 Chapter 9 of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. IN THE CELLARS At last, what with being tired and cold and the uneasiness that possessed me, I resolved to take a walk through the house, first calling in at the study for a glass of brandy to warm me. This I did, and while there I examined the door carefully, but found all as I had left it the night before. The day was just breaking as I left the tower, though it was still too dark in the house to be able to see without a light, and I took one of the study candles with me on my round. By the time I had finished the ground floor, the daylight was creeping in wantly through the barred windows. My search had shown me nothing fresh. Everything appeared to be in order, and I was on the point of extinguishing my candle when the thought suggested itself to me to have another glance round the cellars. I had not, if I remember rightly, been into them since my hasty search on the evening of the attack. For perhaps the half of a minute, I hesitated. I would have been very willing to forego the task as, indeed, I am inclined to think any man well might. For all of the great, awe-inspiring rooms in the house, the cellars are the hugest and weirdest. Great gloomy caverns of places, unlit by any ray of daylight. Yet I would not shirk the work. I felt that to do so would smack of sheer cowardice. Besides, as I reassured myself, the cellars were really the most unlikely places in which to come across anything dangerous, considering that they can be entered only through a heavy oaken door, the key of which I carry always on my person. It is in the smallest of these places that I keep my wine, a gloomy hole close to the foot of the cellar stairs, and beyond which I have seldom proceeded. Indeed, safe for rummaging round already mentioned, I doubt whether I had ever before been right through the cellars. As I unlocked the great door at the top of the steps I paused, nervously, a moment, at the strange desolate smell that assailed my nostrils. Then, throwing the barrel of my weapon forward, I descended slowly into the darkness of the underground regions. Reaching the bottom of the stairs I stood for a minute, and listened. All was silent, safe for a faint drip-drip of water, falling drop by drop somewhere to my left. As I stood I noticed how quietly the candle burnt, never a flicker nor flare so utterly windless was the place. Suddenly I moved from cellar to cellar. I had but a very dim memory of their arrangement. The impressions left by my first search were blurred. I had recollections of a succession of great cellars, and of one greater than the rest, the roof of which was upheld by pillars. Beyond that my mind was hazy, and predominated by a sense of cold and darkness and shadows. Now, however, it was different. For, although nervous, I was sufficiently collected to be able to look about me and note the structure and size of the different vaults I entered. Of course, with the amount of light given by my candle, it was not possible to examine each place minutely, but I was enabled to notice as I went along that the walls appeared to be built with wonderful precision and finish, while here and there an occasional massive pillar shot up to support the vaulted roof. Thus I came at last to the great cellar that I remembered. It is reached through a huge arched entrance on which I observed strange fantastic carvings which threw queer shadows under the light of my candle. As I stood and examined these thoughtfully, it occurred to me how strange it was that I should be so little acquainted with my own house. Yet this may be easily understood when one realizes the size of this ancient pile, and the fact that only my old sister and I live in it, occupying a few of the rooms such as I once decide. Holding a light high, I passed on into the cellar and, keeping to the right, paced slowly up until I reached the further end. I walked quietly and looked cautiously about as I went, but so far as the light showed I saw nothing unusual. At the top I turned to the left, still keeping to the wall and so continued, until I had traversed the whole of the vast chamber. As I moved along I noticed that the floor was composed of solid rock, in places covered with a damp mold and others bare or, almost so, save for thin coating of light grey dust. I had halted at the doorway. Now, however, I turned and made my way up to the center of the place, passing among the pillars and glancing to right and left as I moved. About half way up the cellar I stubbed my foot against something that gave out a metallic sound. Stooping quickly I held the candle and saw that the object I had kicked was a large metal ring. Bending lower I cleared the dust from around it and presently discovered that it was attached to a ponderous trap door, black with age. Feeling excited and wondering to where it could lead, I laid my gun on the floor and sticking the candle in the trigger-guard took the ring in both hands and pooled. The trap creaked loudly, the sound echoing vaguely to the huge place, and opened, heavily. Propping the edge on my knee I reached for the candle and held it in the opening, moving it to right and left, but could see nothing. I was puzzled and surprised. There were no signs of steps nor even the appearance of there ever having been any. Nothing save in empty blackness. I might have been looking down into a bottomless, sightless well. Then even as I stared full of perplexity I seemed to hear, far down, as though from untold depths, a faint whisper of sound. I bent my head quickly more into the opening and listened intently. It may have been fancy, but I could have sworn to hearing a soft titter that grew into a hideous, chuckling, faint and distant. Startled I leapt backward, letting the trap fall with a hollow clang that filled the place with echoes. Even then I seemed to hear that mocking, suggestive laughter. But this I knew must be my imagination. The sound I had heard was far too slight to penetrate through the cumbers' trap. For a full minute I stood there quivering, glancing nervously behind and before, but the great cellar was silent as a grave and gradually I shook off the frightened sensation. With a calmer mind I became again curious to know into what that trap opened, but could not then summon sufficient courage to make a further investigation. One thing I felt, however, was that the trap ought to be secured. This I accomplished by placing upon it several large pieces of dressed stone, which I had noticed in my tour along the east wall. Then after a final scrutiny of the rest of the place I retraced my way through the cellars to the stairs and so reached the daylight, with an infinite feeling of relief that the uncomfortable task was accomplished. End of CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. The time of waiting. The sun was now warm and shining brightly, forming a wondrous contrast to the dark and dismal cellars, and it was with comparatively light feelings that I made my way up to the tower to survey the gardens. There I found everything quiet and after a few minutes went down to Mary's room. Here, having knocked and received a reply, I unlocked the door. My sister was sitting quietly on the bed as though waiting. She seemed quite herself again and made no attempt to move away as I approached. Yet I observed that she scanned my face anxiously as though in doubt, and but half assured in her mind that there was nothing to fear from me. To my questions as to how she felt, she replied, sanely enough, that she was hungry and would like to go down to prepare breakfast if I did not mind. For a minute I meditated whether it would be safe to let her out. Finally I told her she might go on condition that she promised not to attempt to leave the house, or meddle with any of the outer doors. At my mention of the doors, a sudden look of fright crossed her face, but she said nothing safe to give the required promise, and then left the room silently. Crossing the floor I approached Pepper. He had waked as I entered, but beyond a slight yelp of pleasure and a soft wrapping with his tail had kept quiet. Now as I patted him he made an attempt to stand up and succeeded, only to fall back on his side with a little yowl of pain. I spoke to him and bade him lie still. I was greatly delighted with his improvement and also with the natural kindness of my sister's heart in taking such good care of him and in spite of her condition of mind. After a while I left him and went downstairs to my study. In a little time Mary appeared carrying a tray on which smoked a hot breakfast. As she entered the room I saw her gaze fasten on the props that supported the study door. Her lips tightened and I thought she paled slightly, but that was all. Putting the tray down at my elbow she was leaving the room quietly when I called her back. She came it seemed a little timidly as though startled, and I noted that her hand clutched at her apron nervously. Come, Mary, I said. Cheer up. Things look brighter. I've seen none of the creatures since yesterday morning early. She looked at me in a curiously puzzled manner as though not comprehending. Then intelligence swept into her eyes and fear. But she said nothing beyond an unintelligible murmur of acquiescence. After that I kept silence. It was evident that any reference to the swine things was more than her shaken nerves could bear. Breakfast over I went up to the tower. Here during the greater part of the day I maintained a strict watch over the gardens. Once or twice I went down to the basement to see how my sister was getting along. Each time I found her quiet and curiously submissive. Indeed on the last occasion she even ventured to address me on her own account with regard to some household matter that needed attention. Though this was done with an almost extraordinary timidity, I held it with happiness as being the first word voluntarily spoken since the critical moment when I had called her unbarring the back door to go out among those waiting brutes. I wondered whether she was aware of her attempt and how near a thing it had been, but refrained from questioning her thinking it best to let well alone. That night I slept in a bed the first time for two nights. In the morning I rose early and took a walk through the house. All was as it should be and I went up to the tower to have a look at the gardens. Here again I found perfect quietness. At breakfast when I met Mary I was greatly pleased to see that she had sufficiently regained command over herself to be able to greet me in a perfectly natural manner. She talked sensibly and quietly, only keeping carefully from any mention of the past couple of days. In this I humored her to the extent of not attempting to lead the conversation in that direction. Earlier in the morning I had been to see Pepper. He was mending rapidly and bade fair to be on his legs in earnest in another day or two. Before leaving the breakfast table I made some reference to his improvement. In the short discussions that followed I was surprised to gather from my sister's remark that she was still under the impression that his wound had been given by the wild cat of my invention. It made me feel almost ashamed of myself for deceiving her. Yet the lie had been told to prevent her from being frightened, and then I had been sure that she must have known the truth later when those broods had attacked the house. During the day I kept on alert spending much of my time as on the previous day in the tower, but not a sign could I see of the swine-creatures, nor hear any sound. Several times the thought had come to me that the things had at last left us. But, up to this time I had refused to entertain the idea seriously. Now, however, I began to feel that there was reason for hope. It would soon be three days since I had seen any of the