 Chapter Zero of the House on the Borderland This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson From the manuscript discovered in 1877 by M. Tonneson and Bregnog in the ruins that lie to the south of the village of Crichton in the west of Ireland. Set out here with notes, dedication, to my father, whose feet tread the lost eons. Open the door and listen. Only the winds muffled roar and the glisten of tears round the moon, and infancy the tread of vanishing shun out in the night with the dead. Hush and hark to the sorrowful cry of the wind in the dark. Hush and hark without murmur or sigh to shun that tread the lost eons to the sound that bids you to die. Hush and hark, hush and hark, shun of the dead. Author's Introduction to the Manuscript Many are the hours in which I have pondered upon the story that is set forth in the following pages. I trust that my instincts are not a rye when they prompt me to leave the account in simplicity as it was handed to me. And the manuscript itself, you must picture me when first it was given into my care, turning it over curiously and making a swift, jerky examination. A small book it is, but thick, and all save the last few pages filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer faint pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my fingers have subconscious memories of the soft, cloggy feel of the long damp pages. I read, and in reading lifted the curtains of the impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amidst stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered, and presently I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings, for better far than my own ambitious phrasing is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old recluse of the vanished house had striven to tell. Of the simple, stiffly given account of weird and extraordinary matters I will say little. It lies before you. The inner story must be uncovered personally by each reader, according to ability and desire. And even should any fail to see as now I see, the shadowed picture and conception of that to which one may well give the accepted titles of heaven and hell. Yet can I promise certain thrills merely taking the story as a story? William Hope Hodgson, December 17th, 1907 End of Chapter Zero, Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, GA. Chapter One of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Finding of the Manuscript Right away in the west of Ireland lies a tiny hamlet called Crichton. It is situated alone at the base of a low hill. Far around there spreads a waste of bleak and totally inhospitable country, where, here and there at great intervals, one may come upon the ruins of some long, desolate cottage, unthatched and stark. The whole land is bare and unpeopled, the very earth scarcely covering the rock that lies beneath it, and with which the country abounds, in places rising out of the soil, in wave-shaped ridges. Yet in spite of its desolation, my friend Tonneson and I had elected to spend our vacation there. He had stumbled on the place by mere chance the year previously, during the course of a long walking tour, and discovered the possibilities for the angler in a small and unnamed river that runs past the outskirts of the little village. I have said that the river is without name. I may add to that no map that I have hitherto consulted has shown either village or stream. They seem to have entirely escaped observation. Indeed, they might never exist for all that the average guide tells one. Possibly this can be partly accounted for by the fact that the nearest railway station, Ardrahan, is some forty miles distant. It was early one warm evening when my friend and I arrived in Crichton. We had reached Ardrahan the previous night, sleeping there in rooms hired at the village post office, and leaving in good time on the following morning, clinging insecurely to one of the typical jaunting cars. It had taken us all day to accomplish our journey over some of the roughest tracks imaginable, with the result that we were thoroughly tired and somewhat bad tempered. However, the tent had to be erected and our goods stowed away before we could think of food or rest, and so we set to work, with the aid of our driver, and soon had the tent up upon a small patch of ground, just outside the little village and quite near to the river. Then, having stored all our belongings, we dismissed the driver as he had to make his way back as speedily as possible, and told him to come across to us at the end of a fortnight. We had brought sufficient provisions to last us for that space of time, and water we could get from the stream. Fuel we did not need as we had included a small oil stove among our outfit, and the weather was fine and warm. It was Tonneson's idea to camp out instead of getting lodgings in one of the cottages. As he put it, there was no joke in sleeping in a room with a numerous family of healthy Irish in one corner, and the pigsty in the other, while overhead a ragged colony of roosting fowls distributed their blessings impartially, and the whole place so full of peat smoke that it made a fellow sneeze his head off just to put it inside the doorway. Tonneson had got the stove lit now, and was busy cutting slices of bacon into the frying pan, so I took the kettle and walked down to the river for water, on the way I had to pass close to a little group of the village people who eyed me curiously, but not in any unfriendly manner, though none of them ventured a word. As I returned with my kettle filled, I went up to them, and after a friendly nod to which they replied in like manner, I asked them casually about the fishing, but instead of answering they just shook their heads silently and stared at me. I repeated the question, addressing more particularly a great gaunt fellow at my elbow, yet again I received no answer. Then the man turned to a comrade and said something rapidly in a language that I did not understand, and at once the whole crowd of them fell to jabbering in what, after a few moments, I guess to be pure Irish. At the same time they cast many glances in my direction. For a minute perhaps they spoke among themselves thus, then the man I had addressed faced round at me and said something. By the expression of his face I guess that he in turn was questioning me, but now I had to shake my head and indicate that I did not comprehend what it was they wanted to know, and so we stood looking at one another until I heard Tonneson calling to me to hurry up with the kettle. Then with a smile and a nod I left them, and all in the little crowd smiled and nodded in return, though their faces still betrayed their puzzlement. It was evident, I reflected as I went toward the tent, that the inhabitants of these few huts in the wilderness did not know a word of English, and when I told Tonneson he remarked that he was aware of the fact, and more that it was not at all uncommon in that part of the country where the people often lived and died in their isolated hamlets without ever coming in contact with the outside world. I wish we had got the driver to interpret for us before he left, I remarked as we sat down to our meal. It seemed so strange for the people of this place not even to know what we've come for. Tonneson grunted and assent, and thereafter was silent for a while. Later having satisfied our appetite somewhat we began to talk laying our plans for the morrow, then after a smoke we closed the flap of the tent and prepared to turn in. I suppose there's no chance of those fellows outside taking anything. I asked as we rolled ourselves in our blankets. Tonneson said that he did not think so, at least while we were about, and as he went on to explain, we could lock up everything except the tent, in the big chests that we had brought to hold our provisions. I agreed to this, and soon we were both asleep. Next morning early we rose and went for a swim in the river, after which we dressed and had breakfast. Then we roused at our fishing tackle and overhauled it, by which time our breakfasts having settled somewhat we made all secure within the tent and strode off in the direction my friend had explored on his previous visit. During the day we fished happily, working steadily upstream, and by evening we had one of the prettiest creoles of fish that I had seen for a long while. Returning to the village we made a good feed off our day's spoil, after which, having selected a few of the finer fish for our breakfast, we presented the remainder to the group of villagers who had assembled at a respectful distance to watch our doings. They seemed wonderfully grateful and heaped mountains of what I presumed to be Irish blessings upon our heads. Thus we spent several days, having splendid sport and first-rate appetites to do justice upon our prey. We were pleased to find how friendly the villagers were inclined to be, and that there was no evidence of their having ventured to meddle with our belongings during our absences. It was on a Tuesday that we arrived in Crichton, and it would be on the Sunday following that we made a great discovery. Hitherto we had always gone upstream. On that day, however, we laid aside our rods and, taking some provisions, set off for a long ramble in the opposite direction. The day was warm, and we trudged along leisurely enough, stopping about midday to eat our lunch upon a great flat rock near the river bank. Afterward we sat and smoked a while, resuming our walk only when we were tired of inaction. For perhaps another hour we wandered onward, chatting quietly and comfortably on this and that matter, and on several occasions stopping while my companion, who is something of an artist, made rough sketches of striking bits of the wild scenery. And then, without any warning whatsoever, the river we had followed so confidently came to an abrupt end, vanishing into the earth. Good Lord! I said, whoever would have thought of this. And I stared in amazement. Then I turned to Tonneson. He was looking with a blank expression upon his face at the place where the river disappeared. In a moment he spoke, Let us go on a bit. It may reappear again. Anyhow it is worth investigating. I agreed, and we went forward once more, though