The church was scarce lighted by all the lanthorns[49] that had entered it, for most of the throng had already vanished. They had streamed up the aisle between the high white[50] pews to the trap-door[51] of the vaults which yawned loathsomely open just before the pulpit, and were now squirming noiselessly in. I followed dumbly down the footworn[52] steps and into the dank,[53] suffocating crypt. The tail of that sinuous line of night-marchers seemed very horrible, and as I saw them wriggling into a venerable tomb they seemed more horrible still. Then I noticed that the tomb’s floor had an aperture down which the throng was sliding, and in a moment we were all descending an ominous staircase of rough-hewn stone; a narrow spiral staircase damp and peculiarly odorous, that wound endlessly down into the bowels of the hill[54] past monotonous walls of dripping stone blocks and crumbling mortar. It was a silent, shocking descent, and I observed after a horrible interval that the walls and steps were changing in nature, as if chiselled[55] out of the solid rock. What mainly troubled me was that the myriad footfalls made no sound and set up no echoes.[56] After more aeons[57] of descent I saw some side passages or burrows leading from unknown recesses of blackness to this shaft of nighted mystery. Soon they became excessively numerous, like impious catacombs of nameless menace; and their pungent odour[58] of decay grew quite unbearable. I knew we must have passed down through the mountain and beneath the earth of Kingsport itself, and I shivered that a town should be so aged and maggoty with subterraneous evil.
Then I saw the lurid shimmering of pale light, and heard the insidious lapping of sunless waters. Again I shivered, for I did not like the things that the night had brought, and wished bitterly that no forefather had summoned me to this primal rite. As the steps and the passage grew broader, I heard another sound, the thin, whining mockery of a feeble flute; and suddenly there spread out before me the boundless vista of an inner world—a vast fungous shore litten by a belching column of sick greenish flame and washed by a wide oily river that flowed from abysses frightful and unsuspected to join the blackest gulfs of immemorial ocean.
Fainting and gasping, I looked at that unhallowed Erebus of titan toadstools, leprous fire,[59] and slimy water, and saw the cloaked throngs forming a semicircle around the blazing pillar. It was the Yule-rite, older than man and fated to survive him; the primal rite of the solstice and of spring’s promise beyond the snows; the rite of fire and evergreen, light and music. And in that Stygian[60] grotto I saw them do the rite, and adore the sick pillar of flame, and throw into the water handfuls gouged out of the viscous vegetation which glittered green in the chlorotic glare. I saw this, and I saw something amorphously squatted far away from the light, piping noisomely on a flute; and as the thing piped I thought I heard noxious muffled flutterings in the foetid[61] darkness where I could not see. But what frightened me most was that flaming column; spouting volcanically from depths profound and inconceivable, casting no shadows as healthy flame should, and coating the nitrous stone above[62] with a nasty, venomous verdigris. For in all that seething combustion no warmth lay, but only the clamminess of death and corruption.
The man who had brought me now squirmed to a point directly beside the hideous flame, and made stiff ceremonial motions to the semicircle he faced. At certain stages of the ritual they did grovelling[63] obeisance, especially when he held above his head that abhorrent “Necronomicon”[64] he had taken with him; and I shared all the obeisances because I had been summoned to this festival by the writings of my forefathers. Then the old man made a signal to the half-seen flute-player in the darkness, which player thereupon changed its feeble drone to a scarce louder drone in another key; precipitating as it did so a horror unthinkable and unexpected. At this horror I sank nearly to the lichened earth, transfixed with a dread not of this nor[65] any world, but only of the mad spaces between the stars.
Out of the unimaginable blackness beyond the gangrenous glare of that cold flame, out of the tartarean leagues through which that oily river rolled uncanny, unheard, and unsuspected, there flopped rhythmically a horde of tame, trained, hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember. They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings;[66] but something I cannot[67] and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membraneous[68] wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the cowled figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one along the reaches of that unlighted river, into pits and galleries of panic where poison springs feed frightful and undiscoverable cataracts.