things, but still I intended to use the utmost caution. For all that I could tell, this protracted silence might be a ruse to tempt me from the house, perhaps right into their arms. The thought of such contingency was alone sufficient to make me circumspect. So it was that the fourth, fifth, and six days went by quietly without my making any attempt to leave the house. On the sixth day I had the pleasure of seeing Pepper once more upon his feet, and though still very weak, he managed to keep me company during the whole of that day. Chapter 11 Of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Searching of the Gardens How slowly the time went, and never a thing to indicate that any of the Brutes still infested the gardens. It was on the ninth day that finally I decided to run the risk, if any there were, and sally out. With this purpose in view I loaded one of the shotguns carefully, choosing it as being more deadly than a rifle at close quarters, and then after a final scrutiny of the grounds from the tower I called Pepper to follow me, and made my way down to the basement. At the door I must confess to hesitating a moment. The thought of what might be awaiting me among the dark Schwabberies was by no means calculated to encourage my resolution. It was but a second though, and then I had drawn the bolts, and was standing on the path outside the door. Pepper followed, stopping at the doorstep to sniff suspiciously, and carrying his nose up and down the jams as though following a scent. Then suddenly he turned sharply and started to run here and there in semicircles and circles, all around the door finally returning to the threshold. Here he began again to nose about. Heather too I had stood watching the dog, yet all the time with half my gaze on the wild tangle of gardens stretching round me. Now I went toward him and bending down examined the surface of the door where he was smelling. I found that the wood was covered with a network of scratches, crossing and recrossing one another in in extricable confusion. In addition to this I noticed that the door posts themselves were gnawed in places. Beyond these I could find nothing and so standing up I began to make the tour of the house wall. Pepper as soon as I walked away left the door and ran ahead, still nosing and sniffing as he went along. At times he stopped to investigate. Here it would be a bullet hole in the pathway or perhaps a powder stained wad. Anon it might be a piece of torn sod or a disturbed patch of weedy path, but save for such trifles he found nothing. I observed him critically as he went along and could discover nothing of uneasiness in his demeanor to indicate that he felt the nearness of any of the creatures. By this I was assured that the gardens were empty, at least for the present of those hateful things. Pepper could not be easily deceived and it was a relief to feel that he would know and give me timely warning if there were any danger. Reaching the place where I had shot that first creature I stopped and made a careful scrutiny, but could see nothing. From there I went on to where the great coping stone had fallen. It lay on its side apparently just as it had been left when I shot the brook that was moving it. A couple of feet to the right of the nearer end was a great dent in the ground showing where it had struck. The other end was still within the indentation, half in and half out. Going nearer I looked at the stone more closely. What a huge piece of masonry it was! And that creature had moved its single-handed in its attempt to reach what lay below. I went round to the further end of the stone. Here I found that it was possible to see under it for a distance of nearly a couple of feet. Still I could see nothing of the stricken creatures and I felt much surprised. I had, as I have before said, guessed that the remains had been removed. Yet I could not conceive that it had been done so thoroughly as not to leave some certain sign beneath the stone indicative of their fate. I had seen several of the brutes struck down beneath it with such force that they must have been literally driven into the earth. And now not a vestige of them was to be seen, not even a bloodstain. I felt more puzzled than ever as I turned the matter over in my mind but could think of no plausible explanation and so finally gave it up as one of the many things that were unexplainable. From there I transferred my attention to the study door. I could see now even more plainly the effects of the tremendous strain to which it had been subjected, and I marveled how even with the support afforded by the props it had withstood the attacks so well. There were no marks of blows. Indeed, none had been given, but the door had been literally riven from its hinges by the application of enormous, silent force. One thing that I observed affected me profoundly. The head of one of the props had been driven right through a panel. This was of itself sufficient to show how huge an effort the creatures had made to break down the door and how nearly they had succeeded. Leaving I continued my tour around the house, finding little else of interest. Save at the back, where I came across the piece of piping I had torn from the wall lying among the long grass, underneath the broken window. Then I returned to the house, and having re-bolted the back door went up to the tower. Here I spent the afternoon reading and occasionally glancing down into the gardens. I had determined if the night passed quietly to go as far as the pit on the morrow. Perhaps I should be able to learn then something of what had happened. The day slipped away, and the night came, and went much as the last few nights had gone. When I rose, the morning had broken fine and clear, and I determined to put my project into action. During breakfast I considered the matter carefully, after which I went to the study for my shotgun. In addition, I loaded and slipped into my pocket a small but heavy pistol. I quite understood that if there were any danger it lay in the direction of the pit, and I intended to be prepared. Leaving the study I went down to the back door, followed by Pepper. Once outside I took a quick survey of the surrounding gardens, and then set off toward the pit. On the way I kept a sharp outlook, holding my gun handily. Pepper was running ahead, I noticed, without any apparent hesitation. From this I augured that there was no imminent danger to be apprehended, and I stepped out more quickly in his wake. He had reached the top of the pit now, and was nosing his way along the edge. A moment later I was beside him looking down into the pit. For a moment I could scarcely believe that it was the same place, so greatly was it changed. The dark, wooded ravine of a fortnight ago with a foliage-hidden stream running sluggishly at the bottom existed no longer. Instead my eyes showed me a ragged chasm partly filled with a gloomy lake of turbid water. All one side of the ravine was stripped of underwood showing the bare rock. A little to my left the side of the pit appeared to have collapsed altogether, forming a deep V-shaped cleft in the face of the rocky cliff. This rift ran from the upper edge of the ravine nearly down to the water, and penetrated into the pitside to a distance of some forty feet. Its opening was at least six yards across, and from this it seemed to taper into about two. But what attracted my attention more than ever, the stupendous split itself was a great hole, some distance down the cleft and right in the angle of the V. It was clearly defined and not unlike an arched doorway in shape, though lying as it did in the shadow I could not see it very distinctly. The opposite side of the pit still retained its verger but so torn in places and everywhere covered with dust and rubbish that it was hardly distinguishable as such. My first impression that there had been a landslip was, I began to see not sufficient of itself to account for all the changes I witnessed, and the water. I turned suddenly, for I had become aware that somewhere to my right there was a noise of running water. I could see nothing, but now that my attention had been caught I distinguished easily that it came from somewhere at the east end of the pit. Slowly I made my way in that direction the sound growing planar as I advanced, until in a little I stood right above it. Even then I could not perceive the cause until I knelt down and thrust my head over the cliff. Here the noise came up to me plainly, and I saw below me a torrent of clear water issuing from a small fissure in the pitside and rushing down the rocks into the lake beneath. A little further along the cliff I saw another and, beyond that again, two smaller ones. These then would help to account for the quantity of water in the pit, and if the fall of rock and earth had blocked the outlet of the stream at the bottom, there was little doubt but that it was contributing a very large share. Yet I puzzled my head to account for the generally shaken appearance of the place, these streamlets and that huge cleft further up the ravine. It seemed to me that more than the landslip was necessary to account for these. I could imagine an earthquake or a great explosion creating some such condition of affairs as existed but of these there had been neither. Then I stood up quickly remembering that crash, and the cloud of dust that had followed directly rushing high into the air, but I shook my head unbelievingly. No, it must have been the noise of the falling rocks and earth I had heard of. Of course, the dust would fly naturally. Still, in spite of my reasoning, I had an uneasy feeling that this theory did not satisfy my sense of the probable, and yet was any other that I could suggest likely to be half so plausible. Pepper had been sitting on the grass while I conducted my examination. Now as I turned up the north side of the ravine he rose and followed, slowly and keeping a careful watch in all directions I made the circuit of the pit, but found little else that I had not already seen. From the west end I could see the four waterfalls uninterruptedly. They were some considerable distance up from the surface of the lake, about fifty feet I calculated. For a little while longer I loitered about, keeping my eyes and ears open but still without seeing or hearing anything suspicious. The whole place was wonderfully quiet. Indeed, save for the continuous murmur of the water at the top end, no sound of any description broke the silence. All this while Pepper had shown no signs of uneasiness. This seemed to me to indicate that for the time being at least there was none of the swine-creatures in the vicinity. So far as I could see his attention appeared to have been taken chiefly with scratching and sniffing among the grass at the edge of the pit. At times he would leave the edge and run along toward the house, as though following invisible tracks but in all cases returning after a few minutes. I had little doubt but that he was really tracing out the footsteps of the swine-things, and the very fact that each one seemed to lead him back to the pit appeared to me a proof that the brutes had all returned once they came. At noon I went home for dinner. During the afternoon I made a partial search of the gardens accompanied by Pepper, but without coming upon anything to indicate the presence of the creatures. Once as we made our way through the shrubberies, Pepper rushed in among some bushes with a fierce yelp. At that I jumped back and sudden-fright and threw my gun forward in readiness only to laugh nervously, as Pepper reappeared chasing an unfortunate cat. Toward evening I gave up the search and returned to the house. All at once as we were passing a great clump of bushes on our right Pepper disappeared, and I could hear him sniffing and growling among them in a suspicious manner. With my gun