rather aimlessly, for we were not at all certain in which direction to prosecute our search. For perhaps a mile we moved onward, then Tonneson, who had been gazing about curiously, stopped and shaded his eyes. See! he said after a moment. Isn't that mist or something over there to the right? Away in a line with that great piece of rock! And he indicated with his hand. I stared, and after a minute seemed to see something but could not be certain and said so. Anyway, my friend replied, We'll just go across and have a glance. He started off in the direction he had suggested I following. Presently we came among bushes, and after a time out upon the top of a high, bolder, strewn bank, from which we looked down into a wilderness of bushes and trees. Seems as though we had come upon an oasis in this desert of stone. Mothered Tonneson, as he gazed interestedly, then he was silent, his eyes fixed, and I looked also. For up from somewhere about the center of the wooded lowland, there rose high into the quiet air a great column of haze-like spray, upon which the sun shone, causing innumerable rainbows. How beautiful! I exclaimed. Yes, answered Tonneson thoughtfully, There must be a waterfall or something over there. Perhaps it's our river come to light again. Let's go and see. Down the sloping bank we made our way and entered among the trees and shrubberies. The bushes were matted, and the trees overhung us so that the place was disagreeably gloomy. Though not dark enough to hide from me the fact that many of the trees were fruit trees, and that here and there one could trace indistinctly signs of a long departed cultivation, thus it came to me that we were making our way through the riot of a great and ancient garden. I said as much to Tonneson, and he agreed, that there certainly seemed reasonable grounds for my belief. What a wild place it was. So dismal and somber. Somehow, as we went forward, a sense of the silent loneliness and desertion of the old garden grew upon me, and I felt shivery. One could imagine things lurking among the tangled bushes, while in the very air of the place there seemed something uncanny. I think Tonneson was conscious of this also, though he said nothing. Suddenly we came to a halt. Through the trees there had grown upon our ears a distant sound. Tonneson bent forward, listening. I could hear it more plainly now. It was continuous and harsh. A sort of droning roar seemed to come from far away. I experienced a queer, indescribable, little feeling of nervousness. What sort of place was it into which we had got? I looked at my companion to see what he thought of the matter, and noted that there was only puzzlement in his face. And then, as I watched his features and expression of comprehension crept over them, and he nodded his head. That's a waterfall. He exclaimed with conviction, I know the sound now. And he began to push vigorously through the bushes in the direction of the noise. As we went forward, the sound became plainer continually, showing that we were heading straight toward it. Steadily the roaring grew louder and nearer, until it appeared, as I remarked to Tonneson, almost to come from under our feet. And still we were surrounded by the trees and shrubs. Take care! Tonneson called to me. Look where you're going! And then suddenly we came out from among the trees, onto a great open space where not six paces in front of us yawned the mouth of a tremendous chasm, from the depths of which the noise appeared to rise, along with the continuous, mist-like spray that we had witnessed from the top of the distant bank. For quite a minute we stood in silence, staring in bewilderment at the site. Then my friend went forward cautiously to the edge of the abyss. I followed, and together we looked down through a boil of spray at a monster cataract, a frothing water that burst, spouting, from the side of the chasm, nearly a hundred feet below. Good Lord! said Tonneson. I was silent and rather odd. The site was so unexpectedly grand and eerie, though this latter quality came more upon me later. Presently I looked up and across to the further side of the chasm. There I saw something towering up among the spray. It looked like a fragment of a great ruin, and I touched Tonneson on the shoulder. He glanced round with a start, and I pointed toward the thing. His gaze followed my finger, and his eyes lighted up with a sudden flash of excitement as the object came within his field of view. Come along! He shouted above the uproar. We'll have a look at it! There's something queer about this place. I feel it in my bones. And he started off, round the edge of the crater like a abyss. As we neared this new thing I saw that I had not been mistaken in my first impression, it was undoubtedly a portion of some ruined building. Yet now I made out that it was not built upon the edge of the chasm itself, as I had at first supposed, but perched almost at the extreme end of a huge spur of rock that jutted out some fifty or sixty feet over the abyss. In fact, the jagged mass of ruin was literally suspended in mid-air. Arriving opposite it we walked out onto the projecting arm of rock, and I must confess to having felt an intolerable sense of terror, as I looked down from that dizzy perch into the unknown depths below us, into the depths from which there rose ever the thunder of the falling water and the shroud of rising spray. Reaching the ruin we clambered round it cautiously, and on the further side came upon a mass of fallen stones and rubble. The ruin itself seemed to me, as I proceeded now to examine it minutely, to be a portion of the outer wall of some prodigious structure. It was so thick and substantially built. Yet what it was doing in such a position I could by no means conjecture. Where was the rest of the house, or castle, or whatever there had been? I went back to the outer side of the wall and thence to the edge of the chasm, leaving Tonneson, rooting systematically among the heap of stones and rubbish on the outer side. Then I commenced to examine the surface of the ground near the edge of the abyss, to see whether there were not left other remnants of the building to which the fragments of ruin evidently belonged. But though I scrutinized the earth with the greatest care, I could see no signs of anything to show that there had ever been a building erected on the spot, and I grew more puzzled than ever. Then I heard a cry from Tonneson, he was shouting my name excitedly, and without delay I hurried along the rock promontory to the ruin. I wondered whether he had heard himself, and then the thought came that perhaps he had found something. I reached the crumbled wall and climbed round. There I found Tonneson standing with a small excavation that he had made among the debris. He was brushing the dirt from something that looked like a book, much crumpled and dilapidated, and opening his mouth every second or two to bellow my name. As soon as he saw that I had come, he handed his prize to me, telling me to put it into my satchel so as to protect it from the damp, while he continued his explorations. This I did, first, however, running the pages through my fingers, and noting that they were closely filled with neat old-fashioned writing which was quite legible, save in one portion where many of the pages were almost destroyed, being muddied and crumpled as though the book had been doubled back at that part. This I found out from Tonneson was actually as he had discovered it, and the damage was due probably to the fall of Masonry upon the opened part. Curiously enough, the book was fairly dry, which I attributed to its having been so securely buried among the ruins. Having put the volume away safely, I turned to and gave Tonneson a hand with his self-imposed task of excavating. Yet, though we put in over an hour's hard work, turning over the whole of the unheaped stones and rubbish, we came upon nothing more than some fragments of broken wood, that which might have been parts of a desk or table, and so we gave up searching and we went back along the rock, once more to the safety of the land. The next thing we did was to make a complete tour of the tremendous chasm, which we were able to observe was in the form of an almost perfect circle, save for where the ruined crowned spur of rock jutted out spoiling its symmetry. The abyss was, as Tonneson put it, like nothing so much as a gigantic well or pit going sheer down into the bowels of the earth. For some time longer we continued to stare about us, and then noticing that there was a clear space away to the north of the chasm, we bent our steps in that direction. Here, distant from the mouth of the mighty pit by some hundreds of yards, we came upon a great lake of silent water—silent, that is, save in one place where there was a continuous bubbling and gurgling. Now, being away from the noise of the spouting cataract, we were able to hear one another speak, without having to shout at the tops of our voices, and I asked Tonneson what he thought of the place. I told him that I didn't like it, and that the sooner we were out of it the better I should be pleased. He nodded in reply and glanced at the woods behind furtively. I asked him if he had seen or heard anything. He made no answer but stood silent as though listening, and I kept quiet also. Suddenly he spoke. Hark! he said sharply. I looked at him and then away among the trees and bushes holding my breath involuntarily. A minute came and went in strained silence. Yet I could hear nothing, and I turned to Tonneson to say as much, and then, even as I opened my lips to speak, there came a strange wailing noise out of the wood on our left. It appeared to float through the trees, and there was a rustle of stirring leaves, and then silence. All at once Tonneson spoke and put his hand on my shoulder. Let us get out of here. He said and began to move slowly toward where the surrounding trees and bushes seemed thinnest. As I followed him it came to me suddenly that the sun was low, and that there was a raw sense of chillness in the air. Tonneson said nothing further, but kept on steadily. We were among the trees now, and I glanced around nervously, but saw nothing save the quiet branches and trunks and the tangled bushes. Onward we