 CHAPTER XVIII of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND by William Hope Hodgson, this sleeper-box recording was in the public domain. THE GREEN STAR The world was held in a savage gloom. Cold and intolerable. Outside all was quiet. Quiet! From the dark room behind me came the occasional soft thud. AFTER'S FOOTNOAT At this time the sound-carrying atmosphere must have been either incredibly attenuated or more probably non-existent. In the light of this it cannot be supposed that these or any other noises would have been apparent to living ears, to hearing as we in the material body understand that sense. END OF AFTER'S FOOTNOAT A falling matter. Fragments of rotting stone. So time passed and night grasped the world wrapping it in wrappings of impenetrable blackness. There was no night sky as we know it. Even the few straggling stars had vanished conclusively. I might have been in a shuttered room without a light for all that I could see. Only in the impalpableness of gloom opposite burnt that vast encircling hair of dull fire. Beyond this there was no ray in all the vastitude of night that surrounded me. Save that far in the north that soft mist-like glow still shone. Silently years moved on. What period of time passed I shall never know. It seemed to me wading there that eternities came and went stealthily. And still I watched. I could see only the glow of the sun's edge at times. For now it had commenced to come and go, lighting up a while, and again becoming extinguished. All at once during one of these periods of life a sudden flame cut across the night. A quick glare that lit up the dead earth shortly, giving me a glimpse of its flat lonesomeness. The light appeared to come from the sun, shooting out from somewhere near its center diagonally. A moment I gazed startled. Then the leaping flame sank and the gloom fell again. But now it was not so dark, and the sun was belted by a thin line of vivid white light. I stared intently. Had a volcano broken out on the sun? Yet I negative the thought as soon as formed. I felt that the light had been far too intensely white and large for such a cause. Another idea there was that suggested itself to me, it was that one of the inner planets had fallen into the sun, becoming incandescent under that impact. This theory appealed to me as being more plausible, and accounting more satisfactorily for the extraordinary size and brilliance of the blaze that had lit up the dead world so unexpectedly. Full of interest and emotion I stared across the darkness at that line of white fire, cutting the night. One thing it told me unmistakably, the sun was yet rotating at an enormous speed. Authors' Footnote I can only suppose that the time of the earth's yearly journey had ceased to bear its present relative proportion to the period of the sun's rotation. End of authors' footnote. Thus I knew that the years were still fleeting at an incalculable rate, though so far as the earth was concerned life and light and time were things belonging to a period lost in the long-gone ages. After that one burst of flame, the light had shown only as an encircling band of bright fire. Now, however, as I watched, it began slowly to sink into a ruddy tint and, later to a dark copper-red color much as the sun had done. Presently it sank to a deeper hue and in a still further space of time. It began to fluctuate, leaving periods of glowing and anon dying. Thus, after a great while, it disappeared. Long before this, the smoldering edge of the sun had deadened into blackness, and so in that supremely future time the world, dark and intensely silent, rode on its gloomy orbit around the ponderous mass of the dead sun. My thoughts at this period can be scarcely described. At first they were chaotic and wanting incoherence, but later as the ages came and went my soul seemed to imbibe the very essence of the oppressive solitude and dreariness that held the earth. With this feeling there came a wonderful clearness of thought, and I realized despairingly that the world might wander forever through that enormous night. For a while the unwholesome idea filled me with a sensation of overbearing desolation, so that I could have cried like a child. In time, however, this feeling grew almost insensibly less, and an unreasoning hope possessed me. Pacerly I waited. From time to time the noise of dropping particles behind in the room came dolly to my ears. Once I heard a loud crash, and turned instinctively to look, forgetting for the moment the impenetrable night in which every detail was submerged. In a while my gaze sought the heavens, turning unconsciously toward the north. Yes, the nebulous glow still showed. Indeed, I could have almost imagined that it looked somewhat planer. For a long time I kept my gaze fixed upon it, feeling in my lonely soul that its soft haze was in some way a tie with the past. Strange, the trifles from which one can suck comfort, and yet had I but known. But I shall come to that in its proper time, for a very long space I watched, without experiencing any of the desire for sleep that would so soon have visited me in the old earth days. How I should have welcomed it, if only to have passed the time away from my perplexities and thoughts. Several times the comfortless sound of some great piece of masonry falling disturbed my meditations, and once it seemed I could hear whispering in the room behind me. Yet it was utterly useless to try to see anything. Such blackness as existed scarcely can be conceived. It was palpable, and hideously brutal to the senses as though something dead pressed up against me, something soft, and icily cold. Under all this, there grew up within my mind a great and overwhelming distress of uneasiness that left me but to drop me into an uncomfortable brooding. I felt that I must fight against it, and presently hoping to distract my thoughts I turned to the window and looked up toward the north in search of the nebulous whiteness, which still I believed to be the far and misty glowing of the universe we had left. Even as I raised my eyes, I was thrilled with a feeling of wonder. For now the hazy light had resolved into a single great star of vivid green. As I stared astonished, the thought flashed into my mind that the earth must be travelling toward the star, not away as I imagined. Next that it could not be the universe the earth had left, but possibly an outlying star belonging to some vast star cluster hidden in the enormous depths of space. With a sense of co-mingled awe and curiosity I watched it, wondering what new thing was to be revealed to me. For while vague thoughts and speculations occupied me, during which my gaze dwelt insatiably upon that one spot of light in the otherwise pit-like darkness. Hope grew up within me, banishing the oppression of despair that had seemed to stifle me. Wherever the earth was travelling it was at least going once more toward the realms of light. Light! One must spend an eternity wrapped in soundless night to understand the full horror of being without it. Slowly, but surely, the star grew upon my vision until in time. It shone as brightly as had the planet Jupiter in the old earth days. With increased size its colour became more impressive, reminding me of a huge emerald, scintillating rays of fire across the world. Years fled away in silence, and the green star grew into a great splash of flame in the sky. A little later I saw a thing that filled me with amazement. It was the ghostly outline of a vast crescent in the night, a gigantic new moon, seeming to be growing out of the surrounding gloom. Utterly bemused I stared at it. It appeared to be quite close, comparatively, and I puzzled to understand how the earth had come so near to it without my having seen it before. The light thrown by the star grew stronger, and presently I was aware that it was possible to see the earthscape again, though indistinctly. A while I stared, trying to make out whether I could distinguish any detail of the world's surface, but I found the light insufficient. In a little I gave up the attempt and glanced once more toward the star. Even in the short space that my attention had been diverted, it had increased considerably, and seemed now to my bewildered sight about a quarter of the size of the full moon. The light it threw was extraordinarily powerful, yet its colour was so abominably unfamiliar that such of the world as I could see showed unreal. More as though I had looked out upon a landscape of shadow than ought else. All this time the great crescent was increasing in brightness, and began now to shine with a perceptible shade of green. Steadily the star increased in size and brilliancy until it showed, fully as large as half a moon. And it grew greater and brighter, so did the vast crescent throw out more and more light, though of an ever-deepening hue of green. Under the combined blaze of their radiances the wilderness that stretched before me became steadily more visible. Soon I seemed able to stare across the whole world, which now appeared beneath the strange light terrible in its cold and awful flat dreariness. It was a little later that my attention was drawn to the fact that the great star of green flame was slowly sinking out of the north toward the east. At first I could scarcely believe that I saw a right, but soon there could be no doubt that it was so. Gradually it sank, and as it fell the vast crescent of glowing green began to dwindle and dwindle, until it became a mere arc of light against the livid-coloured sky. Later it vanished, disappearing in the self-same spot from which I had seen it slowly emerge. By this time the star had come to within some thirty degrees of the hidden horizon. In size it could now have rivaled the moon at its fool, though even yet I could not distinguish its disc. This fact led me to conceive that it was still an extraordinary distance away, and this being so I knew that its size must be huge beyond the conception of man to understand or imagine. Suddenly as I watched