barrel I parted the intervening shrubbery and looked inside. There was nothing to be seen save that many of the branches were bent down and broken, as though some animal had made a lair there, at no very previous date. It was probably, I thought, one of the places occupied by some of the swine creatures on the night of the attack. Next day I resumed my search to the gardens, but without result. By evening I had been right through them, and now I knew, beyond the possibility of doubt, that there were no longer any of the things concealed about the place. Indeed, I have often thought since that I was correct in my earlier surmise, that they had left soon after the attack. I had come to the conclusion a few days earlier that the archtole and the angle of the great rift was the place through which the swine things had made their exit, from some unholy place in the bowels of the world. How near the probable truth this went I was to learn later. It may be easily understood that I was tremendously curious, though in a frightened way, to know to what infernal place that hole led. Though so far the idea had not struck me seriously of making an investigation, I was far too much imbued with a sense of horror of the swine creatures to think of venturing willingly, where there was any chance of coming into contact with them. Gradually, however, as time passed, this feeling grew insensibly less, so that when a few days later the thought occurred to me that it might be possible to clamber down and have a look into the hole, I was not so exceedingly averse to it as might have been imagined. Still, I do not think even then that I really intended to try any such foolhardy adventure. For all that I could tell it might be certain death to enter that doleful looking opening. And yet such is the pertinacity of human curiosity, that at last my chief desire was but to discover what lay beyond that gloomy entrance. Slowly as the days slid by my fear of the swine things became an emotion of the past, more unpleasant and credible memory than odd else. Thus a day came when throwing thoughts and fancies adrift I procured a rope from the house, and having made it fast to a stout tree at the top of the rift, and some little distance back from the pit edge, let the other end down into the cleft until it dangled right across the mouth of the dark hole. Then cautiously and with many misgivings as to whether it was not a mad act that I was attempting, I climbed slowly down using the rope as a support until I reached the hole. Here still holding onto the rope I stood and peered in. All was perfectly dark, and not a sound came to me. Yet a moment later it seemed that I could hear something. I held my breath and listened, but all was silent as the grave, and I breathed freely once more. At the same instant I heard the sound again. It was like a noise of laboured breathing, deep and sharp drawn. For a second I stood petrified, not able to move, but now the sound had ceased again and I could hear nothing. As I stood there anxiously my foot dislodged a pebble which fell inward into the dark with a hollow chink. At once the noise was taken up and repeated a score of times, each succeeding echo being fainter and seeming to travel away from me as though into remote distance. Then as the silence fell again I heard that stealthy breathing. For each respiration I made I could hear an answering breath. The sounds appeared to be coming nearer and then I heard several others, but fainter and more distant. Why I did not grip the rope and spring out of danger I cannot say. It was as though I had been paralysed. I broke out into a profuse sweat and tried to moisten my lips with my tongue. My throat had gone suddenly dry and I coughed, huskily. It came back to me in a dozen horrible throaty tones, mockingly. I peered helplessly into the gloom but still nothing showed. I had a strange chokey sensation and again I coughed, dryly. Again the echo took it up rising and falling grotesquely and dying slowly into a muffled silence. Then suddenly a thought came to me and I held my breath. The other breathing stopped. I breathed again and once more it recommenced. But now I no longer feared. I knew that the strange sounds were not made by any lurking swine-creature but were simply the echo of my own respirations. Yet I had received such a fright that I was glad to scramble up the rift and haul up the rope. I was far too shaken and nervous to think of entering that dark hole then, and so returned to the house. I felt more myself next morning but even then I could not summon up sufficient courage to explore the place. All this time the water in the pit had been creeping slowly up and now stood but a little below the opening. At the rate at which it was rising it would be level with the floor and less than another week, and I realized that unless I carried out my investigation soon I should probably never do so at all as the water would rise and rise until the opening itself was submerged. It may have been that this thought stirred me to act but whatever it was a couple of days later saw me standing at the top of the cleft, fully equipped for the task. This time I was resolved to conquer my shirking and go right through with the matter, with this intention I had brought, in addition to the rope, a bundle of candles, meaning to use them as a torch. Also my double-barreled shotgun. In my belt I had a heavy horse pistol loaded with buck-shot. As before I fastened the rope to the tree, then having tied my gun across my shoulders with a piece of stout cord, I lowered myself over the edge of the pit. At this movement Pepper, who had been eyeing my actions, watchfully rose to his feet and ran to me with a half-barc, half-whale, it seemed to me, of warning. But I was resolved on my enterprise and bade him lie down. I wouldn't much have liked to take him with me but this was next to impossible in the existing circumstances. As my face dropped level with the pit edge, he licked me right across the mouth. And then, seizing my sleeve between his teeth began to pull back strongly, it was very evident that he did not want me to go. Yet, having made up my mind, I had no intention of giving up the attempt and, with a sharp word to Pepper, to release me. I continued my descent, leaving the poor old fellow at the top, barking and crying like a forsaken pup. Carefully I lowered myself from projection to projection. I knew that a slip might mean a wetting. Reaching the entrance, I let go the rope and untied the gun from my shoulders. Then, with a last look at the sky, which I noticed was clouding over rapidly, I went forward a couple of paces so as to be shielded from the wind and lit one of the candles. Holding it above my head and grasping my gun firmly, I began to move on slowly, throwing my glances in all directions. For the first minute I could hear the melancholy sound of Pepper's howling coming down to me. Gradually as I penetrated further into the darkness, it grew fainter until, in a little while, I could hear nothing. The path tended downward somewhat and to the left. Thence it kept on, still running to the left until I found that it was leading me right in the direction of the house. Very cautiously I moved onward, stopping every few steps to listen. I had gone perhaps a hundred yards when suddenly it seemed to me that I caught a faint sound, somewhere along the passage behind me. With my heart thudding heavily I listened. The noise grew plainer and appeared to be approaching rapidly. I could hear it distinctly now. It was the soft padding of running feet. In the first moments of fright I stood ear-resolute, not knowing whether to go forward or backward. Then with a sudden realization of the best thing to do, I backed up to the rocky wall on my right, and holding the candle above my head waited, gun in hand, cursing my full-hearty curiosity for bringing me into such a straight. I had not long to wait but a few seconds, before two eyes reflected back from the gloom the rays of my candle. I raised my gun, using my right hand only, and aimed quickly, even as I did so something leapt out of the darkness with a blustering bark of joy that woke the echoes like thunder. It was pepper. How he had contrived to scramble down the cleft I could not conceive! As I brushed my hand nervously over his coat, I noticed that he was dripping and concluded that he must have tried to follow me and fallen into the water, from which he would not find it very difficult to climb. Having waited a minute or so to study myself, I proceeded along the way, pepper following quietly. I was curiously glad to have the old fellow with me. He was company, and somehow with him at my heels I was less afraid. Also I knew how quickly his keen ears would detect the presence of any unwelcome creature, should there be such amid the darkness that wrapped us. For some minutes we went slowly along the path still leading straight toward the house. Soon I concluded we should be standing right beneath it, did the path but carry far enough. I led the way cautiously for another fifty yards or so. Then I stopped and held the light high, and reason enough I had to be thankful that I did so. For there, not three paces forward the path vanished, and in place showed a hollow blackness that sent sudden fear through me. Very cautiously I crept forward and peered down, but could see nothing. Then I crossed to the left of the passage to see whether there might be any continuation of the path. Here, right against the wall, I found that a narrow track, some three feet wide, led onward. Carefully I stepped on to it, but had not gone far before I regret adventuring thereon, for after a few paces the already narrow way resolved itself into a mere ledge, with on the one side the solid unyielding rock towering up in a great wall to the unseen roof, and on the other that yawning chasm. I could not help reflecting how helpless I was, should I be attacked there, with no room to turn, and where even the recoil of my weapon might be sufficient to drive me headlong into the depths below. To my great relief a little further on the track suddenly broadened out again to its original breath. Gradually as I went onward I noticed that the path trended steadily to the right, and so, after some minutes I discovered that I was not going forward, but simply circling the huge abyss. I had evidently come to the end of the Great Passage. Five minutes later I stood on the spot from which I had started, having been completely round, what I guess now, to be a vast pit, the mouth of which must be at least a hundred yards across. For some little time I stood there lost in perplexing thought. What does it all mean? was the cry that had begun to reiterate through my brain. A sudden idea struck me, and I searched round for a piece of stone. Presently I found a bit of rock about the size of a small loaf. Sticking the candle upright in a crevice on the floor, I went back from the edge somewhat, and, taking a short run, launched the stone forward into the chasm. My idea being to throw it far enough to keep it clear of the sides. Then I stooped forward and listened. But though I kept perfectly quiet, for at least a full minute, no sound came back to me from out of the dark. I knew then that the depth of the hole must be immense. For the stone, had it struck anything, was large enough to have set the echoes of that weird place whispering for an indefinite period. Even as it was the cavern had given back the sounds of my footfalls multitudinously. The place was awesome, and I would willingly have retraced my steps and left the mysteries of its solitudes unsolved, only to do so meant admitting defeat. Then a thought came, to try to get a view of the abyss. It occurred to me that if I placed my candles round the edge of the hole, I should be able to get at least some dim sight of