The House on the Borderland

by William Hope Hodgson

  _XV_

  THE NOISE IN THE NIGHT

  And now, I come to the strangest of all the strange happenings thathave befallen me in this house of mysteries. It occurred quitelately--within the month; and I have little doubt but that what I sawwas in reality the end of all things. However, to my story.

  I do not know how it is; but, up to the present, I have never been ableto write these things down, directly they happened. It is as though Ihave to wait a time, recovering my just balance, and digesting--as itwere--the things I have heard or seen. No doubt, this is as it shouldbe; for, by waiting, I see the incidents more truly, and write of themin a calmer and more judicial frame of mind. This by the way.

  It is now the end of November. My story relates to what happened in thefirst week of the month.

  It was night, about eleven o'clock. Pepper and I kept one anothercompany in the study--that great, old room of mine, where I read andwork. I was reading, curiously enough, the Bible. I have begun, in theselater days, to take a growing interest in that great and ancient book.Suddenly, a distinct tremor shook the house, and there came a faint anddistant, whirring buzz, that grew rapidly into a far, muffled screaming.It reminded me, in a queer, gigantic way, of the noise that a clockmakes, when the catch is released, and it is allowed to run down. Thesound appeared to come from some remote height--somewhere up in thenight. There was no repetition of the shock. I looked across at Pepper.He was sleeping peacefully.

  Gradually, the whirring noise decreased, and there came a long silence.

  All at once, a glow lit up the end window, which protrudes far out fromthe side of the house, so that, from it, one may look both East andWest. I felt puzzled, and, after a moment's hesitation, walked acrossthe room, and pulled aside the blind. As I did so, I saw the Sun rise,from behind the horizon. It rose with a steady, perceptible movement. Icould see it travel upward. In a minute, it seemed, it had reached thetops of the trees, through which I had watched it. Up, up--It was broaddaylight now. Behind me, I was conscious of a sharp, mosquito-likebuzzing. I glanced 'round, and knew that it came from the clock. Even asI looked, it marked off an hour. The minute hand was moving 'round thedial, faster than an ordinary second-hand. The hour hand moved quicklyfrom space to space. I had a numb sense of astonishment. A moment later,so it seemed, the two candles went out, almost together. I turnedswiftly back to the window; for I had seen the shadow of thewindow-frames, traveling along the floor toward me, as though a greatlamp had been carried up past the window.

  I saw now, that the sun had risen high into the heavens, and was stillvisibly moving. It passed above the house, with an extraordinary sailingkind of motion. As the window came into shadow, I saw anotherextraordinary thing. The fine-weather clouds were not passing, easily,across the sky--they were scampering, as though a hundred-mile-an-hourwind blew. As they passed, they changed their shapes a thousand times aminute, as though writhing with a strange life; and so were gone. And,presently, others came, and whisked away likewise.

  To the West, I saw the sun, drop with an incredible, smooth, swiftmotion. Eastward, the shadows of every seen thing crept toward thecoming greyness. And the movement of the shadows was visible to me--astealthy, writhing creep of the shadows of the wind-stirred trees. Itwas a strange sight.

  Quickly, the room began to darken. The sun slid down to the horizon,and seemed, as it were, to disappear from my sight, almost with a jerk.Through the greyness of the swift evening, I saw the silver crescent ofthe moon, falling out of the Southern sky, toward the West. The eveningseemed to merge into an almost instant night. Above me, the manyconstellations passed in a strange, 'noiseless' circling, Westward. Themoon fell through that last thousand fathoms of the night-gulf, andthere was only the starlight....

  About this time, the buzzing in the corner ceased; telling me that theclock had run down. A few minutes passed, and I saw the Eastward skylighten. A grey, sullen morning spread through all the darkness, and hidthe march of the stars. Overhead, there moved, with a heavy, everlastingrolling, a vast, seamless sky of grey clouds--a cloud-sky that wouldhave seemed motionless, through all the length of an ordinary earth-day.The sun was hidden from me; but, from moment to moment, the world wouldbrighten and darken, brighten and darken, beneath waves of subtle lightand shadow....