the lower edge of the star vanished, cut by a straight dark line, a minute or a century passed, and it dipped lower until the half of it had disappeared from sight. Far away out on the green plane I saw a monstrous shadow blotting it out and advancing swiftly. Only a third of the star was visible now, then like a flash the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon revealed itself to me. The star was sinking behind the enormous mass of the dead sun, or rather the sun, obedient to its attraction, was rising toward it. Author's Footnote A careful reading of the manuscript suggests that either the sun is travelling on an orbit of great eccentricity or else that it was approaching the green star on a lessening orbit, and at this moment I conceive it to be finally torn directly from its oblique course by the gravitational pull of the immense star. End of Author's Footnote With the earth following in its trail, as these thoughts expanded in my mind the star vanished, being completely hidden by the tremendous bulk of the sun. Over the earth there fell once more the brooding night. With the darkness came an intolerable feeling of loneliness and dread. For the first time I thought of the pit and its inmates. After that there rose in my memory the still more terrible thing that had haunted the shores of the sea of sleep and lurked in the shadows of this old building. Where were they, I wondered, and shivered with miserable thoughts. For a time fear held me and I prayed, wildly and incoherently for some ray of light with which to dispel the cold blackness that enveloped the world. How long I waited it is impossible to say, certainly for a very great period, all at once I saw a loom of light shine out ahead. Gradually it became more distinct. Suddenly a ray of vivid green flashed across the darkness. At the same moment I saw a thin line of livid flame far in the night. An instant it seemed and it had grown into a great clot of fire, beneath which the world lay bathed in a blaze of emerald green light. Steadily it grew, until presently the whole of the green star had come into sight again. But now it could be scarcely called a star for it had increased to vast proportions, being incomparably greater than the sun had been in the olden time. Then as I stared I became aware that I could see the edge of the lifeless sun glowing like a great crescent moon. Slowly its lighted surface broadened out to me until half of its diameter was visible, and the star began to drop away on my right. Time passed and the earth moved on, slowly traversing the tremendous face of the dead sun. Author's footnote, it will be noticed here that the earth was slowly traversing the tremendous face of the dead sun. No explanation is given of this, and we must conclude, either that the speed of time has slowed, or else that the earth was actually progressing on its orbit at a rate slow, when measured by existing standards. A careful study of the manuscript, however, leads me to conclude that the speed of time had been steadily decreasing for a very considerable period. End of Author's footnote. Gradually, as the earth travelled forward, the star fell still more to the right. Until at last, it shone on the back of the house, sending a flood of broken rays in through the skeleton-like walls. Glancing upward, I saw that much of the ceiling had vanished, enabling me to see that the upper stories were even more decayed. The roof had evidently gone entirely, and I could see the green effulgence of the starlight shining in slantingly. End of Chapter 18 Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Chapter 19 Of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The End of the Solar System From the abutment where once had been the windows, through which I had watched that first fatal dawn, I could see that the sun was hugely greater than it had been, when first the star lit the world. So great was it that its lower edge seemed almost to touch the far horizon. Even as I watched, I imagined that it drew closer. The radiance of green that lit the frozen earth grew steadily brighter. Thus, for long space things were. Then, on a sudden, I saw that the sun was changing shape and growing smaller, just as the moon would have done in past time. In a while only a third of the illuminated part was turned toward the earth. The star bore away on the left. Gradually, as the world moved on, the star shone upon the front of the house once more, while the sun showed only as a great bow of green fire. An instant it seemed and the sun had vanished. The star was still fully visible. Then the earth moved into the black shadow of the sun, and all was night. Night. Black. Starless. And intolerable. Filled with demultuous thoughts, I watched across the night. Waiting. Years it may have been. And then, in the dark house behind me, the clotted stillness of the world was broken. I seemed to hear a soft padding of many feet and a faint and articulate whisper of sound grew on my senses. I looked round to the blackness and saw a multitude of eyes. As I stared they increased and appeared to come toward me. For an instant, I stood, unable to move, then a hideous swine noise. Author's Footnote. C. First Footnote, Chapter 18. End of Author's Footnote. Rose up into the night, and at that I leapt from the window out onto the frozen world. I have a confused notion of having run a while, and after that I just waited, waited. Several times I heard shrieks, but always as though from a distance, except for these sounds I had no idea of the whereabouts of the house. Time moved onward. I was conscious of little save a sensation of cold and hopelessness and fear. In age it seemed, and there came a glow that told me of the coming light. It grew tardily. Then, with a loom of unearthly glory, the first ray from the green star struck over the edge of the dark sun and lit the world. It fell upon a great ruined structure some two hundred yards away. It was the house. Staring, I saw a fearsome sight. Over its walls crawled a legion of unholy things, almost covering the old building, from tottering towers to base. I could see them plainly they were the swine-creatures. The world moved out into the light of the star, and I saw that. Now, it seemed to stretch across a quarter of the heavens. The glory of its livid light was so tremendous that it appeared to fill the sky with quivering flames. Then I saw the sun. It was so close that half of its diameter lay below the horizon, and as the world circled across its face it seemed a tower right up into the sky, a stupendous dome of emerald-colored fire. From time to time I glanced toward the house, but the swine-things seemed unaware of my proximity. Years appeared to pass slowly. The earth had almost reached the center of the sun's disk, the light from the green sun, as now it must be called, shown through the interstices that gapped the moldered walls of the old house, giving them the appearance of being wrapped in green flames. The swine-creatures still crawled about the walls. Suddenly there was a loud roar of swine-voices, and up from the center of the ruthless house shot a vast column of blood-red flame. I saw the little twisted towers and turrets flash into fire, yet still preserving their twisted crookedness. The beams of the green sun beat upon the house, and intermingled with its lurid glows, so that it appeared a blazing furnace of red and green fire. Fascinated. I watched. Until an overwhelming sense of coming danger drew my attention, I glanced up and at once it was born upon me that the sun was closer, so close in fact that it seemed to overhang the world. Then I know not how. I was caught up into strange heights, floating like a bubble in the awful effulgence. Far below me I saw the earth, with the burning house leaping into an ever-growing mountain of flame. Round about it the ground appeared to be glowing, and in places heavy wreaths of yellow smoke assented from the earth. It seemed as though the world were becoming ignited from that one plague-spot of fire. Faintly I could see the swine-things. They appeared quite unharmed. Then the ground seemed to cave in suddenly in the house with its load of foul creatures, disappeared into the depths of the earth, sending a strange, blood-colored cloud into the heights. I remembered the hell-pit under the house. In a while I looked round. The huge balk of the sun rose high above me. The distance between it and the earth grew rapidly less. Suddenly the earth appeared to shoot forward. In a moment it had traversed the space between it and the sun. I heard no sound, but out from the sun's face gushed an ever-growing tongue of dazzling flame. It seemed to leap almost to the distant green sun, shearing through the emerald light a very cataract of blinding fire. It reached its limit and sank, and on the sun glowed a vast splash of burning white—the grave of the earth. The sun was very close to me now. Presently I found that I was rising higher until at last I rode above it in the emptiness. The green sun was now so huge that its breath seemed to fill up all the sky ahead. I looked down and noted that the sun was passing directly beneath me. A year may have gone by or a century, and I was left suspended alone. The sun showed far in front of black, circular mass against the molten splendor of the great green orb. Near one edge I observed that a lurid glow had appeared, marking the place where the earth had fallen. By this I knew that the long-dead sun was still revolving through with great slowness. A far to my right I seemed to catch at times a faint glow of whitish light. For a great time I was uncertain whether to put this down to fancy or not. Thus for a while I stared with fresh wanderings, until at last I knew that it was no imaginary thing, but a reality. It grew brighter, and presently there slid out of the green a pale globe of softest white. It came nearer, and I saw that it was apparently surrounded by a robe of gently glowing clouds. Time passed. I glanced toward the