the place. I found on counting that I had brought fifteen candles in the bundle, my first intention having been, as I have already said, to make a torch of the lot. These I proceeded to place round the pit mouth with an interval of about twenty yards between each. Having completed the circle, I stood in the passage and endeavored to get an idea of how the place looked. But I discovered immediately that they were totally insufficient for my purpose. They did little more than make the gloom visible. One thing they did, however, and that was, they confirmed my opinion of the size of the opening, and although they showed me nothing that I wanted to see, yet the contrast they afforded to the heavy darkness pleased me curiously, it was as though fifteen tiny stars shone through the subterranean night. Then, even as I stood, Pepper gave a sudden howl that was taken up by the echoes and repeated, with vast leak variations, dying away slowly. With a quick movement I held off the one candle that I had kept and glanced down at the dog at the same moment. I seemed to hear a noise, like a diabolical chuckle, rise up from the hitherto silent depths of the pit. I started, then I recollected that it was probably the echo of Pepper's howl. Pepper had moved away from me up the passage a few steps. He was nosing along the rocky floor, and I thought I heard him lapping. I went toward him holding the candle low. As I moved, I heard my boot go sup, sup, and the light was reflected from something that glistened and crept past my feet swiftly toward the pit. I bent lower and looked, then gave vent to an expression of surprise. From somewhere higher up the path a stream of water was running quickly in the direction of the great opening and growing in size every second. Again Pepper gave vent to that deep drawn howl, and running at me seized my coat and attempted to drag me up the path toward the entrance. With a nervous gesture I shook him off and crossed quickly over to the left-hand wall. If anything were coming, I was going to have the wall at my back. Then as I stared anxiously up the pathway my candle caught a gleam far up the passage. At the same moment I became conscious of a murmurous roar that grew louder, and filled the whole cavern with deafening sound. From the pit came a deep hollow echo like the sob of a giant. Then I had sprung to one side on the narrow ledge that ran roundly abyss, and turning saw a great wall of foam sweep past me and leap tumultuously into the waiting chasm. A cloud of spray burst over me, extinguishing my candle and wetting me to the skin. I still held my gun. The three nearest candles went out, but the further ones gave only a short flicker. After the first flush the flow of water eased down to a steady stream. Maybe a foot in depth, though I could not see this until I had procured one of the lighted candles, and with it started to reconnoiter. Pepper had fortunately followed me as I leapt for the edge and now, very much subdued, kept close behind. A short examination showed me that the water reached right across the passage and was running at a tremendous rate. Already, even as I stood there it had deepened. I could make only a guess at what had happened. Evidently the water in the ravine had broken into the passage by some means, if that were the case it would go on increasing in volume until I should find it impossible to leave the place. The thought was frightening. It was evident that I must make my exit as hurriedly as possible. Taking my gun by the stock I sounded the water. It was a little under knee deep. The noise it made plunging down into the pit was deafening. Then with a call to Pepper I stepped out into the flood using the gun as a staff. Instantly the water boiled up over my knees and nearly to the tops of my thighs with the speed at which it was racing. For one short moment I nearly lost my footing but the thought of what lay behind stimulated me to a fierce endeavour and step by step I made headway. Of Pepper I knew nothing at first. I had all I could do to keep on my legs and was overjoyed when he appeared beside me. He was waiting manfully long. He is a big dog with longish thin legs and I suppose the water had less grasp on them than upon mine. Anyway he managed a great deal better than I did going ahead of me like a guide and unwittingly or otherwise helping somewhat to break the force of the water. On we went step by step struggling and gasping until somewhere about a hundred yards had been safely traversed. Then whether it was because I was taking less care or that there was a slippery place on the rocky floor I cannot say but suddenly I slipped and fell on my face. Instantly the water leapt over me in a cataract hurling me down toward the bottomless hole at a frightful speed. Frantically I struggled but it was impossible to get a footing. I was helpless gasping and drowning. All at once something gripped my coat and brought me to a standstill. It was Pepper. Missing me he must have raced back through the dark turmoil to find me and then caught and held me until I was able to get to my feet. I have a dim recollection of having seen momentarily the gleams of several lights, but of this I have never been quite sure. If my impressions are correct I must have been washed down to the very brink of that awful chasm before Pepper managed to bring me to a standstill and the lights of course could only have been the distant flames of the candles I had left burning. But as I have said I am not by any means sure. My eyes were full of water and I had been badly shaken. And there I was. Without my helpful gun, without light and sadly confused with the water deepening, depending solely upon my old friend Pepper to help me out of that hellish place. I was facing the torrent. Naturally it was the only way in which I could have sustained my position a moment, for even old Pepper could not have held me long against that terrific strain without assistance, however blind from me. Perhaps a minute past during which it was touch and go with me, then gradually I recommenced my torturous way up the passage, and so began the grimest fight with death, from whichever I hoped to emerge victorious. Slowly, furiously, almost hopelessly I strove, and that faithful Pepper led me, dragged me upward and onward until at last ahead I saw a gleam of blessed light. It was the entrance. Only a few yards further and I reached the opening with the water surging and boiling hungrily around my loins. And now I understood the cause of the catastrophe. It was raining heavily, literally in torrents. The surface of the lake was level with the bottom of the opening, nay, more than level it was above it. Evidently the rain had swollen the lake and caused this premature rise, for at the rate the ravine had been filling it would not have reached the entrance for a couple more days. Luckily the rope by which I had descended was streaming into the opening upon the inrushing waters. Seizing the end I knotted it securely round Pepper's body, then summoning up the last remnant of my strength. I commenced to swarm up the side of the cliff. I reached the pit edge, in the last stage of exhaustion, yet I had to make one more effort and haul Pepper to safety. Slowly and wearily I hauled on the rope. Once or twice it seemed that I should have to give up, for Pepper is a weighty dog, and I was utterly done. Yet, to let go would have meant certain death to the old fellow, and the thought spurred me to greater exertions. I have but a very hazy remembrance of the end. I recall pooling through moments that lagged strangely. I have also some recollection of seeing Pepper's muzzle appearing over the pit edge, after what seemed an indefinite period of time. Then all grew suddenly dark. End of Chapter 12 Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Chapter 13 Of The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This Libravox recording is in the public domain. The Trap In The Great Cellar I suppose I must have swooned. For the next thing I remember I opened my eyes and all was dusk. I was laying on my back with one leg doubled under the other and Pepper was licking my ears. I felt horribly stiff and my leg was numb from the knee downward. For a few moments I lay thus in a dazed condition. Then slowly I struggled to a sitting position and looked about me. It had stopped raining but the trees still dripped dismally. From the pit came a continuous murmur of running water. I felt cold and shivery. My clothes were sodden and I ached all over. Very slowly the life came back into my numbed leg and after a little I essayed to stand up. This I managed at the second attempt but I was very tottery and peculiarly weak. It seemed to me that I was going to be ill and I made shift to stumble my way toward the house. My steps were erratic and my head confused. At each step that I took sharp pains shot through my limbs. I had gone perhaps some thirty paces when a cry from Pepper drew my attention and I turned stiffly toward him. The old dog was trying to follow me but could come no further owing to the rope with which I had hauled him up and still being tied round his body, the other end not having been unfastened from the tree. For a moment I fumbled with the knots weakly but they were wet and hard and I could do nothing. Then I remembered my knife and in a minute the rope was cut. How I reached the house I scarcely know and of the days that followed I remember still less. Of one thing I am certain that, had it not been for my sister's untiring love and nursing, I had not been riding at this moment. When I recovered my senses it was to find that I had been in bed for nearly two weeks. Yet another week passed before I was strong enough to totter out into the gardens. Even then I was not able to walk so far as the pit. I would have liked to ask my sister how high the water had risen but felt it was wiser not to mention the subject to her. Indeed, since then I have made a rule never to speak to her about the strange things that happened in this great old house. It was not until a couple of days later that I managed to get across to the pit. There I found that in my few weeks absence there had been wrought a wondrous change. Instead of the three parts filled ravine I looked out upon a great lake whose placid surface reflected a light coldly. The water had risen to within half a dozen feet of the pit edge. Only in one part was the lake disturbed and that was above the place where, far down under the silent waters, yawned the entrance to the vast underground pit. Here there was a continuous bubbling and occasionally a curious sort of sobbing gurgle would find its way up from the depth. Beyond these there was nothing to tell of the things that were hidden beneath. As I stood there it came to me how wonderfully things had worked out. The entrance to the place whence the swine-creatures had come was sealed up by a power that made me feel there was nothing more to fear from them. And yet with the feeling there was a sensation that now I should never learn anything further of the place from which those dreadful things had come. It was completely shut off and concealed from human curiosity for ever. Strange in the knowledge of that underground hellhole, how opposite has been the naming of the pit. One wonders how it originated and when. Naturally one concludes that the shape and depth of the ravine would suggest the name pit, yet is it not possible that it has all along held a deeper significance, a hint, could one but a guest of the greater more stupendous pit that lies far down in the earth beneath this old house. Under this house, even now the idea is strange and terrible to me, for I have proved beyond doubt that the pit yawns right below the house, which has evidently supported somewhere above the center of it upon a tremendous arched roof of solid