  The light shifted ever Westward, and the night fell upon the earth. Avast rain seemed to come with it, and a wind of a most extraordinaryloudness--as though the howling of a nightlong gale, were packed intothe space of no more than a minute.

  This noise passed, almost immediately, and the clouds broke; so that,once more, I could see the sky. The stars were flying Westward, withastounding speed. It came to me now, for the first time, that, thoughthe noise of the wind had passed, yet a constant 'blurred' sound was inmy ears. Now that I noticed it, I was aware that it had been with me allthe time. It was the world-noise.

  And then, even as I grasped at so much comprehension, there came theEastward light. No more than a few heartbeats, and the sun rose,swiftly. Through the trees, I saw it, and then it was above the trees.Up--up, it soared and all the world was light. It passed, with a swift,steady swing to its highest altitude, and fell thence, Westward. I sawthe day roll visibly over my head. A few light clouds flitteredNorthward, and vanished. The sun went down with one swift, clear plunge,and there was about me, for a few seconds, the darker growing grey ofthe gloaming.

  Southward and Westward, the moon was sinking rapidly. The night hadcome, already. A minute it seemed, and the moon fell those remainingfathoms of dark sky. Another minute, or so, and the Eastward sky glowedwith the coming dawn. The sun leapt upon me with a frighteningabruptness, and soared ever more swiftly toward the zenith. Then,suddenly, a fresh thing came to my sight. A black thundercloud rushed upout of the South, and seemed to leap all the arc of the sky, in a singleinstant. As it came, I saw that its advancing edge flapped, like amonstrous black cloth in the heaven, twirling and undulating rapidly,with a horrid suggestiveness. In an instant, all the air was full ofrain, and a hundred lightning flashes seemed to flood downward, as itwere in one great shower. In the same second of time, the world-noisewas drowned in the roar of the wind, and then my ears ached, under thestunning impact of the thunder.

  And, in the midst of this storm, the night came; and then, within thespace of another minute, the storm had passed, and there was only theconstant 'blur' of the world-noise on my hearing. Overhead, the starswere sliding quickly Westward; and something, mayhaps the particularspeed to which they had attained, brought home to me, for the firsttime, a keen realization of the knowledge that it was the world thatrevolved. I seemed to see, suddenly, the world--a vast, darkmass--revolving visibly against the stars.

  The dawn and the sun seemed to come together, so greatly had the speedof the world-revolution increased. The sun drove up, in one long, steadycurve; passed its highest point, and swept down into the Western sky,and disappeared. I was scarcely conscious of evening, so brief was it.Then I was watching the flying constellations, and the Westwardhastening moon. In but a space of seconds, so it seemed, it was slidingswiftly downward through the night-blue, and then was gone. And, almostdirectly, came the morning.

  And now there seemed to come a strange acceleration. The sun made oneclean, clear sweep through the sky, and disappeared behind the Westwardhorizon, and the night came and went with a like haste.

  As the succeeding day, opened and closed upon the world, I was aware ofa sweat of snow, suddenly upon the earth. The night came, and, almostimmediately, the day. In the brief leap of the sun, I saw that the snowhad vanished; and then, once more, it was night.

  Thus matters were; and, even after the many incredible things that Ihave seen, I experienced all the time a most profound awe. To see thesun rise and set, within a space of time to be measured by seconds; towatch (after a little) the moon leap--a pale, and ever growing orb--upinto the night sky, and glide, with a strange swiftness, through thevast arc of blue; and, presently, to see the sun follow, springing outof the Eastern s
ky, as though in chase; and then again the night, withthe swift and ghostly passing of starry constellations, was all too muchto view believingly. Yet, so it was--the day slipping from dawn to dusk,and the night sliding swiftly into day, ever rapidly and more rapidly.

  The last three passages of the sun had shown me a snow-covered earth,which, at night, had seemed, for a few seconds, incredibly weird underthe fast-shifting light of the soaring and falling moon. Now, however,for a little space, the sky was hidden, by a sea of swaying,leaden-white clouds, which lightened and blackened, alternately, withthe passage of day and night.

  The clouds rippled and vanished, and there was once more before me, thevision of the swiftly leaping sun, and nights that came and wentlike shadows.