diminishing sun. It showed only as a dark blot on the face of the green sun. As I watched I saw it grow smaller, steadily as though rushing toward the superior orb at an immense speed. Intently I stared. What would happen? I was conscious of extraordinary emotions as I realized that it would strike the green sun. It grew no bigger than a pea, and I looked with my whole soul to witness the final end of our system—that system which had borne the world through so many eons with its multitudinous sorrows and joys—and now. Suddenly something crossed my vision, cutting from sight all vestige of the spectacle I watched with such soul interest. What happened to the dead sun I did not see? But I have no reason, in the light of that which I saw afterward, do disbelieve that it fell into the strange fire of the green sun, and so perished. And then suddenly an extraordinary question rose in my mind whether this stupendous globe of green fire might not be the vast central sun, the great sun round which our universe and countless others revolve. I felt confused. I thought of the probable end of the dead sun, and another suggestion came dumbly. Do the dead stars make the green sun their grave? The idea appealed to me with no sense of grotesqueness, but rather as something both possible and probable. The Celestial Globes For a while many thoughts crowded my mind so that I was unable to do ought save stare, blindly, before me. I seemed whelmed in a sea of doubt and wonder and sorrowful remembrance. It was later that I came out of my bewilderment. I looked about daisily. Thus I saw so extraordinary a sight that for a while I could scarcely believe I was not still rapt in the visionary tumult of my own thoughts. Out of the raining green had grown a boundless river of softly shimmering globes. Each one unfolded in a wondrous fleece of pure cloud. They reached both above and below me to an unknown distance, and not only hid the shining of the green sun but supplied, in place thereof a tender glow of light that suffused itself around me like unto nothing I have ever seen before or since. In a little I noticed that there was about these spheres a sort of transparency, almost as though they were formed of clouded crystal, within which burned of radiance, gentle and subdued. They moved on, past me, continually, floating onward at no great speed, but rather as though they had eternity before them. A great while I watched and could perceive no end to them. At times I seemed to distinguish faces amid the cloudiness, but strangely indistinct as though partly real and partly formed of the mistiness to which they showed. For a long time I waited passively with a sense of growing content. I had no longer that feeling of unutterable loneliness, but felt rather that I was less alone than I had been for corpus of years. This feeling of contentment increased so that I would have been satisfied to float in company with those celestial globules forever. Ages lived by and I saw the shadowy faces, with increased frequency, also with greater plainness. Whether this was due to my soul having become more attuned to its surroundings I cannot tell. Probably it was so. But however this may be I am assured now, only of the fact that I became steadily more conscious of a new mystery about me, telling me that I had indeed penetrated within the borderland of some unthought of region, some subtle intangible place or form of existence. The enormous stream of luminous spheres continued to pass me at an unvarying rate, countless millions, and still they came showing no signs of ending, nor even diminishing. Then as I was born silently upon the unbuying ether, I felt a sudden irresistible forward movement toward one of the passing globes. An instant when I was beside it, then I slid through into the interior without experiencing the least resistance of any description. For a short while I could see nothing, and waited curiously. All at once I became aware that a sound broke the inconceivable stillness. It was like the murmur of a great sea at calm, a sea breathing in its sleep. Gradually the mist that obscured my sight began to thin away, and so, in time my vision dwelt once again upon the silent surface of the sea of sleep. For a little I gazed and could scarcely believe I saw a right, I glanced round. There was the great globe of pale fire swimming as I had seen it before, a short distance above the dim horizon. To my left far across the sea I discovered presently a faint line as of thin haze, which I guessed to be the shore where my love and I had met, during those wonderful periods of soul wandering that had been granted to me in the old earth days. Another a troubled memory came to me of the formless thing that had haunted the shores of the sea of sleep, the guardian of that silent, echo-less place. These and other details I remembered and knew without doubt that I was looking out upon that same sea. With the assurance I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of surprise and joy, and shaken expectancy, conceiving it possible that I was about to see my love again, intently I gazed around, but could catch no sight of her. At that, for little, I felt hopeless, fervently I prayed and ever peered anxiously, how still was the sea. Down far beneath me I could see the many trails of changeful fire that had drawn my attention formerly. Vaguely I wondered what caused them. Also I remembered that I had intended to ask my dear one about them as well as many other matters, and I had been forced to leave her before the half that I had wished to say was said. My thoughts came back with a leap. I was conscious that something had touched me. I turned quickly. God! Thou were indeed gracious! It was she. She looked up into my eyes with an eager longing, and I looked down to her with all my soul. I should like to have held her, but the glorious purity of her face kept me afar. Then out of the winding mist she put her dear arms. Her whisper came to me soft as the rustle of a passing cloud. Dearest! she said. That was all but I had heard, and in a moment I held her to me as I prayed. Forever! In a little she spoke of many things, and I listened. Willingly would I have done so through all the ages that are to come. At times I whispered back, and my whispers brought to her spirit face once more in indescribably delicate tint, the bloom of love. Later I spoke more freely, and to each word she listened and made answer delightfully, so that already I was in paradise. She, and I, and nothing. Save the silent, spacious void to see us, and only the quiet waters of the sea of sleep to hear us. Long before the floating multitude of cloud-infolded spheres had vanished into nothingness. Thus we looked upon the face of the slumberous deeps, and were alone. Alone! God! I would be thus alone in the hereafter, and yet be never lonely. I had her. And greater than this she had me. I. Eon aged me. And on this thought and some others I hope to exist through the few remaining years that may yet lie between us. The dark sun. How long our souls lay in the arms of joy I cannot say. But all at once I was waked from my happiness by a diminution of the pale and gentle light that lit the sea of sleep. I turned toward the huge white orb with a premonition of coming trouble. One side of it was curving inward as though a convex black shadow were sweeping across it. My memory went back. It was thus that the darkness had come before our last parting. I turned toward my love inquiringly, with a sudden knowledge of woe I noticed how wan and unreal she had grown, even in that brief space. Her voice seemed to me to come from a distance. The touch of her hands was no more than the gentle pressure of a summer wind and grew less perceptible. Already quite half of the immense glow was shrouded. A feeling of desperation seized me. Was she about to leave me? Would she have to go as she had gone before? I questioned her anxiously, frightenly, and she nestling closer explained then that strange faraway voice that it was imperative she should leave me before the sun of darkness, as she termed it, blotted out the light. At this confirmation of my fears I was overcome with despair and could only look voicelessly across the quiet plains of the silent sea. How swiftly the darkness spread across the face of the white orb, yet in reality the time must have been long beyond human comprehension. At last only a crescent of pale fire lit the now dim sea of sleep. All this while she had held me, but was so soft to caress that I had been scarcely conscious of it. We waited there together, she and I, speechless for a very sorrow. In the dimming light her face showed shadowy, blending into the dusky midstiness that encircled us. Then when a thin curved line of soft light was all that lit the sea she released me, pushing me from her tenderly. Her voice sounded in my ears. I may not stay longer, dear one. It ended in a sob. She seemed to float away from me and became invisible. Her voice came to me out of the shadows faintly, apparently from a great distance. A little while it died away remotely. In a breath the sea of sleep darkened into night. Far to my left I seemed to see for a brief instant a soft glow. It vanished, and in the same moment I became aware that I was no longer above the still sea. But once more suspended in infinite space with the green sun. Now eclipsed by a vast dark sphere before me. Utterly bewildered I stared almost unseeingly at the ring of green flames leaping above the dark edge. Even in the chaos of my thoughts I wondered dolly at their extraordinary shapes. A multitude of questions assailed me. I thought more of her I had so lately seen than of the sight before me. My grief and thoughts of the future filled me. Was I doomed to be separated from her always? Even in the old earth days she had been mine only for a little while. Then she had left me, as I thought, forever. Since then I had seen her but these times upon the sea of sleep. A feeling of fierce resentment filled me, and