=80= =9D + +AND NOW, in response to a general urgent demand, Inspector Legrasse relate= d as fully as possible his experience with the swamp worshipers; telling a = story to which I could see my uncle attached profound significance. It savo= red of the wildest dreams of myth-maker and theosophist, and disclosed an a= stonishing degree of cosmic imagination among such half-castes and pariahs = as might be least expected to possess it. + +On November 1st, 1907, there had come to New Orleans police a frantic summ= ons from the swamp and lagoon country to the south. The squatters there, mo= stly primitive but good-natured descendants of Lafitte=E2=80=99s men, were = in the grip of stark terror from an unknown thing which had stolen upon the= m in the night. It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible so= rt than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disap= peared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far wit= hin the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured. There were insane sh= outs and harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants and dancing devil-flames; = and, the frightened messenger added, the people could stand it no more. + +So a body of twenty police, filling two carriages and an automobile, had s= et out in the late afternoon with the shivering squatter as a guide. At the= end of the passable road they alighted, and for miles splashed on in silen= ce through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and = malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss beset them, and now and then a pil= e of dank stones or fragments of a rotting wall intensified by its hint of = morbid habitation a depression which every malformed tree and every fungous= islet combined to create. At length the squatter settlement, a miserable h= uddle of huts, hove in sight; and hysterical dwellers ran out to cluster ar= ound the group of bobbing lanterns. The muffled beat of tom-toms was now fa= intly audible far, far ahead; and a curdling shriek came at infrequent inte= rvals when the wind shifted. A reddish glare, too, seemed to filter through= the pale undergrowth beyond endless avenues of forest night. Reluctant eve= n to be left alone again, each one of the cowed squatters refused point-bla= nk to advance another inch toward the scene of unholy worship, so Inspector= Legrasse and his nineteen colleagues plunged on unguided into black arcade= s of horror that none of them had ever trod before. + +The region now entered by the police was one of traditionally evil repute,= substantially unknown and untraversed by white men. There were legends of = a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless w= hite polypous thing with luminous eyes; and squatters whispered that bat-wi= nged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight= . They said it had been there before D'Iberville, before La Salle, before t= he Indians, and before even the wholesome beasts and birds of the woods. It= was nightmare itself, and to see it was to die. But it made men dream, and= so they knew enough to keep away. The present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on = the merest fringe of this abhorred area, but that location was bad enough; = hence perhaps the very place of the worship had terrified the squatters mor= e than the shocking sounds and incidents. + +Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse=E2= =80=99s men as they plowed on through the black morass toward the red glare= and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and v= ocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when = the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here w= hipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that= tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempes= ts from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululations would= cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would r= ise in singsong chant that hideous phrase or ritual: + +=E2=80=9CPh'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.=E2=80=9D + +Then the men, having reached a spot where the trees were thinner, came sud= denly in sight of the spectacle itself. Four of them reeled, one fainted, a= nd two were shaken into a frantic cry which the mad cacophony of the orgy f= ortunately deadened. Legrasse dashed swamp water on the face of the faintin= g man, and all stood trembling and nearly hypnotized with horror. + +In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre= =E2=80=99s extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and= twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sim= e or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were bray= ing, bellowing and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the c= enter of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood= a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incon= gruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a w= ide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt= monolith as a center hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the h= elpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the r= ing of worshipers jumped and roared, the general direction of the mass moti= on being from left to right in endless bacchanale between the ring of bodie= s and the ring of fire. + +It may have been only imagination and it may have been only echoes which i= nduced one of the men, an excitable Spaniard, to fancy he heard antiphonal = responses to the ritual from some far and unillumined spot deeper within th= e wood of ancient legendry and horror. This man, Joseph D. Galvez, I later = met and questioned; and