rock. It happened in this wise that, having occasion to go down to the cellars, the thought occurred to me to pay a visit to the Great Vault, where the trap is situated and see whether everything was as I had left it, reaching the place I walked slowly up the center until I came to the trap. There it was, with the stones piled upon it just as I had seen it last. I had a lantern with me and the idea came to me that now would be a good time to investigate whatever lay under the great oak slab. Placing the lantern on the floor, I tumbled the stones off the trap and, grasping the ring, pulled the door open. As I did so, the cellar became filled with the sound of a murmurous thunder that rose from far below. At the same time, a damp wind blew up into my face, bringing with it a load of fine spray. Therewith, I dropped the trap hurriedly with a half-frightened feeling of wonder. For a moment I stood puzzled. I was not particularly afraid. The haunting fear of this wine-things had left me long ago, but I was certainly nervous and astonished. Then a sudden thought possessed me, and I raised the ponderous door with a feeling of excitement, leaving it standing upon its end. I seized the lantern and, kneeling down, thrust it into the opening. As I did so, the moist wind and spray drove in my eyes, making me unable to see for a few moments. Even when my eyes were clear, I could distinguish nothing below me safe darkness and whirling spray. Seeing that it was useless to expect to make out anything with the light so high, I felt in my pockets for a piece of twine with which to lower it further into the opening. Even as I fumbled, the lantern slipped from my fingers and hurdled down into the darkness. For a brief instant I watched its fall and saw the light shine on a tumult of white foam, some eighty or a hundred feet below me. Then it was gone. My sudden surmise was correct, and now I knew the cause of the wet and noise. The great cellar was connected with the pit by means of the trap which opened right above it, and the moisture was the spray rising from the water falling into the depths. In an instant I had an explanation of certain things that had hitherto puzzled me. Now I could understand why the noises on the first night of the invasion had seemed to rise directly from under my feet, and the chuckle that had sounded when I first opened the trap. Evidently some of the swine things must have been right beneath me. Another thought struck me. Were the creatures all drowned? Would they drown? I remembered how unable I had been to find any traces to show that my shooting had been really fatal. Had they life as we understand life or were they ghouls? These thoughts flashed through my brain as I stood in the dark searching my pockets for matches. I had the box in my hand now, and striking a light I stepped to the trap door and closed it. Then I piled the stones back upon it, after which I made my way out from the cellars. And so I suppose the water goes on, thundering down into that bottomless hell-pit. Sometimes I have an inexplicable desire to go down to the great cellar, open the trap and gaze into the impenetrable spray-damp darkness. At times the desire becomes almost overpowering in its intensity. It is not mere curiosity that prompts me, but more as though some unexplained influence were at work. Still I never go, and intend to fight down the strange longing and crush it, even as I would the unholy thought of self-destruction. This idea of some intangible force being exerted may seem reasonless, yet my instinct warns me that it is not so. In these things, reason seems to me less to be trusted than instinct. One thought there is in closing that impresses itself upon me with ever-growing insistence. It is that I live in a very strange house, a very awful house, and I have begun to wonder whether I am doing wisely and staying here. Yet if I left, where could I go and still obtain the solitude and the sense of her presence, that alone make my old life bearable. Author's footnote. An apparently unmeaning interpolation. I can find no previous reference in the manuscript to this matter. It becomes clearer, however, in the light of succeeding incidents. End of CHAPTER XIII of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Sea of Sleep. For a considerable period after the last incident which I have narrated in my diary, I had serious thoughts of leaving this house, and might have done so but for the great and wonderful thing of which I am about to write. How well I was advised in my heart when I stayed on here, spite of those visions and sights of unknown and unexplainable things. For had I not stayed, then I had not seen again the face of her I loved. Yes, though few know it, none now save my sister Mary, I have loved, and, ah, me, lost. I would write down the story of those sweet old days, but it would be like the tearing of old wounds. Yet after that which has happened, what need have I to care? For she has come to me out of the unknown. Strangely, she warned me. Warned me passionately against this house, begged me to leave it, but admitted when I questioned her that she could not have come to me had I been elsewhere. Yet in spite of this still she warned me earnestly, telling me that it was a place long ago given over to evil, and under the power of grim laws of which none here have knowledge, and I—I just asked her again whether she would come to me elsewhere, and she could only stand silent. It was thus that I came to the place of the sea of sleep, so she termed it in her dear speech with me. I had stayed up in my study reading and must have dozed over the book. Suddenly I awoke and sat upright with a start. For a moment I looked round with a puzzled sense of something unusual. There was a misty look about the room, giving a curious softness to each table and chair and furnishing. Gradually the mistiness increased, growing as it were out of nothing. Then slowly a soft white light began to glow in the room. The flames of the candle shone through it fairly. I looked from side to side and found that I could still see each piece of furniture. But in a strangely unreal way, more as though the ghost of each table and chair had taken the place of the solid article. Gradually as I looked I saw them fade and fade, until slowly they resolved into nothingness. Now I looked again at the candles. They shone wanly, and even as I watched grew more unreal and so vanished. The room was filled now with a soft yet luminous white twilight, like a gentle mist of light. Beyond this I could see nothing. Even the walls had vanished. Presently I became conscious that a faint continuous sound passed through the silence that wrapped me. I listened intently. It grew more distinct until it appeared to me that I harked to the breathings of some great sea. I cannot tell how long a space passed us, but after a while it seemed that I could see through the mistiness, and slowly I became aware that I was standing upon the shore of an immense and silent sea. This shore was smooth and long, vanishing to right and left of me in extreme distances. In front swam a still immensity of sleeping ocean. At times it seemed to me that I caught a faint glimmer of light under its surface, but of this I could not be sure. Behind me rose up to an extraordinary height, gaunt black cliffs. Overhead the sky was of a uniform cold gray color, the whole place being lit by a stupendous globe pale fire that swam a little above the far horizon, and shed a foam-like light above the quiet waters. Beyond the gentle murmur of the sea an intense stillness prevailed. For a long while I stayed there, looking out across its strangeness. Then as I stared it seemed that a bubble of white foam floated up out of the depths, and then, even now I know not how it was. I was looking upon, nay, looking into the face of her. Ah, into her face, into her soul, and she looked back at me with such a commingling of joy and sadness that I ran toward her blindly, crying strangely to her in a very agony of remembrance, of terror, and of hope to come to me. Yet, spite of my crying, she stayed out there upon the sea and only shook her head sorrowfully. But in her eyes was the old earth-light of tenderness that I had come to know before all things ere we were parted. At her perverseness I grew desperate and assayed to wait out to her, yet, though I would, I could not. Some things, some invisible barrier held me back, and I was famed to stay where I was, and cry out to her in the fullness of my soul, Oh, my darling, my darling, but could say no more for the very intensity. And at that she came over swiftly and touched me, and it was as though heaven had opened, yet when I reached out my hands to her she put me from her with tenderly stern hands, and I was abashed. The Fragments Author's Footnote Here the writing becomes undecipherable owing to the damaged condition of this part of the manuscript. Below I print such fragments as are legible. End Author's Footnote The Legible Portions of the Mutilated Leaves Through Tears The Noise of Eternity in My Ears We parted, she whom I love, Oh, my God! I was a great time dazed, and then I was alone in the blackness of the night. I knew that I had journeyed back once more to the known universe. Presently I emerged from that enormous darkness. I had come among the stars, vast time. The sun, far and remote. I entered into the gulf that separates our system from the outer suns. As I sped across the dividing dark I watched steadily the ever-growing brightness and size of our sun. Once I glanced back to the stars and saw them shift as it were in my wake, against the mighty background of night so vast was the speed of my passing spirit. I drew Nyer to our system and now I could see the shine of Jupiter. Later I distinguished the cold blue gleam of the earth-light. I had a moment of bewilderment. All about the sun there seemed to be bright objects moving in rapid orbits. Inward, Nye to the savage glory of the sun, there circled two darting points of light, and further off there flew a blue shining speck that I knew to be the earth. It circled the sun in a space that seemed to be no more than an earth-minute. Nearer, with great speed, I saw the radiances of Jupiter and Saturn spinning with incredible swiftness in huge orbits. And ever I drew more Nye and looked out upon this strange site, the visible circling of the planets about the mother sun. It was as though time had been annihilated for me, so that a year was no more to my un-flesh spirit than is a moment to an earth-bound soul. The speed of the planets appeared to increase, and presently I was watching the sun all ringed about with hair-like circles of different colored fire, the paths of the planets hurdling at mighty speed about the central flame. The sun grew fast as though it leapt to meet me. And now I was within the circling of the outer planets and flitting swiftly toward the place where the earth glimmering through the blue splendor of its orbit, as though a fiery mist circled the sun at a monstrous speed. Author's Footnote The severest scrutiny has not enabled me to decipher more of the damaged portion of the manuscript. It commences to be legible again with the chapter entitled The Noise in the Night. End of Author's Footnote End of Chapter 14, Recording by John Van Stan Savannah, Georgia Chapter 15 of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Noise in the Night And now I come to the strangest of all the strange happenings that have befallen me in this house of mysteries. It occurred quite lately, within the month, and I have little doubt but that what I saw was 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 able to write these things down directly they happened. It is as though I have to wait a time, recovering my just balance, and digesting, as it were, the things I have heard or seen. No doubt this is as it should be, for by waiting I see the incidents more truly and right of them in 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 the first week of the month. It was night about eleven o'clock. Pepper and I kept one another company in the study, that great old room of mine where I read and work. I was reading curiously enough the Bible. I have begun in these latter days to take a growing interest in that great and ancient book. Suddenly a distant tremor shook the house and there came a faint and distant whirring buzz that grew rapidly into a far muffled screaming. It reminded me in a queer, gigantic way of the noise that a clock makes when the catch is released and it is allowed to run down. The sound appeared to come from some remote height, somewhere up in the night. 