miserable questionings. Why could I not have gone with my love? What reason to keep us apart? Why had I to wait alone while she slumbered through the years on the still bosom of the sea of sleep—the sea of sleep? My thoughts turned inconsequentially out of their channel of bitterness to fresh, desperate questionings. Where was it? Where was it? I seemed to have but just parted from my love upon its quiet surface, and it had gone, utterly. It could not be far away, and the white orb which I had seen hidden in the shadow of the sun-darkness, my sight dwelt upon the green sun eclipsed. What had it eclipsed? Was there a vast dead star circling it? Was the central sun, as I had come to regard it, a double star? The thought had come almost unbidden, yet why should it not be so? My thoughts went back to the white orb. Strange that it should have been—I stopped. An idea had come suddenly. The white orb and the green sun. Were they one and the same? My imagination wandered backward, and I remembered the luminous globe to which I had been so unaccountably attracted. It was curious that I should have forgotten it even momentarily. Where were the others? I reverted again to the globe I had entered. I thought for a time, and matters became clearer. I conceived that, by entering that impalpable globule, I had passed at once into some further and until then invisible dimension. There the great sun was still visible, but as a stupendous sphere of pale white light, almost as though its ghosts showed and not its material part. A long time I mused on the subject. I remembered how on entering the sphere I had immediately lost all sight of the others. For a still further period I continued to revolve the different details in my mind. In a while my thoughts turned to other things. I came more into the present and began to look about me, seeingly. For the first time I perceived that innumerable rays of a subtle violet hue pierced the strange semi-darkness in all directions. They radiated from the fiery rim of the green sun. They seemed to grow upon my vision so that in a little while I saw that they were countless. The night was filled with them, spreading outward from the green sun fan-wise. I concluded that I was unable to see them by reason of the sun's glory being cut off by the eclipse. They reached right out into space and vanished. Gradually as I looked, I became aware that fine points of intensely brilliant light traverse the rays. Many of them seemed to travel from the green sun into the distance. Others came out of the void, toward the sun. But one and all each kept strictly to the ray in which it travelled. Their speed was inconceivably great, and it was only when they neared the green sun, or as they left it, that I could see them as separate specks of light. Further from the sun they became thin lines of vivid fire within the violet. The discovery of these rays and the moving sparks interested me extraordinarily. To where did they lead in such countless profusion? I thought of the worlds in space. And those sparks, messengers. Possibly the idea was fantastic, but I was not conscious of its being so. Messengers! Messengers from the central sun! An idea evolved itself slowly. Was the green sun the abode of some vast intelligence? The thought was bewildering. Visions of the unnameable rose vaguely. Had I indeed come upon the dwelling place of the Eternal, for a time I repelled the thought dumbly, it was too stupendous. Yet huge vague thoughts at birth within me. I felt suddenly terribly naked, and an awful nearness shook me. And heaven! Was that an illusion? My thoughts came and went erratically. The sea of sleep and she! Heaven! I came back with a bound to the present, somewhere out of the void beneath me there rushed an immense, dark body, huge and silent. It was a dead star. Hurling onward to the burying place of the stars, it drove between me and the central suns, blotting them out from my vision and plunging me into an impenetrable night. An age. And I saw again the violet rays. A great while later, eons it must have been. A circular glow grew in the sky ahead and I saw the edge of the receding star, showing darkly against it. Thus I knew that it was nearing the central suns. Presently I saw the bright ring of the green sun shown plainly against the night. The star had passed into the shadow of the dead sun. After that I just waited. The strange years went slowly and ever I watched intently. The thing I had expected came at last. Suddenly awfully. A vast flare of dazzling light, a streaming burst of white flame across the dark void. For an indefinite while it soared outward, a gigantic mushroom of fire. It ceased to grow then. As time went by it began to sink backward slowly. I saw now that it came from a huge glowing spot near the center of the dark sun. Mighty flames, still soared outward from this. Yet, spite of its size, the grave of the star was no more than the shining of Jupiter upon the face of an ocean when compared with the inconceivable mass of the dead sun. I may remark here once more that no words will ever convey to the imagination the enormous bulk of the two central suns. The dark nebula. Years melted into the past, centuries, eons. The light of the incandescent star sank to a furious red. It was later that I saw the dark nebula. At first an impalpable cloud away to my right. It grew steadily to a clot of blackness in the night. How long I watched, it is impossible to say. For time as we count it was a thing of the past. It came closer, a shapeless monstrosity of darkness, tremendous. It seemed to slip across the night, sleepily, a very hell-fog. Slowly it slid nearer and passed into the void between me and the central suns. It was as though a curtain had been drawn before my vision. A strange tremor of fear took me, and a fresh sense of wonder. The green twilight that had rained for so many millions of years had now given place to impenetrable gloom. Motionless I peered about me. A century fled, and it seemed to me that I detected occasional dull glows of red passing me at intervals. Ernestly I gazed, and presently seemed to see circular masses that showed muddily red within the clouded blackness. They appeared to be growing out of the nebulous murk. A while, and they became plainer to my accustomed vision, I could see them now, with a fair amount of distinctness, ruddy tinged spheres, similar in size to the luminous globes that I had seen so long previously. They floated past me, continually. Gradually a peculiar uneasiness seized me. I became aware of a growing feeling of repugnance and dread. It was directed against those passing orbs, and seemed born of intuitive knowledge rather than of any real cause or reason. Some of the passing globes were brighter than others, and it was from one of these that a face looked, suddenly, a face human in its outline but so tortured with woe that I stared aghast. I had not thought there was such sorrow as I saw there. I was conscious of an added sense of pain on perceiving that the eyes which glared so wildly were sightless. A while longer, I saw it. Then it had passed on into the surrounding bloom. After this I saw others, all wearing that look of hopeless sorrow and blind. A long time went by, and I became aware that I was nearer to the orbs than I had been. At this I grew uneasy, though I was less in fear of those strange globules than I had been, before seeing their sorrowful inhabitants, for sympathy had tempered my fear. Later there was no doubt but that I was being carried closer to the red spheres, and presently I floated among them. In a while I perceived one bearing down upon me. I was helpless to move from its path. In a minute it seemed it was upon me, and I was submerged in a deep red mist. This cleared and I stared confusedly across the immense breadth of the plain of silence. It appeared just as I had first seen it. I was moving forward, steadily across its surface, away ahead shown the vast, blood-red ring. Author's footnote. Without doubt the flame-edged mass of the dead central sun seen from another dimension. End of author's footnote. That lit the place. All around was spread the extraordinary desolation of stillness that had so impressed me during my previous wanderings across its starkness. Presently I saw rising up into the ruddy gloom the distant peaks of the mighty amphitheater of mountains where untold ages before I had been shown my first glimpse of the terrors that underlie many things. And where vast and silent, watched by a thousand mute gods, stands the replica of this house of mysteries, this house that I had seen swallowed up in that hell-fire ere the earth had kissed the sun, and vanished forever. Though I could see the crests of the mountain amphitheater yet it was a great while before their lower portions became visible, possibly this was due to the strange ruddy haze that seemed to cling to the surface of the plain. However be this as it may I saw them at last. In a still further space of time I had come so close to the mountains that they appeared to overhang me. Presently I saw the great rift open before me and I drifted into it, without volition on my part. Later I came out upon the breath of the enormous arena. There at an apparent distance of some five miles stood the house, huge, monstrous and silent, lying in the very centre of that stupendous amphitheater. So far as I could see it had not altered in any way, but looked as though it were only yesterday that I had seen it. Around the grim dark mountains frowned down upon me from their lofty silences. Far away to my right, away up among inaccessible peaks loomed the enormous balk of the great beast-god. I her I saw the hideous form of the dread goddess rising up through the red gloom thousands of fathoms above me. To the left I made out the monstrous eyeless thing, gray and inscrutable. Further off reclining on its lofty edge the livid ghoul-shape showed a splash of sinister colour among the dark mountains. Slowly I moved out across the great arena, floating. As