The old spinning woman had gone with the throng, and the old man remained only because I had refused when he motioned me to seize an animal and ride like the rest. I saw when I staggered to my feet that the amorphous flute-player had rolled out of sight, but that two of the beasts were patiently standing by. As I hung back, the old man produced his stylus and tablet and wrote that he was the true deputy of my fathers who had founded the Yule worship in this ancient place; that it had been decreed I should come back,[69] and that the most secret mysteries were yet to be performed. He wrote this in a very ancient hand, and when I still hesitated he pulled from his loose robe a seal ring and a watch, both with my family arms, to prove that he was what he said. But it was a hideous proof, because I knew from old papers that that watch had been buried with my great-great-great-great-grandfather in 1698.
Presently the old man drew back his hood and pointed to the family resemblance in his face, but I only shuddered,[70] because I was sure that the face was merely a devilish waxen mask. The flopping animals were now scratching restlessly at the lichens, and I saw that the old man was nearly as restless himself. When one of the things began to waddle and edge away, he turned quickly to stop it; so that the suddenness of his motion dislodged the waxen mask from what should have been his head. And then, because that nightmare’s position barred me from the stone staircase down which we had come, I flung myself into the oily underground river that bubbled somewhere to the caves of the sea; flung myself into that putrescent juice of earth’s inner horrors before the madness of my screams could bring down upon me all the charnel legions these pest-gulfs might conceal.
At the hospital they told me I had been found half-frozen in Kingsport Harbour[71] at dawn, clinging to the drifting spar that accident sent to save me. They told me I had taken the wrong fork of the hill road the night before, and fallen over the cliffs at Orange Point;[72] a thing they deduced[73] from prints found in the snow. There was nothing I could say, because everything was wrong. Everything was wrong, with the broad window shewing[74] a sea of roofs in which only about one in five was ancient, and the sound of trolleys and motors in the streets below. They insisted that this was Kingsport, and I could not deny it.[75] When I went delirious at hearing that the hospital stood near the old churchyard on Central Hill, they sent me to St. Mary’s Hospital in Arkham, where I could have better care. I liked it there, for the doctors were broad-minded,[76] and even lent me their influence in obtaining the carefully sheltered copy of Alhazred’s objectionable “Necronomicon”[77] from the library of Miskatonic University. They said something about a “psychosis”,[78] and agreed I had better get any[79] harassing obsessions off my mind.
So I read again[80] that hideous chapter, and shuddered doubly because it was indeed not new to me. I had seen it before, let footprints tell what they might; and where it was I had seen it were best forgotten. There was no one—in waking hours—who could remind me of it; but my dreams are filled with terror, because of phrases I dare not quote. I dare quote only one paragraph, put into such English as I can make from the awkward Low Latin.
“The nethermost caverns,” wrote the mad Arab, “are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabac say,[81] that happy is the tomb where no wizard h
ath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all[82] ashes. For it is of old rumour[83] that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”[84]
Notes
Editor’s Note: The story was first published in Weird Tales (January 1925). At some subsequent date a new T.Ms. was prepared; this T.Ms. was not prepared by HPL, but bears clear revisions from the first Weird Tales appearance. These revisions appear in the second Weird Tales appearance (October 1933), but it is likely that HPL merely supplied revisions on proofs rather than sending in the T.Ms. (which in fact may even date after the second Weird Tales appearance). The Arkham House editions follow the T.Ms. but make a number of errors in the process.
Texts: A = Weird Tales 5, No. 1 (January 1925): 169–74; B = T.Ms. (JHL); C = Weird Tales 22, No. 4 (October 1933): 519–20, 522–28; D = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 187–95. Copy-text: B.