he proved distractingly imaginative. He indeed went= so far as to hint of the faint heating of great wings, and of a glimpse of= shining eyes and a mountainous white hulk beyond the remotest trees=E2=80= =94but I suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition. + +Actually, the horrified pause of the men was of comparatively brief durati= on. Duty came first; and although there must have been nearly a hundred mon= grel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plun= ged determinedly into the nauseous rout. For five minutes the resultant din= and chaos were beyond description. Wild blows were struck, shots were fire= d, and escapes were made; but in the end Legrasse was able to count some fo= rty-seven sullen prisoners, whom he forced to dress in haste and fall into = line between two rows of policemen. Five of the worshipers lay dead, and tw= o severely wounded ones were carried away on improvised stretchers by their= fellow-prisoners. The image on the monolith, of course, was carefully remo= ved and carried back by Legrasse. + +Examined at headquarters after a trip of intense strain and weariness, the= prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally = aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes,= largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave= a coloring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questio= ns were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than = negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creat= ures held with surprizing consistency to the central idea of their loathsom= e faith. + +They worshiped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before the= re were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old = Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodi= es had told their secrets in dreams to the first man, who formed a cult whi= ch had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always= existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places a= ll over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his da= rk house in the mighty city of R=E2=80=99lyeh under the waters, should rise= and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when t= he stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberat= e him. + +Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even torture coul= d not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things = of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few. But th= ese were not the Great Old Ones. No man had ever seen the Old Ones. The car= ven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others we= re precisely like him. No one could read the old writing now, but things we= re told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret=E2=80=94tha= t was never spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant meant only this: =E2=80= =98=E2=80=98In his house at R=E2=80=99lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.=E2= =80=99=E2=80=99 + +ONLY two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the res= t were committed to various institutions. All denied a part in the ritual m= urders, and averred that the killing had been done by Black-winged Ones whi= ch had come to them from their immemorial meeting-place in the haunted wood= . But of those mysterious allies no coherent account could ever be gained. = What the police did extract came mainly from an immensely aged mestizo name= d Castro, who claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undyi= ng leaders of the cult in the mountains of China. + +Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations o= f theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed.= There had been eons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had= great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him= , were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. The= y all died vast epochs of time before man came, but there were arts which c= ould revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions= in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars= , and brought Their images with Them. + +These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of fl= esh and blood. They had shape=E2=80=94for did not this star-fashioned image= prove it?=E2=80=94but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars we= re right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when t= he stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived= , They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great = city of R=E2=80=99lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glo= rious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready fo= r Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate The= ir bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them fr= om making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and th= ink whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was oc= curring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. = Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the f= irst men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by mold= ing their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly mind= s of mammals. + +Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols= which the Great Ones showed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark star= s. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secre= t priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and= resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind= would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and= evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing a= nd reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways t= o shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would fl= ame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropr= iate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow for= th the prophecy of their return. + +In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old Ones in drea= ms, but then something had happened. The great stone city R=E2=80=99lyeh, w= ith its monoliths and sepulchers, had sunk beneath the waves; and the deep = waters, full of the one primal mystery through which not even thought can p= ass, had cut off the spectral intercourse. But memory never died, and high = priests said that the city would rise again when the stars were right. Then= came out of the earth the black spirits of earth, moldy and shadowy, and f= ull of dim rumors picked up in caverns beneath forgotten sea-bottoms. But o= f them old Castro dared not speak much. He cut himself off hurriedly, and n= o amount of persuasion or subtlety could elicit more in this direction. The= size of the Old Ones, too, he curiously declined to mention. Of the cult, = he said that he thought the center lay amid the pathless deserts of Arabia,= where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. It was not a= llied to the European witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its memb= ers. No book had ever really hinted of it, though the deathless Chinamen sa= id that there were double meanings in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdu= l Alhazred which the initiated might read as they chose, especially the muc= h-discussed couplet: + +=E2=80=9CThat is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange eons eve= n death may die.=E2=80=9D + +Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, had inquired in va= in concerning the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro, apparently, ha= d told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret. The authorities at= Tulane University could shed no light upon either cult or image, and now t= he detective had come to the highest authorities in the country and met wit= h no more than the Greenland tale of Professor Webb. + +THE feverish interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse=E2=80=99s tale, c= orroborated as it was by the statuette, is echoed in the subsequent corresp= ondence of those who attended; although scant mention occurs in the formal = publication of the society. Caution is the first care of those accustomed t= o face occasional charlatanry and imposture. Legrasse for some time lent th= e image to Professor Webb, but at the latter=E2=80=99s death it was returne= d to him and remains in his possession, where I viewed it not long ago. It = is truly a terrible thing, and unmistakably akin to the dream-sculpture of = young Wilcox. + +That my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor I did not wonder, fo= r what thoughts must arise upon hearing, after a knowledge of what Legrasse= had learned of the cult, of a sensitive young man who had dreamed not only= the figure and exact hieroglyphics of the swamp-found image and the Greenl= and devil tablet, but had come in his dreams upon at least three of the pre= cise words of the formula uttered alike by Eskimo diabolists and mongrel Lo= uisianans? Professor Angell=E2=80=99s instant start on an investigation of = the utmost thoroughness was eminently natural; though privately I suspected= young Wilcox of having heard of the cult in some indirect way, and of havi= ng invented a series of dreams to heighten and continue the mystery at my u= ncle=E2=80=99s expense. The dream-narratives and cuttings collected by the = professor were, of course, strong corroboration; but the rationalism of my = mind and the extravagance of the whole subject led me to adopt what I thoug= ht the most sensible conclusions. So, after thoroughly studying the manuscr= ipt again and correlating the theosophical and anthropological notes with t= he cult narrative of Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence to see the sculp= tor and give him the rebuke I thought proper for so boldly imposing upon a = learned and aged man. + +Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street, a = hideous Victorian imitation of Seventeenth Century Breton architecture whic= h flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely Colonial houses on the ancie= nt hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in Americ= a. I found him at work in his rooms, and at once conceded from the specimen= s scattered about that his genius is indeed profound and authentic. He will= , I believe, be heard from sometime as one of the great decadents; for he h= as crystallized in clay and will one day mirror in marble those nightmares = and fantasies which Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith m= akes visible in verse and in painting. + +Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect, he turned languidly at my kno= ck and asked me my business without rising. When I told him who I was, he d= isplayed some interest; for my uncle had excited his curiosity in probing h= is strange dreams, yet had never explained the reason for the study. I did = not enlarge his knowledge in this regard, but sought with some subtlety to = draw him out. + +In a short time I became convinced of his absolute sincerity, for he spoke= of the dreams in a manner none could mistake. They and their subconscious = residuum had influenced his art profoundly, and he showed me a morbid statu= e whose contours almost made me shake with the potency of its black suggest= ion. He could not recall having seen the original of this thing except in h= is own dream bas-relief, but the outlines had formed themselves insensibly = under his hands. It was, no doubt, the giant shape he had raved of in delir= ium. That he really knew nothing of the hidden cult, save from what my uncl= e=E2=80=99s relentless catechism had let fall, he soon made clear; and agai= n I strove to think of some way in which he could possibly have received th= e weird impressions. + +He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making me see with = terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone=E2=80=94who= se geometry, he oddly said, was all wrong=E2=80=94and hear with frightened = expectancy the ceaseless, half-mental calling from underground: =E2=80=98= =E2=80=98Cthulhu fhtagn,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Cthulhu fhtagn= .