  Faster and faster, spun the world. And now each day and night wascompleted within the space of but a few seconds; and still the speedincreased.

  It was a little later, that I noticed that the sun had begun to havethe suspicion of a trail of fire behind it. This was due, evidently, tothe speed at which it, apparently, traversed the heavens. And, as thedays sped, each one quicker than the last, the sun began to assume theappearance of a vast, flaming comet[4] flaring across the sky at short,periodic intervals. At night, the moon presented, with much greatertruth, a comet-like aspect; a pale, and singularly clear, fast travelingshape of fire, trailing streaks of cold flame. The stars showed now,merely as fine hairs of fire against the dark.

  Once, I turned from the window, and glanced at Pepper. In the flash ofa day, I saw that he slept, quietly, and I moved once more tomy watching.

  The sun was now bursting up from the Eastern horizon, like a stupendousrocket, seeming to occupy no more than a second or two in hurling fromEast to West. I could no longer perceive the passage of clouds acrossthe sky, which seemed to have darkened somewhat. The brief nights,appeared to have lost the proper darkness of night; so that the hair-likefire of the flying stars, showed but dimly. As the speed increased, thesun began to sway very slowly in the sky, from South to North, and then,slowly again, from North to South.

  So, amid a strange confusion of mind, the hours passed.

  All this while had Pepper slept. Presently, feeling lonely anddistraught, I called to him, softly; but he took no notice. Again, Icalled, raising my voice slightly; still he moved not. I walked over towhere he lay, and touched him with my foot, to rouse him. At the action,gentle though it was, he fell to pieces. That is what happened; heliterally and actually crumbled into a mouldering heap of bonesand dust.

  For the space of, perhaps a minute, I stared down at the shapelessheap, that had once been Pepper. I stood, feeling stunned. What can havehappened? I asked myself; not at once grasping the grim significance ofthat little hill of ash. Then, as I stirred the heap with my foot, itoccurred to me that this could only happen in a great space of time.Years--and years.

  Outside, the weaving, fluttering light held the world. Inside, I stood,trying to understand what it meant--what that little pile of dust anddry bones, on the carpet, meant. But I could not think, coherently.

  I glanced away, 'round the room, and now, for the first time, noticedhow dusty and old the place looked. Dust and dirt everywhere; piled inlittle heaps in the corners, and spread about upon the furniture. Thevery carpet, itself, was invisible beneath a coating of the same, allpervading, material. As I walked, little clouds of the stuff rose upfrom under my footsteps, and assailed my nostrils, with a dry, bitterodor that made me wheeze, huskily.

  Suddenly, as my glance fell again upon Pepper's remains, I stood still,and gave voice to my confusion--questioning, aloud, whether the yearswere, indeed, passing; whether this, which I had taken to be a form ofvision, was, in truth, a reality. I paused. A new thought had struck me.Quickly, but with steps which, for the first time, I noticed, tottered,I went across the room to the great pier-glass, and looked in. It wastoo covered with grime, to give back any reflection, and, with tremblinghands, I began to rub off the dirt. Presently, I could see myself. Thethought that had come to me, was confirmed. Instead of the great, haleman, who scarcely looked fifty, I was looking at a bent, decrepit man,whose shoulders stooped, and whose face was wrinkled with the years of acentury. The hair--which a few short hours ago had been nearly coalblack--was now silvery white. Only the eyes were bright. Gradually, Itraced, in that ancient man, a faint resemblance to my self ofother days.

  I turned away, and tottered to the window. I knew, now, that I was old,and the knowledge seemed to confirm my trembling walk. For a littlespace, I stared moodily out into the blurred vista of changefullandscape. Even in that short time, a year passed, and, with a petulantgesture, I left the window. As I did so, I noticed that my hand shookwith the palsy of old age; and a short sob choked its way throughmy lips.

  For a little while, I paced, tremulously, between the window and thetable; my gaze wandering hither and thither, uneasily. How dilapidatedthe room was. Everywhere lay the thick dust--thick, sleepy, and black.The fender was a shape of rust. The chains that held the brassclock-weights, had rusted through long ago, and now the weights lay onthe floor beneath; themselves two cones of verdigris.