went, and no sound broke the silence, except the occasional snapping of a twig under our feet as we moved forward. Yet in spite of the quietness I had a horrible feeling that we were not alone, and I kept so close to Tonneson that twice I kicked his heels clumsily, though he said nothing. A minute, and then another, and we reached the confines of the wood coming out at last upon the bare rockiness of the countryside. Only then was I able to shake off the haunting dread that had followed me among the trees. Once as we moved away there seemed to come again a distant sound of wailing, and I said to myself that it was the wind, yet the evening was breathless. Presently Tonneson began to talk. Look you, he said with decision. I would not spend the night in that place for all the wealth that the world holds. There is something unholy, diabolical about it. It came to me all in a moment just after you spoke. It seemed to me that the woods were full of vile things, you know? Yes, I answered, and looked back toward the place but it was hidden from us by a rise in the ground. There's the book, I said, and I put my hand into the satchel. You've got it safely. He questioned with a sudden access of anxiety. Yes, I replied. Perhaps, he continued, we shall learn something from it when we get back to the tent. We had better hurry, too. We're a long way off still and I don't fancy now, being caught out here in the dark. It was two hours later when we reached the tent, and without delay we set to work to prepare a meal, for we had eaten nothing since our lunch at midday. Supper over we cleared the things out of the way and lit our pipes. Then Tonneson asked me to get the manuscript out of my satchel. This I did, and then, as we could not both read from it at the same time, he suggested that I should read the thing out loud. And mind, he cautioned, knowing my propensities, don't go skipping half the book. Yet had he but known what it contained, he would have realized how needless such advice was, for once at least. And there seated in the opening of our little tent I began the strange tale of The House on the Borderland, for such was the title of the manuscript. This is told in the following pages. Chapter 2 of The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Plane of Silence. I am an old man. I live here in this ancient house, surrounded by huge unkempt gardens. The peasantry who inhabit the wilderness beyond say that I am mad. That is because I will have nothing to do with them. I live here alone with my old sister, who is also my housekeeper. We keep no servants. I hate them. I have one friend, a dog. Yes, I would sooner have old pepper than the rest of creation together. He at least understands me, and has sense enough to leave me alone when I am in my dark moods. I have decided to start a kind of diary. It may enable me to record some of the thoughts and feelings that I cannot express to anyone. But beyond this, I am anxious to make some record of the strange things that I have heard and seen during many years of loneliness in this weird old building. For a couple of centuries this house has had a reputation, a bad one, and until I bought it for more than eighty years no one had lived here. Consequently, I got the old place at a ridiculously low figure. I am not superstitious, but I have ceased to deny that things happen in this old house, things that I cannot explain, and therefore I must needs ease my mind by writing down an account of them to the best of my ability. Though, should this, my diary, ever be read when I am gone, the readers will but shake their heads, and be the more convinced that I was mad. This house? How ancient it is! Though its age strikes one less perhaps than the quaintness of its structure, which is curious and fantastic to the last degree, little curved towers and pinnacles with outlines suggestive of leaping flames predominate, while the body of the building is in the form of a circle. I have heard that there is an old story told amongst the country people to the effect that the devil built the place. However, that is as may be. True or not, I neither know nor care, save as it may have helped to cheapen it ere I came. I must have been here some ten years before I saw sufficient to warrant any belief in the stories current in the neighborhood about this house. It is true that I had on at least a dozen occasions seen vaguely things that puzzled me and perhaps had felt more than I had seen. Then as the years passed, bringing age upon me, I became often aware of something unseen, yet unmistakably present in the empty rooms and corridors. Still, it was as I have said many years before I saw any real manifestations of the so-called supernatural. It was not Halloween. If I were telling a story for amusement's sake, I should probably place it on that night of nights. But this is a true record of my own experiences, and I would not put pen to paper to amuse any one. No. It was after midnight on the morning of the twenty-first day of January. I was sitting reading as is often my custom in my study, Pepper Lay sleeping near my chair. Without warning the flames of the two candles went low, and then shone with a ghastly green effulgence. I looked up quickly, and as I did so I saw the lights sink into a dull, ruddy tint, so that the room glowed with a strange, heavy crimson twilight that gave the shadows beneath the chairs and tables a double depth of blackness, and wherever the light struck it was as though luminous blood had been splashed over the room. Down on the floor I heard a faint, frightened whimper and something pressed itself in between my two feet. It was Pepper cowering under my dressing-gown, Pepper usually as brave as a lion. It was this movement of the dogs, I think, that gave me the first twinge of real fear. I had been considerably startled when the lights burnt first green and then red, but had been momentarily under the impression that the change was due to some influx of noxious gas into the room. Now, however, I saw that it was not so. For the candles burned with a steady flame, and showed no signs of going out, as would have been the case had the change been due to fumes in the atmosphere. I did not move. I felt distinctly frightened, but could think of nothing better to do than wait. For perhaps a minute I kept my glance about the room nervously. Then I noticed that the lights had commenced to sink very slowly, until presently they showed minute specks of red fire, like the gleamings of rubies in the darkness. Still, I sat watching. While a sort of dreamy indifference seemed to steal over me, banishing altogether the fear that had begun to grip me. Away in the far end of the huge old-fashioned room, I became conscious of a faint glow. Steadily it grew, filling the room with gleams of quivering green light. They then sank quickly and changed even as the candle flames had done, into a deep, somber crimson that strengthened and lit up the room with a flood of awful glory. The light came from the end wall, and grew ever brighter until its intolerable glare caused my eyes acute pain, and involuntarily I closed them. It may have been a few seconds before I was able to open them. The first thing I noticed was that the light had decreased greatly, so that it no longer tried my eyes. Then, as it grew still duller, I was aware all at once that instead of looking at the redness, I was staring through it and through the wall beyond. Gradually as I became more accustomed to the idea, I realized that I was looking out onto a vast plane, lit with the same gloomy twilight that pervaded the room. The immensity of this plane scarcely can be conceived. In no part could I perceive its confines. It seemed abroad and in spread out so that the eye failed to perceive any limitations. Slowly the details of the nearer portions began to grow clear. Then, in a moment almost, the light died away and the vision, if vision it were, faded and was gone. Suddenly I became conscious that I was no longer in the chair. Instead I seemed to be hovering above it and looking down at a dim something huddled and silent. In a little while a cold blast struck me and I was outside in the night, floating like a bubble up through the darkness. As I moved an icy coldness seemed to enfold me so that I shivered. After a time I looked to right and left and saw the intolerable blackness of the night pierced by remote gleams of fire. Onward, outward I drove. Once I glanced behind and saw the earth a small crescent of blue light receding away to my left. Further off the sun, a splash of white flame burned vividly against the dark, an indefinite period passed. Then, for the last time, I saw the earth, an enduring globule of radiant blue swimming in an eternity of ether, and there I, a fragile flake of sole dust flickered silently across the void from the distant blue into the expanse of the unknown. A great while seemed to pass over me, and now I could nowhere see anything. I had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge blackness that waits beyond. All this time I had experienced little, save a sense of lightness and cold discomfort. Now, however, the atrocious darkness seemed to creep into my soul, and I became filled with fear and despair. What was going to become of me? Where was I going? Even as the thoughts were formed, there grew against the impalpable blackness that wrapped me a faint tinge of blood. It seemed extraordinarily remote, and mist-like. Yet at once the feeling of oppression was alightened and I no longer despaired. Slowly the distant redness became plainer and larger, until, as I drew nearer, it spread out into a great somber glare, dull and tremendous. Still, I fled onward, and presently I had come so close that it seemed to stretch beneath me, like a great ocean of somber red. I could see little save that it appeared to spread out interminably in all directions. In a further space I found that I was descending upon it, and soon I sank into a great sea of sullen red-hued clouds. Slowly I emerged from these and there, below me. I saw the stupendous plain that I had seen from my room in this house that stands upon the borders of the silences. Presently I landed, and stood surrounded by a great waste of loneliness. The