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 from the side of the house so that from it one may look both east and west. I felt puzzled and after a moment's hesitation walked across the room and pulled aside the blind. As I did so I saw the sunrise from behind the horizon. It rose with a steady perceptible movement. I could see it travel upward. In a minute it seemed it had reached the tops of the trees through which I had watched it. Up, up! It was broad daylight now. Behind me I was conscious of a sharp mosquito-like buzzing. I glanced round and knew that it came from the clock. Even as I looked it marked off an hour. The minute hand was moving round the dial faster than an ordinary second hand. The hour hand had moved quickly from space to space. I had a numb sense of astonishment. A moment later, so it seemed, the two candles went out almost together. I turned swiftly back to the window for I had seen the shadow of the window frames travelling along the floor toward me as though a great lamp had been carried up past the window. I saw now that the sun had risen high into the heavens and was visibly moving. It passed above the house with an extraordinary sailing kind of motion. As the window came into shadow I saw another extraordinary thing. The fine weather clouds were not passing easily across the sky. They were scampering as though a hundred mile an hour wind blew. As they passed they changed their shapes a thousand times a minute 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 swift motion. Eastward the shadows of every seen thing crept toward the coming grayness. And the movement of the shadows was visible to me. A stealthy, writhing creep of the shadows of the wind-stirred trees. It was a strange sight. Quickly the room began to dark and the sun slid down to the horizon and seemed as it were to disappear from my sight almost with a jerk. Through the grayness of the swift evening I saw the silver crescent of the moon falling out of the southern sky toward the west. The evening seemed to merge into an almost instant night. Above me the many constellations passed in a strange noiseless circling westward. The moon fell through that last thousand fathoms of the night golf and there was only the starlight. About this time the buzzing in the corner ceased, telling me that the clock had run down. A few minutes passed and I saw the eastward sky lighten. A gray, sullen morning spread through all the darkness and hid the march of the stars. Overhead there moved with a heavy everlasting rolling, a vast seamless sky of gray clouds, a cloud sky that would have seemed motionless through all the length of an ordinary earth day. The sun was hidden from me, but from moment to moment the world would brighten and darken, brighten and darken, beneath waves of subtle light and shadow. The light shifted ever westward, and the night fell upon the earth. A vast rain seemed to come with it, and a wind of a most extraordinary loudness as though the howling of a night-long gale were packed into the 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 with an astounding speed. It came to me now for the first time, that though the noise of the wind had passed yet a constant blurred sound was in my ears. Now that I noticed it, I was aware that it had been with me all the time. It was the world noise. And then, even as I grasped at so much comprehension, there came the eastward light. No more than a few heartbeats in the sun rose swiftly, through the trees I saw it, and then it was above the trees, up, up its sword, and all the world was light. It passed with a swift steady swing to its highest altitude, and thence fell westward. I saw the day roll visibly over my head. A few light clouds flittered northward and vanished. The sun went down with one swift clear plunge, and there was about me. For a few seconds the darker growing gray of the gloaming. Southward and westward the moon was sinking rapidly. The night had come already. A minute it seemed, and the moon fell those remaining fathoms of dark sky. Another minute or so, and the eastward sky glowed with the coming dawn. The sun leapt upon me with a frightening abruptness, and sword ever more swiftly toward the zenith. Then suddenly a fresh thing came to my sight. A black thunder-cloud rushed up out of the south and seemed to leap all the arc of the sky in a single instant. As it came I saw that its advancing edge flapped like a monstrous black cloth in the heaven twirling and undulating rapidly with a horrid suggestiveness. In an instant all the air was full of rain, and a hundred lightning flashes seemed to flood downward as it were in one great shower. In the same second of time the world noise was drowned in the roar of the wind, and then my ears ached under the stunning impact of the thunder. And in the midst of this storm the night came, and then within the space of another minute the storm had passed and there was only the constant blur of the world noise on my hearing. Overhead the stars were sliding quickly westward. Something, mayhaps the particular speed to which they had attained, brought home to me for the first time, a keen realization of the knowledge that it was the world that revolved. I seemed to see suddenly the world, a vast dark mass revolving visibly against the stars. The dawn and the sun seemed to come together so greatly had the speed of the world revolution increased. The sun drove up and one long steady curve 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 westward hastening moon, in but a space of seconds so it seemed it was sliding swiftly downward through the night blue and then was gone. And almost directly came the morning. And now there seemed to come a strange acceleration. The sun made one clean clear sweep through the sky and disappeared behind the westward horizon and the night came and went with a like haste. As the succeeding day opened and closed upon the world I was aware of a sweat of snow suddenly upon the earth. The night came and almost immediately the day. In the brief leap of the sun I saw that the snow had vanished and then once more it was night. Thus matters were and even after the many incredible things that I have seen I experienced all the time a most profound awe. To see the sun rise and set within a space of time to be measured by seconds. To watch after a little the moon leap a pale and ever-growing orb up into the night sky and glide with a strange swiftness through the vast arc of blue. And presently to see the sun follow springing out of the eastern sky as though in chase and then again the night with the swift and ghostly passing of starry constellations was all too much to 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 under the 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 with the passage of day and night. The clouds rippled and vanished and there was once more before me the vision of the swiftly leaping sun and nights that came and went like shadows. Faster and faster spun the world, and now each day and night was completed within the space of but a few seconds and still the speed increased. It was a little later that I noticed that the sun had begun to have the suspicion of a trail of fire behind it. This was due evidently to the speed at which it apparently traversed the heavens, and as the day sped each one quicker than the last the sun began to assume the appearance of a vast flaming comet. Author's footnote, the recluse uses this as an illustration evidently in the sense of the popular conception of a comet. End of Author's footnote. Flaring across the sky at short periodic intervals, at night the moon presented with much greater truth, a comet-like aspect, a pale and singularly clear, fast-traveling shape of fire, trailing streaks of cold flame. The stars show now merely as fine hairs of fire against the dark. Once I turned from the window and glanced at Pepper. In the flash of a day I saw that he slept quietly and I moved once more to my watching. The sun was now bursting up from the eastern horizon like a stupendous rocket, seeming to occupy no more than a second or two in hurling from east to west. I could no longer perceive the passage of clouds across the sky, which seemed to have darkened somewhat. The brief nights appeared to have lost the proper darkness of night, so that the hair-like fire of the flying stars showed but dimly. As the speed increased the sun 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 and distraught, I called to him softly, but he took no notice. Again I called, raising my voice slightly, still he moved not. I walked over to where he lay and touched him with my foot to rouse him. At the action gentle though it was, he fell to pieces, and that is what happened. He literally and actually crumbled into a mouldering heap of bones and dust. For the space of perhaps a minute I stared down at the shapeless heap that had once been Pepper. I stood, feeling stunned. What can have happened? I asked myself, not at once grasping the grim significance of that little hill of ash. Then, as I stirred the heap with my foot, it occurred 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 and dry bones on the carpet meant. But I could not think coherently. I glanced away round the room and now for the first time noticed how dusty and old the place looked. Dust and dirt everywhere piled in little heaps in the corners and spread about upon the furniture. The very carpet itself was invisible beneath the coating of the same all-pervading material. As I walked, little clouds of the stuff rose up from under my footsteps and assailed my nostrils, with a dry, bitter odor 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 years were indeed passing, whether this which I had taken to be a form of vision 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 was too covered with grime to give back any reflection, and with trembling hands I began to rub off the dirt. Presently, I could see myself. The thought that had come to me was confirmed instead of the great hail man who scarcely looked fifty. I was looking at a bent, decrepit man whose shoulders stooped and whose face was wrinkled with the years of a century. The hair, which a few short hours ago had been nearly coal-black, was now silvery white. Only the eyes were bright. Gradually, I traced in that ancient man a faint resemblance to myself of other 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 little space I stared moodily out into the blurred vista of changeful landscape. Even in that short time a year passed, and with a petulant gesture, I left the window. As I did so, I noticed that my hand shook with the palsy of old age, and a short sob choked its way through my lips. For a little while I paced tremulously between the window and the table, my gaze wandering hither and tither uneasily. How dilapidated the room was. Everywhere lay the thick dust. Thick, sleepy, and black. The fender was a shape of rust. The chains that held the brass clock-weights had rusted through long ago, and now the weights lay on the