  As I glanced about, it seemed to me that I could see the very furnitureof the room rotting and decaying before my eyes. Nor was this fancy, onmy part; for, all at once, the bookshelf, along the sidewall, collapsed,with a cracking and rending of rotten wood, precipitating its contentsupon the floor, and filling the room with a smother of dusty atoms.

  How tired I felt. As I walked, it seemed that I could hear my dryjoints, creak and crack at every step. I wondered about my sister. Wasshe dead, as well as Pepper? All had happened so quickly and suddenly.This must be, indeed, the beginning of the end of all things! Itoccurred to me, to go to look for her; but I felt too weary. And then,she had been so queer about these happenings, of late. Of late! Irepeated the words, and laughed, feebly--mirthlessly, as the realizationwas borne in upon me that I spoke of a time, half a century gone. Half acentury! It might have been twice as long!

  I moved slowly to the window, and looked out once more across theworld. I can best describe the passage of day and night, at this period,as a sort of gigantic, ponderous flicker. Moment by moment, theacceleration of time continued; so that, at nights now, I saw the moon,only as a swaying trail of palish fire, that varied from a mere line oflight to a nebulous path, and then dwindled again, disappearingperiodically.

  The flicker of the days and nights quickened. The days had grownperceptibly darker, and a queer quality of dusk lay, as it were, in theatmosphere. The nights were so much lighter, that the stars werescarcely to be seen, saving here and there an occasional hair-like lineof fire, that seemed to sway a little, with the moon.

  Quicker, and ever quicker, ran the flicker of day and night; and,suddenly it seemed, I was aware that the flicker had died out, and,instead, there reigned a comparatively steady light, which was shed uponall the world, from an eternal river of flame that swung up and down,North and South, in stupendous, mighty swings.

  The sky was now grown very much darker, and there was in the blue of ita heavy gloom, as though a vast blackness peered through it upon theearth. Yet, there was in it, also, a strange and awful clearness, andemptiness. Periodically, I had glimpses of a ghostly track of fire thatswayed thin and darkly toward the sun-stream; vanished and reappeared.It was the scarcely visible moon-stream.

  Looking out at the landscape, I was conscious again, of a blurring sortof 'flitter,' that came either from the light of the ponderous-swingingsun-stream, or was the result of the incredibly rapid changes of theearth's surface. And every few moments, so it seemed, the snow would liesuddenly upon the world, and vanish as abruptly, as though an invisiblegiant 'flitted' a white sheet off and on the earth.

  Time fled, and the weariness that was mine, grew insupportable. Iturned from the window, and walked once across the room, the heavy dustdeadening the sound of my footsteps. Each step that I took, seemed agreater effort than the one before. An intolerable ache, knew me inevery joint and limb,
as I trod my way, with a weary uncertainty.

  By the opposite wall, I came to a weak pause, and wondered, dimly, whatwas my intent. I looked to my left, and saw my old chair. The thought ofsitting in it brought a faint sense of comfort to my bewilderedwretchedness. Yet, because I was so weary and old and tired, I wouldscarcely brace my mind to do anything but stand, and wish myself pastthose few yards. I rocked, as I stood. The floor, even, seemed a placefor rest; but the dust lay so thick and sleepy and black. I turned, witha great effort of will, and made toward my chair. I reached it, with agroan of thankfulness. I sat down.

  Everything about me appeared to be growing dim. It was all so strangeand unthought of. Last night, I was a comparatively strong, thoughelderly man; and now, only a few hours later--! I looked at the littledust-heap that had once been Pepper. Hours! and I laughed, a feeble,bitter laugh; a shrill, cackling laugh, that shocked my dimming senses.

  For a while, I must have dozed. Then I opened my eyes, with a start.Somewhere across the room, there had been a muffled noise of somethingfalling. I looked, and saw, vaguely, a cloud of dust hovering above apile of _debris_. Nearer the door, something else tumbled, with a crash.It was one of the cupboards; but I was tired, and took little notice. Iclosed my eyes, and sat there in a state of drowsy, semi-unconsciousness.Once or twice--as though coming through thick mists--I heard noises,faintly. Then I must have slept.