place was lit with a gloomy twilight that gave an impression of indescribable desolation. Far to my right, within the sky there burnt a gigantic ring of dull red fire, from the outer edge of which were projected huge writhing flames, darted and jagged. The interior of this ring was black, black as the gloom of the outer night. I comprehended at once that it was from this extraordinary sun that the place derived its dullful light. From that strange source of light I glanced down again to my surroundings. Everywhere I looked I saw nothing but the same flat weariness of interminable plain. Nowhere could I describe any signs of life, not even the ruins of some ancient habitation. Gradually I found that I was being born forward, floating across the flat waste. For what seemed an eternity I moved onward, I was unaware of any great sense of impatience, though some curiosity and a vast wonder were with me continually. Always I saw round me the breath of that enormous plain, and always I searched for some new thing to break its monotony, but there was no change. Only loneliness, silence, and desert. Presently, in a half-conscious manner I noticed that there was a faint mistiness, ruddy and hue lying over its surface. Still, when I looked more intently, I was unable to say that it was really mist, for it appeared to blend with the plain, giving it a peculiar unrealness and conveying to the senses the idea of unsubstantiality. Gradually I began to weary with the sameness of the thing, yet it was a great time before I perceived any signs of the place toward which I was being conveyed. At first I saw it, far ahead, like a long hillock on the surface of the plain. Then, as I drew nearer, I perceived that I had been mistaken. For, instead of a low hill, I made out now a chain of great mountains, whose distant peaks towered up into the red gloom, until they were almost lost to sight. End of Chapter 2 Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Chapter 3 of The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This sleeperbox recording is in the public domain, the house in the arena. And so, after a time, I came to the mountains. Then the course of my journey was altered and I began to move along their bases, until, all at once, I saw that I had come opposite to a vast rift, opening into the mountains. Through this I was born moving at no great speed, on either side of me huge, scarbed walls of rock-like substance rose sheer. Far overhead I discerned a thin ribbon of red, with a mouth of the chasm opened among inaccessible peaks. Within was gloom, deep and somber, and chilly silence. For a while I went onward steadily and then at last I saw ahead a deep red glow that told me I was near upon the further opening of the gorge. A minute came and went, and I was at the exit of the chasm, staring out upon an enormous amphitheater of mountains. Yet of the mountains and the terrible grandeur of the place, I wrecked nothing. For I was confounded with amazement to behold, at a distance of several miles, and occupying the centre of the arena, a stupendous structure built, apparently, of green jade. Yet, in itself, it was not the discovery of the building that had so astonished me but the fact, which became every moment more apparent, that in no particular, save in colour and its enormous size, did the lonely structure vary from this house in which I live. For a while I continued to stare fixedly. Even then I could scarcely believe that I saw a right. In my mind a question formed, reiterating incessantly. What does it mean? What does it mean? And I was unable to make answer even out of the depths of my imagination. I seemed capable only of wonder and fear. For a time longer I gazed, noting continually some fresh point of resemblance that attracted me. And last, weary and sorely puzzled, I turned from it to view the rest of the strange place, onto which I had intruded. Hitherto I had been so engrossed in my scrutiny of the house, that I had given only a cursory glance round. Now, as I looked, I began to realise upon what sort of a place I had come. The arena, for so I have termed it, appeared a perfect circle of about ten to twelve miles in diameter. The house, as I have mentioned before, standing in the centre, the surface of the place, like to that of the plain, had a peculiar, misty appearance, that was yet not missed. From a rapid survey my glance passed quickly upward along the slopes of the circling mountains. How silent they were! I think that this same abominable stillness was more trying to me than anything that I had so far seen or imagined. I was looking up now at the great crags towering so loftily. Up there the impalpable retinas gave a blurred appearance to everything. And then, as I peered curiously, a new terror came to me. For away, up among the dim peaks to my right, I had described a vast shape of blackness, giant-like. It grew upon my sight. It had an enormous equine head with gigantic ears and seemed to pier steadfastly down into the arena. There was that about the pose that gave me the impression of an eternal watchfulness, of having warded that dismal place through unknown eternities. Slowly the monster became plainer to me, and then suddenly my gaze sprang from it to something further off and higher among the crags. For a long minute I gazed fearfully. I was strangely conscious of something not altogether unfamiliar, as though something stirred in the back of my mind. The thing was black, and had four grotesque arms. The features showed indistinctly round the neck I made out several light-colored objects. Slowly the details came to me and I realized coldly that they were skulls. Further down the body was another circling belt showing less dark against the black trunk. Then, even as I puzzled to know what the thing was, a memory slid into my mind, and straight away I knew that I was looking at a monstrous representation of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. Other remembrances of my old student days drifted into my thoughts. My glance fell back upon the huge beast-headed thing. Simultaneously I recognized it for the ancient Egyptian godset or seh, the destroyer of souls. With the knowledge there came a great sweep of questioning—two of the— I stopped and endeavored to think. Things beyond my imagination peered into my frightened mind. I saw obscurely the old gods of mythology. I tried to comprehend to what it was all pointing. My gaze dwelt flickeringly between the two, if— An idea came swiftly, and I turned and glanced rapidly upwards, searching the gloomy cracks away to my left. Something loomed out under a great peak, a shape of greyness. I wondered. I had not seen it earlier, and then remembered I had not yet viewed that portion. I saw it more plainly now. It was as I have said gray. It had a tremendous head, but no eyes. That part of its face was blank. Now I saw that there were other things up among the mountains. Further off, reclining on a lofty ledge, I made out a livid mass—regular and ghoulish. It seemed without form safe for an unclean, half-animal face that looked out violently from somewhere about its middle. And then I saw others. There were hundreds of them. They seemed to grow out of the shadows. Several I recognized almost immediately as mythological deities. Others were strange to me. Utterly strange, beyond the power of a human mind to conceive. On each side I looked and saw more continually. The mountains were full of strange things—beast gods and horrors so atrocious and bestial that possibility and decency deny any further attempt to describe them. And I—I was filled with a terrible sense of overwhelming horror and fear and repugnance. Yet, spite of these, I wondered exceedingly. Was there, then, after all, something in the old heathen worship? Something more than the mere deifying of men, animals, and elements? The thought gripped me. Was there? Later a question repeated itself. What were they, those beast gods and the others? At first they had appeared to me just sculptured monsters placed indiscriminately among the inaccessible peaks and precipices of the surrounding mountains. Now, as I scrutinized them with greater intentness, my mind began to reach out to fresh conclusions. There was something about them—an indescribable sort of silent vitality that suggested to my broadening consciousness a state of life and death—a something that was by no means life as we understand it, but rather an inhuman form of existence that well might be likened to a deathless trance—a condition in which it was possible to imagine their continuing eternally—immortal. The word rose and my thoughts unbidden, and straight away I grew to wondering whether this might be the immortality of the gods. And then, in the midst of my wandering and musing, something happened. Until then I had been staying just within the shadow of the exit of the Great Rift. Now without volition on my part, I drifted out of the semi-darkness and began to move slowly across the arena toward the house. At this I gave up all thoughts of those prodigious shapes above me and could only stare frightenately at the tremendous structure toward which I was being conveyed so remorselessly. Yet though I searched earnestly, I could discover nothing that I had not already seen, and so became gradually calmer. Presently I had reached a point more than half-way between the house and the gorge. All around was spread the stark loneliness of the place and the unbroken silence. Steadily I neared the Great Building. Then all at once something caught my vision, something that came round one of the huge buttresses of the house, and so into full view it was a gigantic thing, and moved with a curious lope going almost upright after the manner of a man. It was quite unclothed and had a remarkable luminous appearance, yet it was the face that attracted and frightened me the most. It was the face of a swine. Silently, intently I watched this horrible creature and forgot my fear momentarily and my interest in its movements. It was making its way cumbersome round the building, stopping as it came to each window to peer in and shake at the bars, with which, as in this house, they were protected, and whenever it came to a door it would push at it, fingering