I went I made out the dim forms of many other lurking horrors that peopled those supreme heights. Gradually I near the house, and my thoughts flashed back across the abyss of years. I remembered the dread spectre of the place. A short while past and I saw that I was being wafted directly toward the enormous mass of that silent building. About this time I became aware in an indifferent sort of way of a growing sense of numbness that robbed me of the fear which I should otherwise have felt, and approaching that awesome pile. As it was I viewed it calmly, much as a man views calamity to the haze of his tobacco smoke. In a little while I had come so close to the house as to be able to distinguish many of the details about it. The longer I looked the more was I confirmed in my long ago impressions of its entire similitude to the strange house. Save in its enormous size I could find nothing unlike. Suddenly, as I stared a great feeling of amazement filled me, I had come opposite to that part where the outer door leading into the study is situated. There lying right across the threshold lay a great length of coping stone, identical save in size and colour with the piece I had dislodged in my fight with the pit-creatures. I floated nearer hand. My astonishment increased as I noticed that the door was broken partly from its hinges precisely in the manner that my study-door had been forced inward by the assaults of the swine things. The sight started a train of thoughts, and I began to trace dimly that the attack on this house might have a far deeper significance than I had hitherto imagined. I remembered how long ago in the old earth days I had half suspected that in some unexplainable manner this house in which I live was unrepore to use a recognised term with that other tremendous structure away in the midst of that incomparable plain. Now, however, it began to be borne upon me that I had but vaguely conceived what the realisation of my suspicion meant. I began to understand, with a more than human clearness, that the attack I had repelled was in some extraordinary manner connected with an attack upon that strange edifice. With a curious inconsequence my thoughts abruptly left the matter to dwell wanderingly upon the peculiar material out of which the house was constructed. It was, as I have mentioned earlier, of a deep green colour. Yet now that I had come so close to it, I perceived that it fluctuated at times, though slightly, glowing and fading much as do the fumes of phosphorus when rubbed upon the hand in the dark. Presently my attention was distracted from this by coming to the great entrance. Here for the first time I was afraid. For, all in a moment the huge doors swung back and I drifted in between them helplessly. Inside all was blackness, impalpable, and in an instant I had crossed the threshold and the great doors closed silently shutting me in that a lightless place. For a while I seemed to hang motionless, suspended amid the darkness. Then I became conscious that I was moving again, where I could not tell. Suddenly, far down beneath me, I seemed to hear a murmurous noise of swine laughter. It sank away and the succeeding silence appeared clogged with horror. Then a door opened somewhere ahead, a white haze of light filtered through, and I floated slowly into a room that seemed strangely familiar. All at once there came a bewildering screaming noise that deafened me. I saw blurred vista of visions flaming before my sight. My senses were dazed through the space of an eternal moment. Then my power of seeing came back to me, the dizzy, hazy feeling passed, and I saw clearly. Pepper. I was seated in my chair, back again in this old study. My glance wandered round the room. For a minute it had a strange, quivery appearance. Unreal and unsubstantial. This disappeared and I saw that nothing was altered in any way. I looked toward the end window. The blind was up. I rose to my feet shakily, as I did so a slight noise in the direction of the door attracted my attention. I glanced toward it. For a short instant it appeared to me that it was being closed, gently. I stared and saw that I must have been mistaken. It seemed closely shut. With a succession of efforts I trod my way to the window and looked out. The sun was just rising, lighting up the tangled wilderness of gardens. For perhaps a minute I stood and stared. I passed my hand confusedly across my forehead. Presently amid the chaos of my senses a sudden thought came to me. I turned quickly and called to Pepper. There was no answer and I stumbled across the room in a quick access of fear. As I went I tried to frame his name, but my lips were numb. I reached the table and stooped down to him with a catching at my heart. He was lying in the shadow of the table and I had not been able to see him distinctly from the window. Now as I stooped I took my breath shortly. There was no Pepper. Instead I was reaching toward an elongated little heap of grey ash-like dust. I must have remained in that half-stooped position for some minutes. I was dazed. Stunned. Pepper had really passed into the land of shadows. End of Chapter 23 Recording by John Van Stan Savannah, Georgia Chapter 24 of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This Libravox recording is in the public domain. The footsteps in the garden. Pepper is dead. Even now at times I seem scarcely able to realize that this is so. It is many weeks since I came back from that strange and terrible journey through space and time. Sometimes in my sleep I dream about it and go through in my imagination the whole of that fearsome happening. When I wake my thoughts dwell upon it. That sun, those suns, where they indeed the great central suns round which the whole universe of the unknown heavens revolves, who shall say? And the bright globules floating forever in the light of the green sun, and the sea of sleep on which they float? How unbelievable it all is. If it were not for Pepper, I should even after the many extraordinary things that I have witnessed, be inclined to imagine that it was but a gigantic dream. Then there is that dreadful dark nebula with its multitudes of red spheres moving all ways within the shadow of the dark sun, sweeping along on its stupendous orbit, wrapped eternally in gloom, and the faces that peered out at me. God, do they, and does such a thing really exist? There is still that little heap of gray ash on my study floor. I will not have it touched. At times when I am calmer I have wondered what became of the outer planets of the solar system. It has occurred to me that they may have broken loose from the sun's attraction and world away into space. This is, of course, only a surmise. There are so many things about which I wonder. Now that I am writing, let me record that I am certain there is something horrible about to happen. Last night a thing occurred which has filled me with an even greater terror than did the pit fear. I will write it down now and, if anything more happens, endeavor to make a note of it at once. I have a feeling that there is more in this last affair than in all those others. I am shaky and nervous, even now as I write. Somehow I think death is not very far away. Not that I fear death as death is understood, yet there is that in the air which bids me fear, an intangible cold horror. I felt it last night. It was thus. Last night I was sitting here in my study writing. The door leading into the garden was half open. At times the metallic rattle of a dog's chain sounded faintly. It belongs to the dog I have bought since Pepper's death. I will not have him in the house, not after Pepper. Still, I have felt it better to have a dog about the place. They are wonderful creatures. I was much engrossed in my work and the time passed quickly. Suddenly I heard a soft noise on the path outside in the garden. Pat, pat, pat it went with a stealthy, curious sound. I sat upright with a quick movement and looked out through the open door. Again the noise came. Pat, pat, pat. It appeared to be approaching. With a slight feeling of nervousness I stared into the gardens, but the night hid everything. Then the dog gave a long howl and I started. For a minute perhaps I peered intently, but could hear nothing. After a little I picked up the pen which I had laid down and recommenced my work. The nervous feeling had gone for I imagine that the sound I had heard was nothing more than the dog rocking round his kennel at the length of his chain. A quarter of an hour may have passed. Then all at once the dog howled again, and with such a plaintively sorrowful note that I jumped to my feet, dropping my pen and inking the page on which I was at work. Curse that dog! I muttered, noting what I had done. Then even as I said the words there sounded again that queer pat, pat, pat. It was horribly close, almost by the door I thought. I knew now that it could not be the dog. His chain would not allow him to come so near. The dog's growl came again, and I noted subconsciously the taint of fear in it. Outside on the window sill I could see tip, my sister's pet cat. As I looked it sprang to its feet its tail swelling visibly. For an instant it stood thus, seeming to stare fixedly at something in the direction of the door. Then quickly it began to back along the sill until reaching the wall at the end it could go no further. There it stood, rigid as though frozen in an attitude of extraordinary terror. Frightened and puzzled I seized the stick from the corner and went toward the door silently, taking one of the candles with me. I had come to within a few paces of it when suddenly a peculiar sense of fear thrilled through me, a fear palpitant and real, whence I knew not nor why. So great was the feeling of terror that I wasted no time but retreated straightway, walking backward and keeping my gaze fearfully on the door. I would have given much to rush at it, fling it to and shoot the bolts, for I have had it repaired and strengthened so that now it is far stronger than ever it has