=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 + +These words had formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead Cthulh= u=E2=80=99s dream-vigil in his stone vault at R=E2=80=99lyeh, and I felt de= eply moved despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure, had heard of th= e cult in some casual way, and had soon forgotten it amidst the mass of his= equally weird reading and imagining. Later, by virtue of its sheer impress= iveness, it had found subconscious expression in dreams, in the bas-relief,= and in the terrible statue I now beheld; so that his imposture upon my unc= le had been a very innocent one. The youth was of a type, at once slightly = affected and slightly ill-mannered, which I could never like; but I was wil= ling enough now to admit both his genius and his honesty. I took leave of h= im amicably, and wish him all the success his talent promises. + +The matter of the cult still remained to fascinate me, and at times I had = visions of personal fame from researches into its origin and connections. I= visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and others of that old-time raid= ing-party, saw the frightful image, and even questioned such of the mongrel= prisoners as still survived. Old Castro, unfortunately, had been dead for = some years. What I now heard so graphically at first hand, though it was re= ally no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle had written, exc= ited me afresh; for I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, ver= y secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthro= pologist of note. My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I w= ish it still were, and I discounted with almost inexplicable perversity the= coincidence of the dream notes and odd cuttings collected by Professor Ang= ell. + +One thing which I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that m= y uncle=E2=80=99s death was far from natural. He fell on a narrow hill stre= et leading up from an ancient waterfront swarming with foreign mongrels, af= ter a careless push from a negro sailor. I did not forget the mixed blood a= nd marine pursuits of the cult-members in Louisiana, and would not be surpr= ized to learn of secret methods and poison needles as ruthless and as ancie= ntly known as the cryptic rites and beliefs. Legrasse and his men, it is tr= ue, have been let alone; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw things is d= ead. Might not the deeper inquiries of my uncle after encountering the scul= ptor's data have come to sinister ears? I think Professor Angell died becau= se he knew too much, or because he was likely to learn too much. Whether I = shall go as he did remains to be seen, for I have learned much now. + +# 3. The Madness from the Sea. + +IF HEAVEN ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total effacing of t= he results of a mere chance which fixed my eye on a certain stray piece of = shelf-paper. It was nothing on which I would naturally have stumbled in the= course of my daily round, for it was an old number of an Australian journa= l, Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. It had escaped even the cutting bure= au which had at the time of its issuance been avidly collecting material fo= r my uncle=E2=80=99s research. + +I had largely given over my inquiries into what Professor Angell called th= e =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Cthulhu Cult,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 and was visiting a lear= ned friend of Paterson, New Jersey; the curator of a local museum and a min= eralogist of note. Examining one day the reserve specimens roughly set on t= he storage shelves in a rear room of the museum, my eye was caught by an od= d picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. It was the Sy= dney Bulletin I have mentioned, for my friend has wide affiliations in all = conceivable foreign parts; and the picture was a half-tone cut of a hideous= stone image almost identical with that which Legrasse had found in the swa= mp. + +Eagerly clearing the sheet of its precious contents, I scanned the item in= detail; and was disappointed to find it of only moderate length. What it s= uggested, however, was of portentous significance to my flagging quest; and= I carefully tore it out for immediate action. It read as follows: + +=3D=3D=3D + +MYSTERY DERELICT FOUND AT SEA + +Vigilant Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow. One Survivo= r and Dead Man Found Aboard. Tale of Desperate Battle and Deaths at Sea. Re= scued Seaman Refuses Particulars of Strange Experience. Odd Idol Found in H= is Possession. Inquiry to Follow. + +The Morrison Co.