the fastening stealthily. Evidently it was searching for an ingress into the house. I had come now to within less than a quarter of a mile of the Great Structure, and still I was compelled forward. Abruptly the thing turned and gazed hideously in my direction. It opened its mouth, and for the first time the stillness of that abominable place was broken by a deep, booming note that sent an added thrill of apprehension through me. Then immediately I became aware that it was coming toward me swiftly and silently. In an instant it had covered half the distance that lay between, and still I was born helplessly to meet it. Only a hundred yards and the brutish ferocity of the giant face numbed me with a feeling of unmitigated horror. I could have screamed in the supremeness of my fear, and then, in the very moment of my extremity and despair, I became conscious that I was looking down upon the arena from a rapidly increasing height. I was rising, rising. In an inconceivably short while I had reached an altitude of many hundred feet. Beneath me the spot that I had just left was occupied by the foul swine-creature. It had gone down on all fours, and was snuffing and rooting like a veritable hog at the surface of the arena. A moment and it rose to its feet clutching upward, with an expression of desire upon its face such as I have never seen in this world. Continually I mounted higher. A few minutes it seemed, and I had risen above the great mountains, floating alone, afar in the redness. At a tremendous distance below the arena showed dimly, with the mighty house looking no larger than a tiny spot of green. The swine thing was no longer visible. Presently I passed over the mountains, out above the huge breath of the plain. Far away on its surface in the direction of the ring-shaped sun there showed a confused blur. I looked toward it indifferently. It reminded me somewhat of the first glimpse I had called of the mountain amphitheater. With a sense of weariness I glanced upward at the immense ring of fire. What a strange thing it was! Then as I stared out from the dark centre there spurted a sudden flare of extraordinary vivid fire. Compared with the size of the black centre it was not, yet in itself stupendous. With awakened interest I watched it carefully noting its strange boiling and glowing. Then in a moment the whole thing grew dim and unreal and so past out of sight. Much amazed I glanced down to the plain from which I was still rising. Thus I received a fresh surprise. The plain, everything had vanished, and only a sea of red mist was spread far below me. Gradually as I stared this grew remote and died away into a dim far mystery of red against an unfathomable night. A while, and even this had gone, and I was wrapped in an impalpable, lightless gloom. CHAPTER IV OF THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND THE EARTH Thus I was, and only the memory that I had lived through the dark once before served to sustain my thoughts. A great time passed, ages, and then a single star broke its way through the darkness. It was the first of one of the outlying clusters of this universe. Presently it was far behind and all about me shown the splendour of the countless stars. Later, years it seemed, I saw the sun, a clot of flame. Around it I made out presently several remote specks of light, the planets of the solar system, and so I saw the earth again, blue and unbelievably minute. It grew larger and became defined. A long space of time came and went, and then at last I entered into the shadow of the world, plunging headlong into the dim and holy earth night. Overhead were the old constellations, and there was a crescent moon. Then, as I neared the earth's surface, the dimness swept over me, and I appeared to sink into a black mist. For a while I knew nothing. I was unconscious. Gradually I became aware of a faint, distant whining. It became plainer. A desperate feeling of agony possessed me. I struggled madly for breath and tried to shout. A moment and I got my breath more easily. I was conscious that something was licking my hand. Something damp swept across my face. I heard a panting, and then again the whining. It seemed to come to my ears now with a sense of familiarity. And I opened my eyes. All was dark, but the feeling of oppression had left me. I was seated and something was whining piteously and licking me. I felt strangely confused and instinctively tried to ward off the thing that licked. My head was curiously vacant, and for the moment I seemed incapable of action or thought. Then things came back to me. And I called. Pepper faintly. I was answered by a joyful bark and renewed and frantic caresses. In a little while I felt stronger and put out my hand for the matches. I groped about for a few moments blindly. Then my hands lit upon them and I struck a light, and looked confusedly around. All about me I saw the old familiar things, and there I sat full of dazed wonders until the flame of the match burnt my finger and I dropped it. While a hasty expression of pain and anger escaped my lips, surprising me with the sound of my own voice. After a moment I struck another match and, stumbling across the room, lit the candles. As I did so, I observed that they had not burned away but had been put out. As the flame shut up I turned and stared about the study. Yet there was nothing unusual to see and suddenly a gust of irritation took me. What had happened? I held my head with both hands and tried to remember. Ah! the great silent plain and the ring-shaped sun of red fire. Where were they? Where had I seen them? How long ago? I felt dazed and muddled. Once or twice I walked up and down the room unsteadily. My memory seemed dulled and already the thing I had witnessed came back to me with an effort. I have a remembrance of cursing peevishly in my bewilderment. Suddenly I turned faint and giddy and had to grasp at the table for support. During a few moments I held on weakly and then managed to totter sideways into a chair. After a little time I felt somewhat better and succeeded in reaching the cupboard, where usually I keep brandy and biscuits. I poured myself out a little of the stimulant and drank it off. Then, taking a handful of biscuits, I returned to my chair and began to devour them, ravenously. I was vaguely surprised at my hunger. I felt as though I had eaten nothing for an uncountably long while. As I ate, my glance roved about the room, taking in its various details, and still searching, though almost unconsciously for something tangible upon which to take hold, among the invisible mysteries that encompassed me. Surely, I thought, there must be something. And in that same instant my gaze dwelt upon the face of the clock in the opposite corner. Therewith I stopped eating and just stared. For though its ticking indicated most certainly that it was still going, the hands were pointing to a little before the hour of midnight. Whereas it was, as well I knew, considerably after that time when I had witnessed the first of the strange happenings I have just described. For perhaps a moment I was astounded and puzzled, had the hour been the same as when I had last seen the clock? I should have concluded that the hands had stuck in one place while the internal mechanism went on as usual. But that would in no way account for the hands having travelled backward. Then, even as I turned the matter over in my wearied brain, the thought flashed upon me that it was now close upon the morning of the twenty-second, and that I had been unconscious to the visible world through the greater portion of the last twenty-four hours. The thought occupied my attention for a full minute. Then I commenced to eat again. I was still very hungry. During breakfast next morning I inquired casually of my sister regarding the date, and found my surmise correct. I had indeed been absent, at least in spirit, for nearly a day and a night. My sister asked me no questions for it is not by any means the first time that I have kept to my study for a whole day, and sometimes a couple of days at a time when I have been particularly engrossed in my books or work. And so the days pass on, and I am still filled with a wonder to know the meaning of all that I saw on that memorable night. Yet well I know that my curiosity is little likely to be satisfied. The Thing in the Pit This house is, as I have said before, surrounded by a huge estate and wild and uncultivated gardens. Away at the back, distant some three hundred yards is a dark, deep ravine, spoken of as the pit by the peasantry, at the bottom runs a sluggish stream so overhung by trees as scarcely to be seen from above. In passing I must explain that this river has a subterranean origin, emerging suddenly at the east end of the ravine and disappearing as abruptly beneath the cliffs that form its western extremity. It was some months after my vision, if vision it were, of the great plain that my attention was particularly attracted to the pit. I happened one day to be walking along its southern edge when suddenly several pieces of rock and shale were dislodged from the face of the cliff immediately beneath me and fell with a sullen crash through the trees. I heard them splash in the river at the bottom and then silence. I should not have given this incident more than a passing thought had not Pepparet once begun to bark savagely, nor would he be silent when I bade him which is most unusual behaviour on his part. Feeling that there must be someone or something in the pit, I went back to the house quickly for a stick. When I returned Pepparet ceased his barks and was growling and smelling uneasily along the top. Whistling to him to follow me I started to descend cautiously. The depth to the bottom of the pit must be about a hundred and fifty feet, and some time as well as considerable care was expended before we reached the bottom in safety. Once down Pepparet and I started to explore along the banks of the river. It was very dark there due to the overhanging trees, and I moved warily, keeping my glance about me and my stick ready. Pepparet was quiet now and kept close to me all the time. Thus we searched right up one side of the river without hearing or seeing anything. Then we crossed over by the simple