1. “Efficiunt Daemones, . . . exhibeant.”] “Efficiunt daemones, . . . exhibeant.” A; “Efficiunt daemones, . . . exhibeant.” C; Efficiut Daemones, . . . exhibeant. D
2. —Lactantius.] —Lactantius. A, C; —LACTANTIUS D
3. Christmas] Christmas, A, C
4. and were] om. A, C
5. dark] dark, A, C
6. chimney-pots,] chimneypots, A, C
7. willow-trees] willow trees A, C
8. grey] gray A, C
9. roofs; . . . stars.] roofs. A
10. windswept,] wind-/swept, A; wind-swept, C
11. but] om. D
12. hushed] hushed, A, C
13. sea-taverns] sea taverns A, B, C, D
14. deserted,] deserted D
15. The old . . . case.] om. A
16. walk, for the] walk. The A
17. narrow] narrow, A, C
18. overhanging] over-hanging D
19. seventeenth century.] Seventeenth Century. C
20. marvelled] marveled A, C
21. face] face, A, C
22. too] too much D
23. the] om. A, C
24. mouldy,] moldy, A, C
25. “Marvells of Science”,] “Marvells of Science,” A; Marvells of Science, C, D
26. “Saducismus Triumphatus”] Saducismus Triumphatus C, D
27. Glanvill,] Glanvil, A, C, D
28. “Daemonolatreia”] Daemonolatreia C, D
29. “Necronomicon”] Necronomicon C, D
30. translation;] translation: A, C
31. spinning.] spinning. ¶ A, B, C
32. fathers] father’s A, C
33. “Necronomicon”;] Necronomicon; C, D
34. consciousness. But] consciousness, But B; consciousness, but D
35. eleven] 11 o’clock A
36. cloaks;] cloaks, A, C
37. and] and the A, C
38. lanthorns] lantherns A
39. up] up, A, C, D
40. travellers] travelers A, C
41. centre] center A, C
42. harbour,] harbor, A, C
43. lanthorn] lanthern A
44. church.] church. ¶ A, C
45. sleeve,] seeve, D
46. Then . . . me.] om. D
47. that] the D
48. eyes] eye A, C
49. lanthorns] lantherns A
50. white] om. D
51. trap-door] trapdoor A
52. footworn] foot-/worn B
53. dank,] dark, D
54. hill] hill, A, C
55. chiselled] chiseled A, C
56. echoes.] echoes. ¶ A, C
57. aeons] eons A, C
58. odour] odor A, C
59. fire,] fire A, B, C, D
60. that Stygian] that stygian B; the stygian D
61. foetid] fetid A, C
62. above] om. D
63. grovelling] groveling A, C
64. “Necronomicon”] Necronomicon C, D
65. nor] or D
66. beings;] beings, A, C
67. cannot] can not C
68. membraneous] membranous A, B, C, D
69. back,] back; A, C
70. shuddered,] suddered, D
71. Harbour] Harbor A, C
72. Point;] Point— A, C
73. deduced] deducted A
74. window shewing] window showing A, B, C; windows showing D
75. it.] it. ¶ A, C
76. broad-minded,] broadminded, A
77. “Necronomicon”] Necronomicon C, D
78. “psychosis”,] “psychosis,” A
79. any] my A
80. again] om. D
81. Schacabac say,] Schacabac say A; Schacabao say, D
82. all] all in A, C
83. rumour] rumor A, C
84. “The nethermost . . . crawl.”] not printed as indented text in A, C
Under the Pyramids
(with Harry Houdini)
I.[1]
Mystery attracts mystery. Ever since the wide appearance of my name as a performer of unexplained feats, I have encountered strange narratives and events which my calling has led people to link with my interests and activities. Some of these have been trivial and irrelevant, some deeply dramatic and absorbing, some productive of weird and perilous experiences,[2] and some involving me in extensive scientific and historical research. Many of these matters I have told and shall continue to tell freely; but there is one of which I speak with great reluctance, and which I am now relating only after a session of grilling persuasion from the publishers of this magazine, who had heard vague rumours[3] of it from other members of my family.