=E2=80=99s freighter Vigilant, bound from Valparaiso, arri= ved this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour, having in tow the battled= and disabled but heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N. Z., which = was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude 34=C2=B0 21=E2=80=99, W. Longitude 15= 2=C2=B0 17=E2=80=99, with one living and one dead man aboard. + +The Vigilant left Valparaiso March 25th, and on April 2d was driven consid= erably south of her course by exceptionally heavy storms and monster waves.= On April 12th the derelict was sighted; and though apparently deserted, wa= s found upon boarding to contain one survivor in a half-delirious condition= and one man who had evidently been dead for more than a week. + +The living man was clutching a horrible stone idol of unknown origin, abou= t a foot in height, regarding whose nature authorities at Sydney University= , the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street all profess complete = bafflement, and which the survivor says he found in the cabin of the yacht,= in a small carved shrine of common pattern. + +This man, after recovering his senses, told an exceedingly strange story o= f piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian of some intellig= ence, and had been second mate of the two-masted schooner Emma of Auckland,= which sailed for Callao February 20th, with a complement of eleven men. + +The Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her course by th= e great storm of March 1st, and on March 22nd, in S. Latitude 49=C2=B0 51= =E2=80=99, W. Longitude 128=C2=B0 34=E2=80=99, encountered the Alert, manne= d by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes. Being ordere= d peremptorily to turn back, Capt. Collins refused; whereupon the strange c= rew began to fire savagely and without warning upon the schooner with a pec= uliarly heavy battery of brass cannon forming part of the yacht=E2=80=99s e= quipment. + +The Emma=E2=80=99s men showed fight, says the survivor, and though the sch= ooner began to sink from shots beneath the waterline they managed to heave = alongside their enemy and board her, grappling with the savage crew on the = yacht=E2=80=99s deck, and being forced to kill them all, the number being s= lightly superior, because of their particularly abhorrent and desperate tho= ugh rather clumsy mode of fighting. + +Three of the Emma's men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, wer= e killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen proceeded to n= avigate the captured yacht, going ahead in their original direction to see = if any reason for their ordering back had existed. + +The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island, althou= gh none is known to exist in that part of the oceans and six of the men som= ehow died ashore, though Johansen is queerly reticent about this part of hi= s story and speaks only of their falling into a rock chasm. + +Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried to manag= e her, but were beaten about by the storm of April 2nd. + +From that time till his rescue on the 12th, the man remembers little, and = he does not even recall when William Briden, his companion, died. Briden=E2= =80=99s death reveals no apparent cause, and was probably due to excitement= or exposure. + +Cable advices from Dunedin report that the Alert was well known there as a= n island trader, and bore an evil reputation along the waterfront. It was o= wned by a curious group of half-castes whose frequent meetings and night tr= ips to the woods attracted no little curiosity; and it had set sail in grea= t haste just after the storm and earth tremors of March 1st. + +Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an excellent reputa= tion, and Johansen is described as a sober and worthy man. + +The admiralty will institute an inquiry on the whole matter beginning tomo= rrow, at which every effort will be made to induce Johansen to speak more f= reely than he has done hitherto. + +=3D=3D=3D + +This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image; but what a t= rain of ideas it started in my mind! Here were new treasuries of data on th= e Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that it had strange interests at sea as well a= s on land. What motive prompted the hybrid crew to order back the Emma as t= hey sailed about with their hideous idol? What was the unknown island on wh= ich six of the Emma=E2=80=99s crew had died, and about which the mate Johan= sen was so secretive? What had the vice-admiralty=E2=80=99s investigation b= rought out, and what was known of the noxious cult in Dunedin? And most mar= velous of all, what deep and more than natural linkage of dates was this wh= ich gave a malign and now undeniable significance to the various turns of e= vents so carefully noted by my uncle? + +March 1st=E2=80=94our February 28th according to the International Date Li= ne=E2=80=94the earthquake and storm had come. From Dunedin the Alert and he= r noisome crew had darted eagerly forth as if imperiously summoned, and on = the other side of the earth poets and artists had begun to dream of a stran= ge, dank Cyclopean city whilst a young sculptor had molded in his sleep the= form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an = unknown island and left six men dead; and on that date the dreams of sensit= ive men assumed a heightened vividness and darkened with dread of a giant m= onster=E2=80=99s malign pursuit, whilst an architect had gone mad and a scu= lptor had lapsed suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2n= d=E2=80=94the date on which all dreams of the dank city ceased, and Wilcox = emerged unharmed from the bondage of strange fever? What of all this=E2=80= =94and of those hints of old Castro about the sunken, star-born