method of jumping, and commenced to beat our way back through the underbrush. We had accomplished perhaps half the distance when I heard again the sound of falling stones on the other side, the side from which we had just come. One large rock came thundering down through the treetops, struck the opposite bank and bounded into the river, driving a great jet of water right over us. At this Pepparet gave out a deep growl, then stopped and pricked up his ears. I listened also. A second later a loud half-human, half-pig-like squeal sounded from among the trees, apparently halfway up the south cliff. It was answered by a similar note from the bottom of the pit. At this Pepparet gave a short, sharp bark, and springing across the little river disappeared into the bushes. Immediately afterward I heard his bark's increase in depth and number, and in between there sounded a noise of confused jabbering. This ceased and in a succeeding silence there rose a semi-human yell of agony. Almost immediately Pepparet gave a long-drawn howl of pain, and then the shrubs were violently agitated, and he came running out with his tail down and glancing as he ran over his shoulder. As he reached me I saw that he was bleeding, from what appeared to be a great claw wound in the side that had almost laid bare his ribs. Seeing Pepparet thus mutilated, a furious feeling of anger seized me, and whirling my staff I sprang across and into the bushes from which Pepparet had emerged. As I forced my way through I thought I heard a sound of breathing. Next instant I had burst into a little clear space, just in time to see something. Livid white and color disappear among the bushes on the opposite side. With a shout I ran toward it, but, though I struck and probed among the bushes with my stick, I neither saw nor heard anything further, and so returned to Pepparet. There after bathing his wound in the river I bound my wedded handkerchief round his body, having done which we retreated up the ravine and into the daylight again. On reaching the house my sister inquired what had happened to Pepparet, and I told her he had been fighting with a wild cat, of which I had heard there were several about. I felt it would be better not to tell her how it had really happened, though to be sure I scarcely knew myself. But this I did know, that the thing I had seen run into the bushes was no wild cat. It was much too big and had so far as I had observed a skin like a hog's, only of a dead, unhealthy white color. And then it had run upright or nearly so upon its hind feet, with emotions somewhat resembling that of a human being. This much I had noticed in my brief glimpse, and truth to tell, I felt a good deal of uneasiness besides curiosity as I turned the matter over in my mind. It was in the morning that the above incident had occurred. Then it would be after dinner as I sat reading that, happening to look up suddenly, I saw something peering in over the window ledge, the eyes and ears alone showing. A pig by jove! I said, and rose to my feet. Thus I saw the thing more completely but it was no pig. God alone knows what it was. It reminded me vaguely of the hideous thing that it haunted the great arena, and had a grotesquely human mouth and jaw but with no chin of which to speak. The nose was prolonged into a snout, thus it was that with the little eyes and queer ears gave it such an extraordinary swine-like appearance. A forehead there was little, and the whole face was of an unwholesome white color. For perhaps a minute I stood looking at the thing with an ever-growing feeling of disgust and some fear. The mouth kept jabbering and aenly and once emitted a half-swinish grunt. I think it was the eyes that attracted me the most. They seemed to glow at times with a horribly human intelligence and kept flickering away from my face over the details of the room as though my stare disturbed it. It appeared to be supporting itself by two claw-like hands upon the windowsill. These claws, unlike the face, were of a clayy, brown hue and born indistinct resemblance to human hands, in that they had four fingers and a thumb, though these were webbed up to the first joint much as are a dux. Nails it had also, but so long and powerful that they were more like the talons of an eagle than ought else. As I have said before, I felt some fear, though almost of an impersonal kind. I may explain my feeling better by saying that it was more a sensation of abhorrence, such as one might expect to feel if brought in contact with something superhumanly foul, something unholy, belonging to some hitherto undreamt of state of existence. I cannot say that I grasp these various details of the brute at the time. I think they seem to come back to me afterward as though and printed upon my brain. I imagined more than I saw as I looked at the thing, and the material details grew upon me later. For perhaps a minute I stared at the creature, as my nerves steadied a little I shook off the vague alarm that held me and took a step toward the window. Even as I did so the thing ducked and vanished. I rushed to the door and looked round hurriedly, but only the tangled bushes and shrubs met my gaze. I ran back into the house, and getting my guns sallied out to search through the gardens. As I went I asked myself whether the thing I had just seen was likely to be the same of which I had caught a glimpse in the morning. I inclined to think it was. I would have taken pepper with me, but judged it better to give his wound a chance to heal. Besides, if the creature I had just seen was as I imagined his antagonist of the morning it was not likely that he would be of much use. I began my search systematically. I was determined if it were possible to find and put an end to that swine thing. This was at least a material horror. At first I searched cautiously what the thought of peppers wound in my mind, but as the hours passed and not a sign of anything living showed in the great lonely gardens, I became less apprehensive. I felt almost as though I would welcome the sight of it. Anything seemed better than this silence, with the ever-present feeling that the creature might be lurking in every bush I passed. Later I grew careless of danger to the extent of plunging right through the bushes, probing with my gun barrel as I went. At times I shouted, but only the echoes answered back. I thought thus perhaps to frighten or stir the creature to showing itself, but only succeeded in bringing my sister Mary out to know what was the matter. I told her that I had seen the wild cat that had wounded pepper and that I was trying to hunt it out of the bushes. She seemed only half satisfied and went back into the house with an expression of doubt upon her face. I wondered whether she had seen or guessed anything. For the rest of the afternoon I prosecuted the search anxiously. I felt that I should be unable to sleep with that bestial thing haunting the shrubberies, and yet when evening fell I had seen nothing. Then as I turned homeward I heard a short unintelligible noise among the bushes to my right. Instantly I turned and aiming quickly fired in the direction of the sound. Immediately afterward I heard something scuttling away among the bushes. It moved rapidly and in a minute had gone out of hearing. After a few steps I ceased my pursuit, realizing how futile it must be in the fast gathering gloom, and so with a curious feeling of depression I entered the house. That night after my sister had gone to bed I went round to all the windows and doors on the ground floor and saw to it that they were securely fastened. This precaution was scarcely necessary as regards the windows, as all of those on the lower story are strongly barred. But with the doors, of which there are five, it was wisely thought as not one was locked. Having secured these I went to my study yet somehow for once the place jarred upon me. It seemed so huge and echoey. For some time I tried to read, but at last finding it impossible, I carried my book down to the kitchen where a large fire was burning and sat there. I daresay I had read for a couple of hours when suddenly I heard a sound that made me lower my book and listen intently. It was a noise of something rubbing and fumbling against the back door. Once the door creaked loudly, as though force were being applied to it. During those few short moments I experienced an indescribable feeling of terror such as I should have believed impossible. My hands shook, a cold sweat broke out on me, and I shivered violently. Gradually I calmed. The stealthy movements outside had ceased. Then for an hour I sat silent and watchful. All at once the feeling of fear took me again. I felt as I imagined an animal must under the eye of a snake. Yet now I could hear nothing. Still there was no doubting that some unexplained influence was at work. Gradually, imperceptibly almost something stole on my ear. A sound that resolved itself into a faint murmur. Quickly it developed and grew into a muffled but hideous chorus of beastial shrieks. It appeared to rise from the bowels of the earth. I heard a thud and realized in a dull half-comprehending way that I had dropped my book. After that I just sat, and thus the daylight found me when it crept wandily in through the barred high windows of the great kitchen. With the dawning light the feeling of stupor and fear left me, and I came more into possession of my senses. Thereupon I picked up my book, and crept to the door to listen. Not a sound broke the chilly silence. For some moments I stood there then very gradually and cautiously. I drew back the bolt into opening the door peeped out. My caution was unneeded. Nothing was to be seen save the gray vista of dreary tangled bushes and trees extending to the distant plantation. With a shiver I closed the door, and made my way quietly up to bed. Chapter 6 of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. The Swine Things It was an evening, a week later. My sister sat in the garden, knitting. I was walking up and down reading. My gun lent up against the wall of the house for, since the advent of that strange thing in the gardens, I had deemed it wise to take precautions. Yet, through the whole week there had been nothing to alarm me, either by sight or