The hitherto guarded subject pertains to my non-professional visit to Egypt fourteen years ago, and has been avoided by me for several reasons. For one thing, I am averse to exploiting certain unmistakably actual facts and conditions obviously unknown to the myriad tourists who throng about the pyramids and apparently secreted with much diligence by the authorities at Cairo, who cannot be wholly ignorant of them. For another thing, I dislike to recount an incident in which my own fantastic imagination must have played so great a part. What I saw—or thought I saw—certainly did not take place; but is rather to be viewed as a result of my then recent readings in Egyptology, and of the speculations anent this theme which my environment naturally prompted. These imaginative stimuli, magnified by the excitement of an actual event terrible enough in itself, undoubtedly gave rise to the culminating horror of that grotesque night so long past.
In January, 1910, I had finished a professional engagement in England and signed a contract for a tour of Australian theatres. A liberal time being allowed for the trip, I determined to make the most of it in the sort of travel which chiefly interests me; so accompanied by my wife I drifted pleasantly down the Continent and embarked at Marseilles on the P. & O. Steamer Malwa,[4] bound for Port Said. From that point I proposed to visit the principal historical localities of lower Egypt before leaving finally for Australia.
The voyage was an agreeable one, and enlivened by many of the amusing incidents which befall a magical performer apart from his work. I had intended, for the sake of quiet travel, to keep my name a secret; but was goaded into betraying myself by a fellow-magician whose anxiety to astound the passengers with ordinary tricks tempted me to duplicate and exceed his feats in a manner quite destructive of my incognito. I mention this because of its ultimate effect—an effect I should have forseen before unmasking to a shipload of tourists about to scatter throughout the Nile Valley.[5] What it did was to herald my identity wherever I subsequently went, and deprive my wife and me of all the placid inconspicuousness we had sought. Travelling[6] to seek curiosities, I was often forced to stand inspection as a sort of curiosity myself!
We had come to Egypt in search of the picturesque and the mystically impressive, but f
ound little enough when the ship edged up to Port Said and discharged its passengers in small boats. Low dunes of sand, bobbing buoys in shallow water, and a drearily European small town with nothing of interest save the great De Lesseps statue, made us anxious to get on to something more worth our while. After some discussion we decided to proceed at once to Cairo and the Pyramids, later going to Alexandria for the Australian boat and for whatever Graeco-Roman[7] sights that ancient metropolis might present.
The railway journey was tolerable enough, and consumed only four hours and a half. We saw much of the Suez Canal, whose route we followed as far as Ismailiya,[8] and later had a taste of Old Egypt in our glimpse of the restored fresh-water canal of the Middle Empire. Then at last we saw Cairo glimmering through the growing dusk; a twinkling[9] constellation which became a blaze as we halted at the great Gare Centrale.
But once more disappointment awaited us, for all that we beheld was European save the costumes and the crowds. A prosaic subway led to a square teeming with carriages, taxicabs, and trolley-cars,[10] and gorgeous with electric lights shining on tall buildings; whilst the very theatre where I was vainly requested to play,[11] and which I later attended as a spectator, had recently been renamed the “American Cosmograph”.[12] We stopped at Shepherd’s[13] Hotel, reached in a taxi that sped along broad, smartly built-up streets; and amidst the perfect service of its restaurant, elevators,[14] and generally Anglo-American luxuries the mysterious East and immemorial past seemed very far away.
The next day, however, precipitated us delightfully into the heart of the Arabian Nights[15] atmosphere; and in the winding ways and exotic skyline of Cairo, the Bagdad of Haroun-al-Raschid[16] seemed to live again. Guided by our Baedeker, we had struck east past the Ezbekiyeh[17] Gardens along the Mouski in quest of the native quarter, and were soon in the hands of a clamorous cicerone who—notwithstanding later developments—was assuredly a master at his trade.[18] Not until afterward did I see that I should have applied at the hotel for a licenced[19] guide. This man, a shaven, peculiarly hollow-voiced,[20] and relatively cleanly fellow who looked like a Pharaoh and called himself “Abdul Reis el Drogman”,[21] appeared to have much power over others of his kind; though subsequently the police professed not to know him, and to suggest that reis is merely a name for any person in authority, whilst “Drogman” is obviously no more than a clumsy modification of the word for a leader of tourist parties—dragoman.
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