Old Ones an= d their coming reign; their faithful cult and their mastery of dreams? Was = I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man=E2=80=99s power to he= ar? If so, they must he horrors of the mind alone, for in some way the seco= nd of April had put a stop to whatever monstrous menace had begun its siege= of mankind=E2=80=99s soul. + +THAT evening, after a day of hurried calling and arranging, I bade my host= adieu and took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I was in Du= nedin; where, however, I found that little was known of the strange cult-me= mbers who had lingered in the old sea taverns. Waterfront scum was far too = common for special mention; though there was vague talk about one inland tr= ip these mongrels had made, during which faint drumming and red flame were = noted on the distant hills. + +In Auckland I learned that Johansen had returned with yellow hair turned w= hite after a perfunctory and inconclusive questioning at Sydney, and had th= ereafter sold his cottage in West Street and sailed with his wife to his ol= d home in Oslo. Of his stirring experience he would tell his friends no mor= e than he had told the admiralty officials, and all they could do was to gi= ve me his Oslo address. + +After that I went to Sydney and talked profitlessly with seamen and member= s of the vice-admiralty court. I saw the Alert, now sold and in commercial = use, at Circular Quay in Sydney Cove, but gained nothing from its non-commi= ttal bulk. The crouching image with its cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly= wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park= ; and I studied it long and well, finding it a thing of balefully exquisite= workmanship, and with the same utter mystery, terrible antiquity, and unea= rthly strangeness of material which I had noted in Legrasse=E2=80=99s small= er specimen. Geologists, the curator told me, had found it a monstrous puzz= le; for they vowed that the world held no rock like it. Then I thought with= a shudder of what old Castro had told Legrasse about the primal Great Ones= : =E2=80=98=E2=80=98They had come from the stars, and had brought Their ima= ges with Them.=E2=80=9D=E2=80=99 + +Shaken with such a mental revolution as I had never before known, I now re= solved to visit Mate Johansen in Oslo. Sailing for London, I re-embarked at= once for the Norwegian capital; and one autumn day landed at the trim whar= ves in the shadow of the Egeberg. + +Johansen=E2=80=99s address, I discovered, lay in the Old Town of King Haro= ld Haardrada, which kept alive the name of Oslo during all the centuries th= at the greater city masqueraded as =E2=80=98=E2=80=98Christiania.=E2=80=99= =E2=80=99 I made the brief trip by taxicab, and knocked with palpitant hear= t at the door of a neat and ancient building with plastered front. A sad-fa= ced woman in black answered my summons, and I was stung with disappointment= when she told me in halting English that Gustaf Johansen was no more. + +He had not long survived his return, said his wife, for the doings at sea = in 1925 had broken him. He had told her no more than he had told the public= , but had left a long manuscript=E2=80=94of =E2=80=98=E2=80=98technical mat= ters=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 as he said=E2=80=94written in English, evidently in = order to safeguard her from the peril of casual perusal. During a walk thro= ugh a narrow lane near the Gothenburg dock, a bundle of papers falling from= an attic window had knocked him down. Two Lascar sailors at once helped hi= m to his feet, but before the ambulance could reach him he was dead. Physic= ians found no adequate cause for the end, and laid it to heart trouble and = a weakened constitution. + +I now felt gnawing at my vitals that dark terror which will never leave me= till I, too, am at rest; =E2=80=98=E2=80=98accidentally=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 = or otherwise. Persuading the widow that my connection with her husband=E2= =80=99s =E2=80=98=E2=80=98technical matters=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 was sufficien= t to entitle me to his manuscript, I bore the document away and began to re= ad it on the London boat. + +It was a simple, rambling thing=E2=80=94a naive sailor=E2=80=99s effort at= a post-facto diary=E2=80=94and strove to recall day by day that last awful= voyage. I can not attempt to transcribe it verbatim in all its cloudiness = and redundance, but I will tell its gist enough to show why the sound of th= e water against the vessel=E2=80=99s sides became so unendurable to me that= I stopped my ears with cotton. + +Johansen, thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw the city a= nd the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horr= ors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those un= hallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known an= d favored by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them on the world wh= enever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to t= he sun and air. + +JOHANSEN=E2=80=99s voyage had begun just as he told it to the vice-admiral= ty. The Emma, in ballast, had cleared Auckland on February 20th, and had fe= lt the full force of that earthquake-born tempest which must have heaved up= from the sea-bottom the horrors that filled men=E2=80=99s dreams. Once mor= e under control, the ship was making good progress when held up by the Aler= t on March 22nd, and I could feel the mate=E2=80=99s regret as he wrote of = her bombardment and sinking. Of the swarthy cult-fiends on the Alert he spe= aks with significant horror. There was some peculiarly abominable quality a= bout