sound so that I was able to look back calmly to the incident, though still with a sense of unmitigated wonder and curiosity. I was, as I have just said, walking up and down and somewhat engrossed in my book. Suddenly I heard a crash, away in the direction of the pit. With a quick movement I turned and saw a tremendous column of dust rising high into the evening air. My sister had risen to her feet with a sharp exclamation of surprise and fright. Telling her to stay where she was I snatched up my gun and ran toward the pit. As I neared it I heard a dull, rumbling sound that grew quickly into a roar split with deeper crashes and up from the pit drove a fresh volume of dust. The noise ceased, though the dust still rose tumultuously. I reached the edge and looked down, but could see nothing save a boil of dust clouds swirling hither and tither. The air was so full of the small particles that they blinded and choked me, and finally I had to run out from the smother to breathe. Gradually the suspended matter sank and hung in a penably over the mouth of the pit. I could only guess at what had happened, that there had been a landslip of some kind I had little doubt, but the cause was beyond my knowledge, and yet, even then, I had half imaginings, for already the thought had come to me of those falling rocks and the thing in the bottom of the pit. But in the first minutes of confusion I failed to reach the natural conclusion to which the catastrophe pointed. Slowly the dust subsided until presently I was able to approach the edge and look down. For a while I peered impotently, trying to see through the reek. At first it was impossible to make out anything. Then as I stared I saw something below to my left that moved. I looked intently toward it and presently made out another, and then another. Three dim shapes that appeared to be climbing up the side of the pit. I could see them only indistinctly. Even as I stared and wonder I heard a rattle of stone somewhere to my right, I glanced across but could see nothing. I lent forward and peered over and down into the pit, just beneath where I stood, and saw no further than a hideous white swine face that had risen to within a couple of yards of my feet. Below it I could make out several others. As the thing saw me it gave a sudden uncouth squeal, which was answered from all parts of the pit. At that a gust of horror and fear took me. Then bending down I discharged my gun right into its face. Straight away the creature disappeared with a clatter of loose earth and stones. There was a momentary silence, to which probably I owe my life. For during it I heard a quick patter of many feet and turning sharply saw a troop of the creatures coming toward me at a run. Instantly I raised my gun and fired at the foremost who plunged headlong with a hideous howling. Then I turned to run. More than halfway from the house to the pit I saw my sister. She was coming toward me. I could not see her face distinctly as the dust had fallen, but there was fear in her voice as she called to know why I was shooting. Run! I shouted in reply, run for your life! Without more ado she turned and fled, picking up her skirts with both hands. As I followed I gave a glance behind. The brutes were running on their hind legs, at times dropping on all force. I think it must have been the terror in my voice that spurred Mary to run so. For I feel convinced that she had not as yet seen those hell-creatures that pursued. On we went, my sister leading. Each moment the nearing sounds of the footsteps told me that the brutes were gaining on us rapidly. Fortunately I am accustomed to live in some ways an active life. As it was, the strain of the race was beginning to tell severely upon me. Ahead I could see the back door. Luckily it was open. I was some half-dozen yards behind Mary now, and my breath was sobbing in my throat. Then something touched my shoulder. I wrenched my head round quickly and saw one of those monstrous pallid faces close to mine. One of the creatures having outrun its companions had almost overtaken me. Even as I turned it made a fresh grab. With a sudden effort I sprang to one side and swinging my gun by the barrel brought it crashing down upon the foul creature's head. The thing dropped with an almost human groan. Even this short delay had been nearly sufficient to bring the rest of the brutes down upon me, so that without an instant waste of time I turned and ran for the door. Reaching it I burst into the passage, then turning quickly slammed and bolted the door, just as the first of the creatures rushed against it with a sudden shock. My sister sat gasping in a chair. She seemed in a fainting condition, but I had no time then to spend on her. I had to make sure that all the doors were fastened. Fortunately they were. The one leading from my study into the gardens was the last which I went. I had just had time to note that it was secured when I thought I heard a noise outside. I stood perfectly silent and listened. Yes, now I could distinctly hear a sound of whispering and something slithered over the panels with a rasping scratchy noise. Evidently some of the brutes were feeling with their claw hands about the door to discover whether there were any means of ingress. That the creatures should so soon I found the door was to me a proof of their reasoning capabilities. It assured me that they must not be regarded by any means as mere animals. I had felt something of this before when that first thing peered in through my window. Then I had applied the term superhuman to it with an almost instinctive knowledge that the creature was something different from the brute beast. Something beyond human, yet in no good sense, but rather as something foul and hostile to the great and good in humanity. In a word has something intelligent and yet inhuman. The very thought of the creatures filled me with revulsion. Now I bethought me of my sister and going to the cupboard I got out a flask of brandy and a wine-glass. Taking these I went down to the kitchen carrying a lighted candle with me. She was not sitting in the chair but had fallen out and was lying upon the floor face downward. Very gently I turned her over and raised her head somewhat. Then I poured a little of the brandy between her lips. After a while she shivered slightly. A little later she gave several gasps and opened her eyes. In a dreamy, unrealizing way she looked at me. Then her eyes closed slowly, and I gave her a little more of the brandy, for perhaps a minute longer she lay silent breathing quickly. All at once her eyes opened again and it seemed to me as I looked that the pupils were dilated as though fear had come with returning consciousness. Then with a movement so unexpected that I started backward she sat up, noticing that she seemed giddy I put out my hand to steady her, that she gave a loud scream and scrambling to her feet ran from the room. For a moment I stayed there, kneeling and holding the brandy flask. I was utterly puzzled and astonished. Could she be afraid of me? But no. Why should she be? I could only conclude that her nerves were badly shaken and that she was temporarily unhinged. Upstairs I heard a door bang, loudly, and I knew that she had taken refuge in her room. I put the flask down on the table. My attention was distracted by a noise in the direction of the back door. I went toward it and listened. It appeared to be shaken as though some of the creatures struggled with it silently. But it was far too strongly constructed and hung to be easily moved. Out in the gardens rose a continuous sound. It might have been mistaken by a casual listener for the grunting and squealing of a herd of pigs. But as I stood there, it came to me that there was sense and meaning to all those swinish noises. Gradually I seemed able to trace a semblance in it to human speech, gluttonous and sticky as though each articulation were made with difficulty. Yet nevertheless I was becoming convinced that it was no mere medley of sounds, but a rapid interchange of ideas. By this time it had grown quite dark in the passages, and from these came all the varied cries and groans of which an old house is so fool after nightfall. It is no doubt because things are then quieter and one has more leisure to hear. Also there may be something in the theory that the sudden change of temperature at sundown affects the structure of the house somewhat, causing it to contract and settle as it were for the night. However, this is as may be, but on that night in particular I would gladly have been quit of so many eerie noises. It seemed to me that each crack and creak was the coming of one of those things along the dark corridors, though I knew in my heart that this could not be, for I had seen myself that all the doors were secure. Gradually, however, these sounds grew on my nerves to such an extent that, worried only to punish my cowardice, I felt I must make the round of the basement again, and if anything were there, face it. And then I would go up to my study, for I knew sleep was out of the question with the house surrounded by creatures, half beasts, half something else, and entirely unholy. Taking the kitchen lamp down from its hook, I made my way from cellar to cellar, and room to room, through pantry and cold hole along passages, and into the hundred and one little blind alleys and hidden nooks that form the basement of the old house. Then, when I knew I had been in every corner and cranny large enough to conceal awe of any size, I made my way to the stairs. With my foot on the first step, I paused. It seemed to me I heard a movement apparently from the buttery, which is to the left of the staircase. It had been one of the first places I searched, and yet I felt certain my ears had not deceived me. My nerves were strong now, and with hardly any hesitation I stepped up to the door, holding the lamp above my head. In a glance I saw that the place was empty, safe for the heavy stone slabs supported by brick pillars, and I was about to leave it, convinced that I had been mistaken when interning my light was flashed back from two bright spots outside the window and high up. For a few moments I stood there, staring. Then they moved, revolving slowly and throwing out alternate