floor beneath themselves two cones of their degree. As I glanced about, it seemed to me that I could see the very furniture of the room rotting and decaying before my eyes. Nor was this fancy on my part for all at once the bookshelf along the sidewalk collapsed, with a cracking and rending of rotten wood precipitating its contents upon 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 dry joints creak and crack at every step. I wondered about my sister. Was she dead as well as pepper? All had happened so quickly and suddenly. This must be, indeed, the beginning of the end of all things. It occurred 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. I repeated the words and laughed feebly, mirthlessly, as the realization was born in upon me that I spoke of a time half a century gone, half a century. It might have been twice as long. I moved slowly to the window and looked out once more across the world. I can best describe the passage of day and night at this period as a sort of gigantic, ponderous, flicker. Moment by moment the acceleration of time continued so that at night's now I saw the moon, only as a swaying trail of pale-ish fire that varied from a mere line of light to a nebulous path, and then dwindled again, disappearing periodically. The flicker of the days and nights quickened. The days had grown perceptively darker and a queer quality of dusk lay, as it were, in the atmosphere. The nights were so much lighter that the stars were scarcely to be seen saving here and there an occasional hair-like line of fire that seemed to sway a little with the moon. Quicker and even 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 upon all 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 it a heavy gloom, as though a vast blackness peered through it upon the earth. Yet there was in it also a strange and awful clearness and emptiness. Periodically I had glimpses of a ghostly track of fire that swayed 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 sort of flitter that came either from the light of the ponderous swinging sun-stream or was the result of the incredibly rapid changes of the earth's surface. In every few moments so it seemed the snow would lie suddenly upon the world and vanish as abruptly as though an invisible giant flitted a white sheet off and on the earth. Time fled and the weariness that was mine grew insupportable. I turned from the window and walked once across the room, the heavy dust deadening the sound of my footsteps. Each step that I took seemed a greater effort than the one before. An intolerable ache knew me in every 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, what was my intent? I looked to my left and saw my old chair. The thought of sitting in it brought a faint sense of comfort to my bewildered wretchedness. Yet because I was so weary and old and tired, I would scarcely brace my mind to do anything but stand and wish myself past those few yards. I rocked as I stood. The floor even seemed a place for rest but the dust lay so thick and sleepy and black. I turned with a great effort of will and made toward my chair. I reached it with a groan of thankfulness. I sat down. Everything about me appeared to be growing dim. It was also strange and unthought of. Last night I was a comparatively strong, though elderly man. And now, only a few hours later, I looked at the little dust 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 something falling. I looked and saw vaguely a cloud of dust hovering above a pile 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. I closed 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. End of Chapter 15, Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Chapter 16 of The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. The Awakening I awoke with a start. For a moment I wondered where I was. Then memory came to me. The room was still lit with that strange light. Half sun, half moonlight. I felt refreshed, and the tired weary ache had left me. I went slowly across to the window and looked out. Overhead the river of flame drove up and down north and south in a dancing semicircle of fire. As a mighty sleigh in the loom of time it seemed, in a sudden fancy of mine, to be beating home the pics of the years. For so vastly had the passage of time been accelerated that there was no longer any sense of the sun passing from east to west. The only apparent movement was the north and south beat of the sun-stream that had become so swift now as to be better described as a quiver. As I peered out there came to me a sudden, inconsequent memory of that last journey among the outer worlds. I remembered the sudden vision that had come to me as I neared the solar system of the fast whirling planets about the sun, as though the governing quality of time had been held in abeyance, and the machine of a universe allowed to run down an eternity in a few moments or hours. The memory passed along with a, but partially comprehended, suggestion that I had been permitted a glimpse into further time spaces. I stared out again seemingly at the quake of the sun-stream. The speed seemed to increase even as I looked. Several lifetimes came and went as I watched. Suddenly it struck me with a sort of grotesque seriousness that I was still alive. I thought of Pepper and wondered how it was that I had not followed his fate. He had reached the time of his dying and had passed probably through sheer lengths of years. And he was I, alive, hundreds of thousands of centuries after my rightful period of years. For a time I mused absently. Yesterday I stopped suddenly. Yesterday there was no yesterday, the yesterday of which I spoke had been swallowed up in the abyss of years. Age is gone. I grew dazed with much thinking. Presently I turned from the window and glanced round the room. It seemed different, strangely and utterly different. Then I knew what it was that made it appear so strange. It was bare. There was not a piece of furniture in the room, not even a solitary fitting of any sort. Gradually my amazement went as I remembered that this was but the inevitable end of the process of decay, which I had witnessed commencing before my sleep. Thousands of years—millions of years! Over the floor was spread a deep layer of dust that reached halfway up to the window-seat. It had grown immeasurably whilst I slept and represented the dust of untold ages. Undoubtedly, atoms of the old decayed furniture helped to swell its bulk, and somewhere among it all molded the long ago dead Pepper. All at once it occurred to me that I had no recollection of wading knee deep through all that dust after I awoke. True, an incredible age of years had passed since I approached the window, but that was evidently as nothing compared with the countless spaces of time that I conceived had vanished whilst I was sleeping. I remembered now that I had fallen asleep sitting in my old chair. Had it gone? I glanced toward where it had stood. Of course there was no chair to be seen. I could not satisfy myself whether it had disappeared after my waking or before. If it had molded under me surely I should have been waked by the collapse. Then I remembered that the thick dust which covered the floor would have been sufficient to soften my fall so that it was quite possible. I had slept upon the dust for a million years or more. As these thoughts wandered through my brain I glanced again casually to where the chair had stood. Then for the first time I noticed that there were no marks in the dust of my footprints between it and the window. But then ages of years had passed since I had awakened tens of thousands of years. My look rested thoughtfully again upon the place where once had stood my chair. Suddenly I passed from abstraction to intentness. For there in its standing place I made out a long undulation rounded off with the heavy dust, yet it was not so much hidden but that I could tell what had caused it. I knew and shivered at the knowledge that it was a human body, ages dead, lying there beneath the place where I had slept. It was lying on its right side, its back turned toward me. I could make out and trace each curve and outline softened and molded as it were in the black dust. In a vague sort of way I tried to account for its presence there. Slowly I began to grope bewildered as the thought came to me that it lay just about where I must have fallen when the chair collapsed. Gradually an idea began to form itself within my brain, a thought that shook my spirit. It seemed hideous and insupportable, yet it grew upon me steadily until it became a conviction. The body under that coating, that shroud of dust, was neither more nor less than my own dead shell. I did not attempt to prove it. I knew it now and wondered I had not known it all along. I was a bodyless thing. A while I stood, trying to adjust my thoughts to this new problem. In time, how many thousands of years I know not, I attained to some degree of quietude, sufficient to enable me to pay attention to what was transpiring around me. Now I saw that the elongated mound had sunk, collapsed, level with the rest of the spreading dust, and fresh atoms impalpable had settled above that mixture of grave powder which the eons had ground. A long while I stood, turned from the window. Gradually I grew more collected while the world slipped across the centuries into the future. Presently I began a survey of the room. Now I saw that time was beginning its destructive work even on this strange old building. That it had stood through all the years was, it seemed to me, proof that it was something different from any other house. I do not think somehow that I had thought of its decaying, though why I could not have said. It was not until I had meditated upon the matter for some considerable time that I fully realized that the extraordinary space of time through which it had stood was sufficient to have utterly pulverized the very stones of which it was built. Had they been taken from any earthly quarry? Yes, it was undoubtedly mouldering now. All the plaster had gone from the walls, even as the woodwork of the room had gone, many ages before. While I stood in contemplation a piece of glass from one of the small diamond-shaped panes dropped with a dull tap amid the dust upon the sill behind me and crumbled into a little heap of powder. As I turned from contemplating it I saw light between a couple of the stones that formed the outer wall. Evidently the mortar was falling away. After a while I turned once more to the window and peered out. I discovered now that the speed of time had become enormous. The lateral quiver of the sun-stream had grown so swift as to cause the dancing semicircle of flame to merge into and disappear in a sheet of fire that covered half the southern sky from east to west. From the sky I glanced down to the gardens. They were just a blur of a paleish dirty green. I had a feeling that they stood higher than in the old days, a feeling that they were nearer my window as though they had risen bodily. Yet they were still a long way below me, for the rock over the mouth of the pit on which this house stands arches up to a great height. It was later that I noticed a change in the constant colour of the gardens. The pale dirty green was growing ever paler and paler toward white. At last, after a great space, they became grayish white and stayed thus for a very long time. Finally, however, the grayness began to fade, even as had the green into a dead white. And this remained constant and unchanged. And by this I knew that at last snow lay upon all the northern world. And so, by millions of years, time winged onward through eternity to the end. The end of which, in the old earth-days, I had thought remotely and in hazily speculative fashion. And now it was approaching in a manner of which none had ever dreamed. I recollect