them which made their destruction seem almost a duty, and Johansen sho= ws ingenuous wonder at the charge of ruthlessness brought against his party= during the proceedings of the court of inquiry. Then, driven ahead by curi= osity in their captured yacht under Johansen=E2=80=99s command, the men sig= ht a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47=C2= =B0 9=E2=80=99, W. Longitude 126=C2=B0 43=E2=80=99 come upon a coastline of= mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less t= han the tangible substance of earth=E2=80=99s supreme terror=E2=80=94the ni= ghtmare corpse-city of R=E2=80=99lyeh, that was built in measureless eons b= ehind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark = stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults= and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spre= ad fear to the dreams of the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithf= ul to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration. All this Johansen= did not suspect, but God knows he soon saw enough! + +I suppose that only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-crowned ci= tadel whereon great Cthulhu was buried, actually emerged from the waters. W= hen I think of the extent of all that may be brooding down there I almost w= ish to kill myself forthwith. Johansen and his men were awed by the cosmic = majesty of this dripping Babylon of elder demons, and must have guessed wit= hout guidance that it was nothing of this or of any sane planet. Awe at the= unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks, at the dizzying height of = the great carven monolith, and at the stupefying identity of the colossal s= tatues and bas-reliefs with the queer image found in the shrine on the Aler= t, is poignantly visible in every line of the mate=E2=80=99s frightened des= cription. + +Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very cl= ose to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite= structure or building, he dwells only on the broad impressions of vast ang= les and stone surfaces=E2=80=94surfaces too great to belong to anything rig= ht or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyp= hs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox ha= d told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-p= lace he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of sphere= s and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same th= ing whilst gazing at the terrible reality. + +Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mud-bank on this monstrous Acropo= lis, and clambered slipperily up over titan oozy blocks which could have be= en no mortal staircase. The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed= through the polarizing miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion,= and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive = angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after the firs= t showed convexity. + +Something very like fright had come over all the explorers before anything= more definite than rock and ooze and weed was seen. Each would have fled h= ad he not feared the scorn of the others, and it was only half-heartedly th= at they searched=E2=80=94vainly, as it proved=E2=80=94for some portable sou= venir to bear away. + +It was Rodriguez the Portuguese who climbed up the foot of the monolith an= d shouted of what he had found. The rest followed him, and looked curiously= at the immense carved door with the now familiar squid-dragon bas-relief. = It was, Johansen said, like a great barn-door; and they all felt that it wa= s a door because of the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, thou= gh they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trapdoor or slantwise l= ike an outside cellar-door. As Wilcox would have said, the geometry of the = place was all wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were= horizontal, hence the relative position of everything else seemed fantasma= lly variable. + +Briden pushed at the stone in several places without result. Then Donovan = felt over it delicately around the edge, pressing each point separately as = he went. He climbed interminably along the grotesque stone molding=E2=80=94= that is, one would call it climbing if the thing was not after all horizont= al=E2=80=94and the men wondered how any door in the universe could be so va= st. Then, very softly and slowly, the acre-great panel began to give inward= at the top; and they saw that it was balanced. + +Donovan slid or somehow propelled himself down or along the jamb and rejoi= ned his fellows, and everyone watched the queer recession of the monstrousl= y carven portal. In this fantasy of prismatic distortion it moved anomalous= ly in a diagonal way, so that all the rules of matter and perspective seeme= d upset. + +The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness= was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner wal= ls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from= its eon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into= the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membranous wings. The odor arisin= g from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and at length the quick-ear= ed Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, slopping sound down there. Everyone li= stened, and everyone was listening still when It lumbered slobberingly into= sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the bl= ack doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness. + +Poor Johansen=E2=80=99s handwriting almost gave out when he wrote of this.