been. Like tip I continued my almost unconscious progress backward until the wall brought me up. At that I started nervously and glanced round apprehensively. As I did so my eyes dwelt momentarily on the rack of firearms, and I took a step toward them but stopped with a curious feeling that they would be needless. Outside in the gardens the dog moaned, strangely. Suddenly from the cat there came a fierce long screech. I glanced jerkily in its direction, something luminous and ghostly encircled it and grew upon my vision. It resolved into a glowing hand, transparent with a lampened greenish flame flickering over it. The cat gave a last awful catter-wall and I saw it smoke and blaze. My breath came with a gasp, and I leaned against the wall. Over that part of the window there spread a smudge green and fantastic. It hid the thing from me, though the glare of fire shone through dolly, a stench of burning stolen to the room. Pad, pad, pad, something passed down the garden path, and a faint, moldy odor seemed to come in through the open door and mingle with the burnt smell. The dog had been silent for a few moments. Now I heard him yowl sharply as though in pain. Then he was quiet, save for an occasional subdued whimper of fear. A minute went by, then the gate on the west side of the gardens slammed distantly. After that, nothing. Not even the dog's wine. I must have stood there some minutes. Then a fragment of courage stole into my heart, and I made a frightened rush at the door, dashed it to and bolted it. After that, for a full half hour, I sat helpless, staring before me rigidly. Slowly my life came back to me, and I made my way shakily upstairs to bed. That is all. CHAPTER 25 OF THE HOUSE ON THE BORDER LAND By William Hope Hodgson This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. The thing from the arena. This morning, early, I went through the gardens but found everything as usual. Near the door I examined the path for footprints yet here again. There was nothing to tell me whether or not I dreamed last night. It was only when I came to speak to the dog that I discovered tangible proof that something did happen. When I went to his kennel, he kept inside, crouching up in one corner, and I had to coax him to get him out. When finally he consented to come, it was in a strangely cowed and subdued manner. As I padded him, my attention was attracted to a greenish patch on his left flank. On examining it, I found that the fur and skin had been apparently burnt off, where the flesh showed raw and scorched. The shape of the mark was curious, reminding me of the imprint of a large talon or hand. I stood up thoughtful. My gaze wandered toward the study window. The rays of the rising sun shimmered on the smoky patch in the lower corner, causing it to fluctuate from greed into red oddly. Ah, that was undoubtedly another proof, and suddenly the horrible thing I saw last night rose in my mind. I looked at the dog again. I knew the cause now of that hateful looking wound on his side. I knew also that what I had seen last night had been a real happening, and a great discomfort filled me. Pepper! Tip! And now this poor animal! I glanced at the dog again and noticed that he was looking at his wound. Poor brute! I muttered and bent to pat his head. At that he got upon his feet nosing and licking my hand wistfully. Presently I left him having other matters to which to attend. After dinner I went to see him again. He seemed quiet and disinclined to leave his kennel. From my sister I have learnt that he has refused all food to-day. She appeared a little puzzled when she told me, though quite unsuspicious of anything of which to be afraid. The day has passed uneventfully enough. After tea I went again to have a look at the dog. He seemed moody and somewhat restless, yet persisted in remaining in his kennel. Before locking up for the night I moved his kennel out away from the wall, so that I shall be able to watch it from the small window to-night. The thought came to me to bring him into the house for the night, but consideration has decided me to let him remain out. I cannot say that this house is in any degree less to be feared than the gardens. Pepper was in the house and yet. It is now two o'clock. Since eight I have watched the kennel from the small side window in my study, yet nothing has occurred and I am too tired to watch longer. I will go to bed. During the night I was restless. This is unusual for me, but toward morning I obtained a few hours' sleep. I rose early and after breakfast visited the dog. He was quiet, but more roast and refused to leave his kennel. I wish there was some horse-doctor near here. I would have the poor brute look to. All day he has taken no food, but has shown an evident desire for water, lapping it up greedily. I was relieved to observe this. The evening has come and I am in my study. I intend to follow my plan of last night and watch the kennel. The door leading into the garden is bolted securely. I am consciously glad there are bars to the windows. Night. Midnight has gone. The dog has been silent up to the present. Through the side window on my left I can make out dimly the outlines of the kennel. For the first time the dog moves and I hear the rattle of his chain. I look out quickly as I stare. The dog moves again restlessly and I see a small patch of luminous light shine from the interior of the kennel. It vanishes. Then the dog stirs again and once more the gleam comes. I am puzzled. The dog is quiet and I can see the luminous thing plainly. It shows distinctly. There is something familiar about the shape of it. For a moment I wonder. Then it comes to me that it is not unlike the four fingers and thumb of a hand. Like a hand? And I remember the contour of that fearsome wound on the dog's side. It must be the wound I see. It is luminous at night. Why? The minutes pass. My mind is filled with this fresh thing. Suddenly I hear a sound out in the gardens. How it thrills through me it is approaching. Pat, pat, pat. A prickly sensation traverses my spine and seems to creep across my scalp. The dog moves in his kennel and whimpers frightenedly. He must have turned round for now I can no longer see the outline of his shining wound. Outside the gardens are silent once more. And I listen fearfully. A minute passes and another. Then I hear the patting sound again. It is quite close and appears to be coming down the grappled path. The noise is curiously measured and deliberate. It ceases outside the door and I rise to my feet and stand motionless. From the door comes a slight sound. The latch is being slowly raised. Singing noises in my ears and I have a sense of pressure about the head. The latch drops with a sharp click into the catch. The noise startles me afresh, jarring horribly on my tense nerves. After that I stand for a long while amid an ever growing quietness. All at once my knees begin to tremble and I have to sit quickly. An uncertain period of time passes and gradually I begin to shake off the feeling of terror that has possessed me. Yet still I sit. I seem to have lost the power of movement. I am strangely tired and inclined to doze. My eyes open and closed and presently I find myself falling asleep and waking in fits and starts. It is some time later that I am sleepily aware that one of the candles is guttering. When I wake again it has gone out and the room is very dim under the light of the one remaining flame. The semi-darkness troubles me little. I have lost that awful sense of dread and my only desire seems to be to sleep. Sleep. Suddenly, although there is no noise, I am awake. While awake, I am acutely conscious of the nearness of some mystery, of some overwhelming presence. The very air seems pregnant with terror. I sit huddled and just listened intently. There still there is no sound. Nature herself seems dead. Then the oppressive stillness is broken by a little eldritch scream of wind that sweeps round the house and dies away remotely. I let my gaze wander across the half-lighted room by the great clock in the far corner as a dark tall shadow. For a short instant I stare frightenedly, then I see that it is nothing and immomentarily relieved. In the time that follows the thought flashes through my brain, why not leave this house, this house of mystery and terror? Then as though in answer there sweeps up across my sight a vision of the wondrous sea of sleep. The sea of sleep where she and I have been allowed to meet after the years of separation and sorrow. And I know that I shall stay on here whatever happens. Through the side window I note the somber blackness of the night. My glance wanders away and round the room resting on one shadowy object and another. Suddenly I turn and look at the window on my right as I do so I breathe quickly and bend forward with a frightened gaze at something outside the window, but close to the bars. I am looking at a vast, misty swine-face over which fluctuates a flamboyant flame of a greenest hue. It is the thing from the arena. The quivering mouth seems to drip with a continual phosphorescent slather. The eyes are staring straight into the room with an inscrutable expression, thus I sit rigidly, frozen. The thing has begun to move. It is turning slowly in my direction. Its face is coming round toward me. It sees me. Two huge, inhumanly human eyes are looking through the dimness at me. I am cold with fear, yet even now I am keenly conscious and note, in an irrelevant way, that the distant stars are blotted out by the mass of the giant face. A fresh horror has come to me. I am rising from my chair without the least intention. I am on my feet and something is impelling me toward the door that leads out into the gardens. I wish to stop, but cannot. Some immutable power is opposed to my will and I go slowly, forward unwilling and resistant. My glance flies round the room helplessly and stops at the window. The great swine-face has disappeared, and I hear again that stealthy pat-pat pad. It stops outside the door, the door