that. About this time I began to have a lively though morbid curiosity as to what would happen when the end came. But I seemed strangely without imaginings. All this while, the steady process of decay was continuing, the few remaining pieces of glass had long ago vanished, and every now and then a soft thud and a little cloud of rising dust would tell of some fragment of fallen mortar or stone. I looked up again to the fiery sheet that quaked in the heavens above me, and far down into the southern sky. As I looked, the impression was born in upon me that it had lost some of its fiery brilliancy, that it was duller, deeper hewed. I glanced down once more to the blurred white of the world's scape. Sometimes my look returned to the burning sheet of dulling flame that was and yet hid the sun. At times I glanced behind me into the growing dusk of the great, silent room with its eon carpet of sleeping dust. So I watched through the fleeting ages, lost in soul-wearing thoughts and wanderings, and possessed with a new weariness. Slowing Rotation It might have been a million years later that I perceived, beyond possibility of doubt, that the fiery sheet that lit the world was indeed darkening. Another vast space went by and the whole enormous flame had sunk to a deep copper color. Gradually it darkened from copper to copper red, and from this, at times, to a deep heavy purplish tint, with, in it, a strange loom of blood. Although the light was decreasing I could perceive no diminishment in the apparent speed of the sun. It still spread itself in that dazzling veil of speed. The world, so much of it as I could see, had assumed a dreadful shade of gloom, as though in the very deed the last day of the worlds approached. The sun was dying. Of that there could be little doubt, and still the earth whirled onward through space and all the eons. At this time I remember an extraordinary sense of bewilderment took me. I found myself later wandering mentally amid an odd chaos of fragmentary modern theories and the old Biblical story of the world's ending. Then for the first time there flashed across me the memory that the sun within its system of planets was, and had been, traveling through space at an incredible speed. Abruptly the question rose, where? For a very great time I pondered this matter, but finally with a certain sense of the futility of my puzzlings I let my thoughts wander to other things. I grew to wondering how much longer the house would stand. Also I queried to myself whether I should be doomed to stay bodiless upon the earth through the dark time that I knew was coming. From these thoughts I fell again to speculations upon the possible direction of the sun's journey through space, and so another great while passed. Gradually as time fled I began to feel the chill of a great winter. Then I remembered that with the sun dying the cold must be necessarily extraordinarily intense. Slowly, slowly as the eons slipped into eternity the earth sank into a heavier and redder gloom. The dull flame in the firmament took on a deeper tint, very somber and turbid. Then at last it was born upon me that there was a change. The fiery gloomy curtain of flame that hung quaking overhead and down a way into the southern sky began to thin and contract, and in it as one sees the fast vibrations of a jarred harp string I saw once more the sun-stream quivering giddily north and south. Slowly the likeness to a sheet of fire disappeared, and I saw plainly the slowing beat of the sun-stream. Yet even then the speed of its swing was inconceivably swift, and all the time the brightness of the fiery arc grew ever dollar. Underneath the world loomed dimly an indistinct ghostly region. Overhead the river of flame swayed slower and even slower, until at last it swung to the north and south in great ponderous beats that lasted through seconds. A long space went by, and now each sway of the great belt lasted nigh a minute, so that after a great while I ceased to distinguish it as a visible movement and the streaming fire ran in a steady river of dull flame across the deadly looking sky. An indefinite period passed, and it seemed that the arc of fire became less sharply defined. It appeared to me to grow more attenuated, and I thought blackish streak showed occasionally. Presently as I watched the smooth onward flow ceased, and I was able to perceive that there came a momentary but regular darkening of the world. This grew until once more night descended in short but periodic intervals upon the wearying earth. Longer and longer became the nights, and the days equalled them, so that at last the day and the night grew to the duration of seconds in length and the sun showed once more like an almost invisible coppery red-colored ball with the glowing mistiness of its flight. Corresponding to the dark lines showing at times in its trail, there were now distinctly to be seen on the half-visible sun itself great dark belts. Year after year flashed into the past, and the days and nights spread into minutes. The sun had ceased to have the appearance of a tail and now rose and set, a tremendous globe of a glowing copper-bronce hue, in parts ringed with blood-red bands, in others with the dusky ones that I have already mentioned. The circles both red and black were a varying thickness. For a time I was at a loss to account for their presence. Then it occurred to me that it was scarcely likely that the sun would cool evenly all over, and that these markings would do probably to differences in temperature in the various areas. The red representing those parts where the heat was still fervent, and the black, those portions which were already comparatively cool. It struck me as a peculiar thing that the sun should cool in evenly defined rings, until I remembered that possibly they were but isolated patches to which the enormous rotatory speed of the sun had imparted a belt-like appearance. The sun itself was very much greater than the sun I had known in the old world days, and from this I argued that it was considerably nearer. At night's the moon. Author's footnote. No further mention is made of the moon. From what is said here it is evident that our satellite had greatly increased its distance from the earth. Possibly at a later age it may even have broken loose from our attraction. I cannot but regret that no light is shed on this point. End author's footnote. Still showed, but small and remote, and the light she reflected was so dull and weak that she seemed little more than the small, dim ghost of the olden moon that I had known. Gradually the days and nights lengthened out until they equaled a space somewhat less than one of the old earth hours. The sun rising and setting like a great ruddy bronze disk crossed with ink-black bars. About this time I found myself able once more to see the gardens with clearness. For the world had now grown very still and changeless. Yet I am not correct in saying gardens, for there were no gardens, nothing that I knew or recognized. In place thereof I looked out upon a vast plain stretching away into the distance. A little to my left there was a low range of hills. Everywhere there was a uniform white covering of snow in places rising into hummocks and ridges. It was only now that I recognized how really great had been the snowfall. In places it was vastly deep, as was witnessed by a great up-leaping wave-shaped hill away to my right, though it is not impossible that this was due in part to some rise in the surface of the ground. Strangely enough the range of low hills to my left, already mentioned, was not entirely covered with the universal snow. Instead I could see their bare dark sides showing in several places, and everywhere and always there reigned an incredible death silence and desolation, the immutable awful quiet of a dying world. All this time the days and nights were lengthening perceptibly, already each day occupied maybe some two hours from dawn to dusk. At night I had been surprised to find that there were very few stars overhead and these small though of an extraordinary brightness, which I attributed to the peculiar but clear blackness of the night-time. Away to the north I could discern a nebulous sort of mistiness, not unlike in appearance a small portion of the Milky Way. It might have been an extremely remote star cluster. Or the thought came to me suddenly, perhaps it was the side real universe that I had known, and now left far behind, forever, a small dimly glowing mist of stars, far in the depths of space. Still the days and nights lengthened slowly, each time the sun rose duller than it had set, and the dark belts increased in breadth. About this time there happened a fresh thing. The sun, earth, and sky were suddenly darkened, and apparently blotted out for a brief space. I had a sense, a certain awareness. I could learn little by sight, that the earth was enduring a very great fall of snow. Then in an instant the veil that had obscured everything vanished, and I looked out once more. A marvelous sight met my gaze. The hollow in which this house, with its garden stands, was brimmed with snow. Author's footnote, conceivably frozen air. End author's footnote. It lived over the sill of my window, everywhere it lay, a great level stretch of white, which caught and reflected gloomily the somber coppery glows of the dying sun. The world had become a shadowless plain, from horizon to horizon. I glanced up at the sun. It shone with an extraordinary dull clearness. I saw it now, as one who until then had seen it, only through a partially obscuring medium. All about it the sky had become black, with a clear deep blackness, frightful in its nearness, and its unmeasured deep, and its utter unfriendliness. For a great time I looked into it, newly and shaken and fearful. It was so near. Had I been a child, I might have expressed some of my sensation and distress by saying that the sky had lost its roof. Later I turned and peered about me into the room. Everywhere it was covered with a thin shroud of the all-pervading white. I could see it but dimly, by reason of the somber light that now lit the world. It appeared to cling to the ruined walls, and the thick soft dust of the years that covered the floor knee-deep was nowhere visible. The snow must have blown in through the open framework of the windows. Yet in no place had it drifted but lay everywhere about the great old room smooth and level. Moreover, there had been no wind these many thousand years. But there was the snow. Author's footnote, see previous footnote, this would explain the snow within the room. And author's footnote, as I have told. And all the earth was silent, and there was a cold, such as no living man can ever have known. The earth was now illuminated by day with the most doleful light, beyond my power to describe. It seemed as though I looked at the great plain through the medium of a bronze-tinted sea. It was evident that the earth's rotatory movement was departing steadily. The end came, all at once. The night had been the longest yet, and when the dying sun showed at last above the world's edge, I had grown so weary of the dark that I greeted it as a friend. It rose steadily, until about twenty degrees above the horizon. Then it stopped suddenly, and after a strange retrograde movement hung motionless, a great shield in the sky. Author's footnote, I am confounded that neither here nor later on does the recluse make any further mention of the continued north and south movement, apparent, of course, of the sun from solstice to solstice. End of author's footnote. Only the circular rim of the sun showed bright, only this and one thin streak of light near the equator. Gradually even this thread of light died out, and now all that was left of our great and glorious sun was a vast, dead disk, rimmed with a thin circle of bronze-red light.