= Of the six men who never reached the ship, he thinks two perished of pure = fright in that accursed instant. The Thing can not be described=E2=80=94the= re is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such = eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain = walked or stumbled. God! What wonder that across the earth a great architec= t went mad, and poor Wilcox raved with fever in that telepathic instant? Th= e Thing of the idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awaked to c= laim his own. The stars were right again, and what an age-old cult had fail= ed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After = vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for deli= ght. + +Three men were swept up by the flabby claws before anybody turned. God res= t them, if there be any rest in the universe. They were Donovan, Guerrera a= nd Angstrom. Parker slipped as the other three were plunging frenziedly ove= r endless vistas of green-crusted rock to the boat, and Johansen swears he = was swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn=E2=80=99t have been t= here; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse. So only B= riden and Johansen reached the boat, and pulled desperately for the Alert a= s the mountainous monstrosity flopped down the slimy stones and hesitated f= loundering at the edge of the water. + +Steam had not been suffered to go down entirely, despite the departure of = all hands for the shore; and it was the work of only a few moments of fever= ish rushing up and down between wheels and engines to get the Alert under w= ay. Slowly, amidst the distorted horrors of that indescribable scene, she b= egan to churn the lethal waters; whilst on the masonry of that charnel shor= e that was not of earth the titan Thing from the stars slavered and gibbere= d like Polypheme cursing the fleeing ship of Odysseus. Then, bolder than th= e storied Cyclops, great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to = pursue with vast wave-raising strokes of cosmic potency. Briden looked back= and went mad, laughing shrilly as he kept on laughing at intervals till de= ath found him one night in the cabin whilst Johansen was wandering deliriou= sly. + +But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely ov= ertake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chanc= e; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and r= eversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome br= ine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove h= is vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean f= roth like the stern of a demon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing = feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen dr= ove on relentlessly. + +There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of = a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that= the chronicler would not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befoule= d by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous = seething astern; where=E2=80=94God in heaven!=E2=80=94the scattered plastic= ity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful or= iginal form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained i= mpetus from its mounting steam. + +THAT was all. After that Johansen only brooded over the idol in the cabin = and attended to a few matters of food for himself and the laughing maniac b= y his side. He did not try to navigate after the first bold flight, for the= reaction had taken something out of his soul. Then came the storm of April= 2nd, and a gathering of the clouds about his consciousness. There is a sen= se of spectral whirling through liquid gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides= through reeling universes on a comet=E2=80=99s tail, and of hysterical plu= nges from the pit to the moon and from the moon back again to the pit, all = livened by a cachinnating chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and= the green, bat-winged mocking imps of Tartarus. + +Out of that dream came rescue=E2=80=94the Vigilant, the vice-admiralty cou= rt, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the old house = by the Egeberg. He could not tell=E2=80=94they would think him mad. He woul= d write of what he knew before death came, but his wife must not guess. Dea= th would be a boon if only it could blot out the memories. + +That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box besi= de the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall go this= record of mine=E2=80=94this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced toget= her that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I have looked upo= n all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring= and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But I do no= t think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I= shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives. + +Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which ha= s shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once mo= re, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his mi= nisters on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoli= ths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst withi= n his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright = and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk m= ay rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over= the tottering cities of men. A time will come=E2=80=94but I must not and c= an not think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my exe= cutors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye. --=20 2.32.0