toward which I am being compelled. There succeeds a short intense silence, and there comes a sound. It is the rattle of the latch being slowly lifted. At that I am filled with desperation. I will not go forward another step. I make a vast effort to return, but it is as though I press back upon an invisible wall. I groan out loud, and the agony of my fear and the sound of my voice is frightening. Again comes that rattle, and I shiver clamily. I try, I fight and struggle to hold back, but it is of no use. I am at the door, and in a mechanical way I watch my hand go forward to undo the topmost bolt. It does so entirely without my volition, even as I reach up toward the bolt the door is violently shaken, and I get a sickly whiff of moldy air, which seems to drive in through the interstices of the doorway. I draw the bolt back slowly, fighting, dumbly the while. It comes out of its socket with a click, and I begin to shake agishly. There are two more, one at the bottom of the door, the other a massive affair is placed about the middle. For perhaps a minute I stand with my arms hanging slackly by my sides. The influence to meddle with the fastenings of the door seems to have gone. All at once there comes the sudden rattle of iron at my feet. I glance down quickly and realize with an unspeakable terror that my foot is pushing back the lower bolt. An awful sense of helplessness assails me. The bolt comes out of its hole with a slight ringing sound, and I stagger on my feet, grasping at the great central bolt for support. A minute passes. An eternity. Then another. My God, help me. I am being forced to work upon the last fastening. I will not. Better to die than open to the terror that is on the other side of the door. Is there no escape? God help me. I have jerked the bolt half out of its socket. My lips emit a hoarse scream of terror. The bolt is three parts drawn now and still my unconscious hands work toward my doom. Only a fraction of steel between my soul and that. Twice I scream out in the supreme agony of my fear. Then with a mad effort I tear my hands away. My eyes seem blinded. A great blackness is falling upon me. Nature has come to my rescue. I feel my knees giving. There is a loud, quick thudding upon the door, and I am falling. Falling. I must have lain there at least a couple of hours. As I recover, I am aware that the other candle has burnt out, and the room is in an almost total darkness. I cannot rise to my feet for I am cold and filled with a terrible cramp. Yet my brain is clear and there is no longer this strain of that unholy influence. Cautiously, I get upon my knees and feel for the central bolt. I find it and push it securely back into its socket. Then the one at the bottom of the door. By this time, I am able to rise to my feet and so manage to secure the fastening at the top. After that, I go down upon my knees again and creep away among the furniture in the direction of the stairs. By doing this, I am safe from observation from the window. I reach the opposite door, and as I leave the study cast one nervous glance over my shoulder toward the window. Out in the night I seem to catch a glimpse of something impalpable. But it may be only a fancy. Then I am in the passage and on the stairs, reaching my bedroom I clamp her into bed all cloth as I am, and pull the bedclothes over me. There after a while I begin to regain a little confidence. It is impossible to sleep, but I am grateful for the added warmth of the bedclothes. Presently I try to think over the happenings of the past night, but, though I cannot sleep, I find that it is useless to attempt consecutive thought. My brain seems curiously blank. Toward morning I begin to toss uneasily. I cannot rest, and after a while I get out of bed and pace the floor. The wintry dawn is beginning to creep through the windows and shows the bare discomfort of the old room. Strange that, through all these years it has never occurred to me how dismal the place really is, and so a time passes. From somewhere downstairs a sound comes up to me. I go to the bedroom door and listen. It is merry, bustling about the great old kitchen, getting the breakfast ready. I feel little interest. I am not hungry. My thoughts, however, continue to dwell upon her. How little the weird happenings in this house seem to trouble her. Except in the incident of the pit-creatures she has seemed unconscious of anything unusual occurring. She is old, like myself, and how little we have to do with one another. Is it because we have nothing in common, or only that being old we care less for society than quietness? These and other matters pass through my mind as I meditate, and help to distract my attention for a while from the oppressive thoughts of the night. After a time I go to the window and, opening it, look out. The sun is now above the horizon and the air, though cold, is sweet and crisp. Gradually my brain clears and a sense of security for the time being comes to me. Somewhat happier I go downstairs and out into the garden to have a look at the dog. As I approach the kennel I am greeted by the same moldy stench that assailed me at the door last night. Shaking off a momentary sense of fear, I call to the dog, but he takes no heed. And after calling once more I throw a small stone into the kennel. At this he moves uneasily, and I shout his name again, but do not go closer. Presently my sister comes out and joins me in trying to coax him from the kennel. In a little the poor beast rises and shambles out lurching queerly. In the daylight he stands swaying from side to side and blinking stupidly. I look and note that the horrid wound is larger, much larger, and seems to have a whitish fungoid appearance. My sister moves to fondle him, but I detain her, and explain that I think it will be better not to go too near him for a few days, as it is impossible to tell what may be the matter with him, and it is well to be cautious. A minute later she leaves me, coming back with a basin of odd scraps of food. This she places on the ground near the dog and I push it into his reach, with the aid of a branch broken from one of the shrubs. Yet, though the meat should be tempting he takes no notice of it, but retires to his kennel. There is still water in his drinking vessel, so after a few moments, talk, we go back to the house. I can see that my sister is much puzzled as to what is the matter with the animal, yet it would be madness even to hint the truth to her. The day slips away uneventfully, and night comes on. I have determined to repeat my experiment of last night. I cannot say that it is wisdom, yet my mind is made up. Still, however, I have taken precautions, for I have driven stout nails in at the back of each of the three bolts that secure the door opening from the study into the gardens. This will at least prevent a recurrence of the danger I ran last night. From ten to about two thirty I watch, but nothing occurs, and finally I stumble off to bed, where I am soon asleep. It is still dark. I turn over once or twice in my endeavors to sleep again, but I cannot sleep. My head is aching slightly, and by turns I am hot and cold. In a little I give up the attempt and stretch out my hand for the matches. I will light my candle and read a while. Perhaps I shall be able to sleep after a time. For a few moments I grope, then my hand touches the box, but as I open it I am startled to see a phosphorescent speck of fire shining amid the darkness. I put out my other hand and touch it. It is on my wrist. With a feeling of vague alarm I strike a light hurriedly and look, but can see nothing save a tiny scratch. Fancy! I mutter with a half sigh of relief. Then the match burns my finger and I drop it quickly. As I fumble for another the thing shines out again. I know now that it is no fancy. This time I light the candle and examine the place more closely. There is a slight greenish discoloration round the scratch. I am puzzled and worried. Then a thought comes to me. I remember the morning after the thing appeared. I remember that the dog licked my hand. It was this one, with the scratch on it. Though I have not been even conscious of the abasement until now, a horrible fear has come to me. It creeps into my brain. The dog's wound shines at night. With a dazed feeling I sit down on the side of the bed and try to think, but cannot. My brain seems numbed with the sheer horror of this new fear. Time moves on, unheeded. Once I rouse up and try to persuade myself that I am mistaken, but it is no use. In my heart I have no doubt. Hour after hour I sit in the darkness and silence and shiver hopelessly. The day has come and gone, and it is night again. This morning early I shot the dog and buried it away among the bushes. My sister is startled and frightened, but I am desperate. Besides, it is better so. The foul growth had almost hidden its left side, and I, the place on my wrist, has enlarged perceptibly. Several times I have caught myself muttering prayers. Little things learned as a child. God, Almighty God, help me. I shall go mad. Six days and I have eaten nothing. It is night and I am sitting in my chair. Oh, God! I wonder. Have any ever felt the horror of life that I have come to know? I am swathed in terror. I feel the ever-burning of this dread growth. It has covered all my right arm and side, and is beginning to creep up my neck. Tomorrow it will eat into my face. I shall become a terrible mass of living corruption. There is no escape. Yet a thought has come to me, born of a sight of the gun-rack on the other side of the room. I have looked again with the strangest of feelings. The thought grows upon me. God, thou knowest. Thou must know that death is better I. Better a thousand times than this. This. Jesus, forgive me, but I cannot live. Cannot. Cannot. I dare not. I am beyond all hope. There is nothing else left. It will, at least, spare me that final horror. I think I must have been dozing. I am very weak and, oh, so miserable. So miserable and tired. Tired. The rustle of the paper tries my brain. My hearing seems preternaturally sharp. I will sit a while and think. Hush. I hear something. Down, down in the cellars. It is a creaking sound. My God. It is the opening of the great oak trap. What can be doing that? The scratching of my pen defends me. I must listen. There are steps on the stairs. Strange padding steps that come up and nearer. Jesus, be merciful to me, an old man. There is something fumbling at the door handle. Oh God, help me now. Jesus, the door is opening. Slowly. Something. That is all. Author's Footnote From the unfinished word it is possible, on the manuscript, to trace a faint line of ink which suggests that the pen is trailed away over the paper, possibly through fright and weakness. End of Author's Footnote. End of Chapter 26. Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Chapter 27 of The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This sleeper-vox recording is in the public domain. Conclusion I put down the manuscript and glanced across at Tonneson. He was sitting staring out into the dark. I waited a minute then I spoke. Well, I said. He turned slowly and looked at me. His thoughts seemed to have gone out of him into a great distance. Was he mad? I asked, and indicated the manuscript with a half-nod. Tonneson stared at me, unseeingly a moment. Then his wits came back to him and suddenly he comprehended my question. No, he said. I opened my lips to offer a contradictory opinion for my sense of this saneness of things would not allow me to take the story literally. Then I shut them again without saying anything. Somehow the certainty in Tonneson's voice affected my doubts. I felt all at once less assured, though I was by no means convinced as yet. After a few moments' silence, Tonneson rose stiffly and began to undress. He seemed disinclined to talk, so I said nothing, but followed his example. I was weary, though still full of the story I had just read. Somehow, as I rolled into my blankets, there crept into my mind a memory of the old gardens as we had seen them. I remembered the odd fear that the place had conjured up in our hearts, and it grew upon me with conviction that Tonneson was right. It was very late when we rose. Nearly midday for the greater part of the night had been spent in reading the manuscript. Tonneson was grumpy, and I felt out of sorts. It was a somewhat dismal day, and there was a touch of chilliness in the air. There was no mention of going out fishing on either of our parts. We got dinner, and after that just sat and smoked in silence. Presently Tonneson asked for the manuscript. I handed it to him, and he spent most of the afternoon in reading it through by himself. It was while he was thus employed that a thought came to me. What do you say to having another look at? I nodded my head downstream. Tonneson looked up. Nothing! he said abruptly, and somehow I was less annoyed than relieved at his answer. After that I left him alone. A little before tea time he looked up at me curiously. Sorry, old chap, if I was a bit short with you just now. Just now indeed, he had not spoken for the last three hours. But I would not go there again. And he indicated with his head, for anything that you could offer me. And he put down that history of a man's terror and hope and despair. The next morning we rose early and went for our custom swim. We had partly shaken off the depression of the previous day, and so took our rods when we had finished breakfast and spent the day at our favourite sport. After that day we enjoyed our holiday to the utmost, though both of us looked forward to the time when our driver should come. For we were tremendously anxious to inquire of him and through him among the people of the tiny hamlet, whether any of them could give us information about that strange garden lying away by itself in the heart of an almost unknown tract of country. At last the day came on which we expected the driver to come across for us. He arrived early while we were still a bed, and the first thing we knew he was at the opening of the tent inquiring whether we had had good sport. We replied in the affirmative and then both together almost in the same breath. We asked the question that was uppermost in our minds. Did he know anything about an old garden and a great pit, and a lake situated some miles away down the river, also, had he ever heard of a great house thereabouts? No, he did not and had not. Yet stay he had heard a rumour, once upon a time, of a great old house, standing alone out in the wilderness. But if he remembered rightly it was a place given over to the fairies. Or if that had not been so, he was certain that there had been something quare about it. And anyway, he had heard nothing of it for a very long while, not since he was quite a gosoon. No, he could not remember anything particular about it. Indeed, he did not know he remembered anything at all, at all, until we questioned him. Look here! said Tonneson, finding that this was about all that he could tell us. Just take a walk round the village while we dress and find out something if you can. With a nondescript salute the man departed on his errand, while we made haste to get into our clothes, after which we began to prepare breakfast. We were just sitting down to it when he returned. It's all in bed with the lazy devils, sir. He said with a repetition of the salute, and an appreciative eye to the good things spread out on our provisioned chest which we utilized as a table. Oh, we'll sit down! replied my friend, and have something to eat with us. Which the man did without delay. After breakfast Tonneson sent him off again on the same errand while we sat and smoked. He was away some three-quarters of an hour, and when he returned, it was evident that he had found out something. It appeared that he had gotten to conversation with an ancient man of the village who probably knew more, though it was little enough, of the strange house than any other person living. The substance of this knowledge was that, in the ancient man's youth, and goodness knows how long back that was, there had stood a great house in the center of the gardens where now was left only that fragment of ruin. This house had been emptied for a great while, years before his, the ancient man's, birth. It was a place shunned by the people of the village as it had been shunned by their fathers before them. There were many things said about it and all were of evil. No one ever went near it, either by day or night. In the village it was a synonym of all that is unholy and dreadful. And then one day a man, a stranger, had ridden through the village and turned off down the river in the direction of the house, as it was always termed by the villagers. Some hours afterwards he had ridden back, taking the track by which he had come toward Ardrahan. Then, for three months or so, nothing was heard. At the end of that time he reappeared, but now he was accompanied by an elderly woman and a large number of donkeys laden with various articles. They had passed through the village without stopping and gone straight down the bank of the river in the direction of the house. Since that time no one saved the man whom they had chartered to bring over monthly supplies of necessaries from Ardrahan had ever seen either of them, and him none had ever induced to talk. Evidently he had been well paid for his trouble. The years had moved onward, uneventfully enough, in that little hamlet, the man making his monthly journeys regularly. One day he had appeared as usual on his customary errand. He had passed through the village without exchanging more than a surly nod with the inhabitants and gone on toward the house. Usually it was evening before he made the return journey. On this occasion, however, he had reappeared in the village a few hours later in an extraordinary state of excitement and with the astounding information that the house had disappeared bodily and that a stupendous pit now yawned in the place where it had stood. This news it appears so excited the curiosity of the villagers that they overcame their fears and marched en masse to the place. There they found everything just as described by the carrier. This was all that we could learn. Of the author of the manuscript who he was and whence he came, we shall never know. His identity is, as he seems to have desired, buried forever. That same day we left the lonely village of Crichton. We have never been there since. Sometimes in my dreams I see that enormous pit surrounded as it is on all sides by wild trees and bushes, and the noise of the water rises upwards and blends in my sleep with other and lower noises, while overall hangs the eternal shroud of spray. Author's footnote. These stanzas I found in pencil, upon a piece of full scrap gummed in behind the fly-leaf of the manuscript. They have all the appearance of having been written at an earlier date than the manuscript. End author's footnote. Fierce hunger reigns within my breast. I had not dreamt that this whole world, crushed in the hand of God, could yield such bitter essence of unrest, such pain as sorrow now hath hurled out of its dreadful heart unsealed. Each sobbing breath is but a cry. My heart strokes knell of agony, and my whole brain has but one thought, that never more through life shall I, save in the ache of memory, touch hands with thee who now art not. Through the whole void of night I search, so dumbly crying out to thee, but thou art not, and night's vast throne becomes in all stupendous church, with star bells knelling unto me, who in all space am most alone, and hungered to the shore I creep, perchance some comfort waits on me, from the old sea's eternal heart. But lo, from all the solemn deep far voices out of mystery seem questioning why we are apart. Wherever I go I am alone, who once through thee had all the world. My breast is one whole raging pain, for that which was, and now is flown, into the blank where life is hurled, where all is not, nor is again. Savannah, Georgia