scintillations of green and red. At least so it appeared to me. I knew then that they were eyes. Slowly I traced the shadowy outline of one of the things. It appeared to be holding on to the bars of the window, and its attitude suggested climbing. I went nearer to the window and held the light higher. There was no need to be afraid of the creature, the bars were strong, and there was little danger of its being able to move them. And then suddenly, in spite of the knowledge that the brute could not reach to harm me, I had a return of the horrible sensation of fear that had assailed me on that night, a week previously. It was the same feeling of helpless, shuddering fright. I realized dimly that the creature's eyes were looking into mine with a steady, compelling stare. I tried to turn away, but could not. I seemed now to see the window through a mist. Then I thought other eyes came and peered, and yet others, until a whole galaxy of malignant, staring orbs seemed to hold me in thrall. My head began to swim and throb violently. Then I was aware of a feeling of acute physical pain in my left hand. It grew more severe and forced, literally forced, my attention. With a tremendous effort I glanced down, and with that the spell that had held me was broken. I realized then that I had in my agitation unconsciously caught hold of the hot lamp-glass and burnt my hand badly. I looked up to the window again. The misty appearance had gone. And now I saw that it was crowded with dozens of bestial faces. With a sudden access of rage, I raised the lamp and hurled it full at the window. It struck the glass, smashing a pain, and passed between two of the bars out into the garden, scattering burning oil as it went. I heard several loud cries of pain, and as my sight became accustomed to the dark, I discovered that the creatures had left the window. Pulling myself together, I groped for the door, and having found it made my way upstairs, stumbling at each step. I felt dazed as though I had received a blow on the head. At the same time my hand smarted badly, and I was full of a nervous dull rage against those things. Reaching my study I lit the candles, as they burnt up their rays were reflected from the rack of firearms on the sidewall. At the sight I remembered that I had their power, which as I had proved earlier, seemed as fatal to those monsters as to more ordinary animals, and I determined I would take the offensive. First of all I bound up my hand for the pain was fast becoming intolerable. After that it seemed easier, and I crossed the room to the rifle stand. There I selected a heavy rifle, an old and tried weapon, and having procured ammunition, I made my way up into one of the small towers with which the house is crowned. From there I found that I could see nothing. The gardens presented a dim blur of shadows, a little blacker perhaps where the tree stood. That was all, and I knew that it was useless to shoot down into all that darkness. The only thing to be done was to wait for the moon to rise, then I might be able to do a little execution. In the meantime I sat still and kept my ears open, the gardens were comparatively quiet now, and only an occasional grunt or squeal came up to me. I did not like this silence. It made me wonder on what devilry the creatures were bent. Twice I left the tower and took a walk through the house, but everything was silent. Once I heard a noise from the direction of the pit as though more earth had fallen. Following this, and lasting for some fifteen minutes, there was a commotion among the denizens of the gardens. This died away, and after that all was again quiet. About an hour later the moon's light showed above the distant horizon. From where I sat I could see it over the trees, but it was not until it rose clear of them that I could make out any of the details in the garden below. Even then I could see none of the brutes, until, happening to crane forward, I saw several of them lying prone up against the wall of the house. What they were doing I could not make out. It was, however, a chance too good to be ignored and taking aim. I fired at the one directly beneath. There was a shrill scream, and as the smoke cleared away I saw that it had turned on its back and was writhing feebly. Then it was quiet. The others had disappeared. Immediately after this I heard a loud squeal in the direction of the pit. It was answered a hundred times from every part of the garden. This gave me some notion of the number of the creatures, and I began to feel that the whole affair was becoming even more serious than I had imagined. As I sat there silent and watchful, the thought came to me. Why was all this? What were these things? What did it mean? Then my thoughts flew back to that vision, though even now I doubt whether it was a vision of the plane of silence. What did that mean? I wondered, and that thing in the arena? Lastly, I thought of the house I had seen in that faraway place, that house so like this in every detail of external structure that it might have been modeled from it. Or this from that? I had never thought of that. At this moment there came another long squeal from the pit. Followed a second later by a couple of shorter ones, and once the garden was filled with answering cries. I stood up quickly and looked over the parapet. In the moonlight it seemed as though the shrubberies were alive. They tossed hither and tither as though shaken by a strong irregular wind, while a continuous rustling and a noise of scampering feet rose up to meet me. Several times I saw the moonlight gleam on running white figures among the bushes, and twice I fired. The second time my shot was answered by a short squeal of pain. A minute later the gardens lay silent. From the pit came a deep horse, babble of swine-talk. At time angry cries smoked the air, and they would be answered by multitudinous gruntings. It occurred to me that they were holding some kind of a council, perhaps to discuss the problem of entering the house. Also I thought that they seemed much enraged, probably by my successful shots. It occurred to me that now would be a good time to make a final survey of our defenses. This I proceeded to do at once, visiting the whole of the basement again and examining each of the doors. Luckily they are all, like the back one, built of solid iron-studded oak. Then I went upstairs to the study. I was more anxious about this door. It is palpably of a more modern make than the others, and though a stout piece of work it has little of their ponderous strength. I must explain here that there is a small raised lawn on this side of the house upon which the door opens, the windows of the study being barred on this account. All the other entrances, accepting the great gateway which is never opened, are in the lower story. End of Chapter 6 Recording by John Van Stan Savannah, Georgia Chapter 7 of the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Attack I spent some time puzzling how to strengthen the study door. Finally I went down to the kitchen and with some trouble brought up several heavy pieces of timber. These I wedged up slant-wise against it from the floor, nailing them top and bottom. For half an hour I worked hard, and at last got it shored to my mind. Then feeling easier I resumed my coat, which I had laid aside, and proceeded to attend to one or two matters before returning to the tower. It was whilst thus employed that I heard a fumbling at the door and the latch was tried. Keeping silence, I waited. Soon I heard several of the creatures outside. They were grunting to one another softly. Then for a minute there was quietness. Suddenly there sounded a quick low grunt and the door creaked under a tremendous pressure. It would have burst inward but for the supports I had placed. The strain ceased as quickly as it had begun and there was more talk. Presently one of the things squealed softly, and I heard the sound of others approaching. There was a short confabulation, then again silence, and I realised that they had called several more to assist. Feeling that now was the supreme moment I stood ready with my rifle presented. If the door gave I would at least slay as many as possible. Again came the low signal and once more the door cracked under a huge force. For a minute perhaps the pressure was kept up and I waited nervously, expecting each moment to see the door come down with a crash. But no, the struts held, and the attempt proved abortive. Then followed more of their horrible grunting talk, and whilst it lasted I thought I distinguished the noise of fresh arrivals. After a long discussion during which the door was several times shaken they became quiet once more and I knew that they were going to make a third attempt to break it down, I was almost in despair. The props had been severely tried in the two previous attacks and I was sorely afraid that this would prove too much for them. At that moment, like an inspiration, a thought flashed into my troubled brain. Instantly, for it was no time to hesitate, I ran from the room and up stair after stair. This time it was not to one of the towers that I went, but out onto the flat leaded roof itself. Once there I raced across to the parapet that walls it round and looked down. As I did so I heard the short grunted signal and even up there caught the crying of the door under the assault. There was not a moment to lose and leaning over I aimed quickly and fired. The report rang sharply and almost blending with it came the loud splud of the bullet striking its mark. From below rose a shrill wail and the door ceased its groaning. Then as I took my weight from off the parapet a huge piece of the stone coping slid from under me and fell with a crash among the disorganized throng beneath. Several horrible shrieks quavered through the night air and then I heard a sound of scampering feet. Cautiously, I looked over. In the moonlight I could see the great coping stone lying right across the threshold of the door. I thought I saw something under it—several things, white. But I could not be sure. And so a few minutes passed. As I stared I saw something come round out of the shadow of the house. It was one of the things. It went up to the stone silently and bent down. I was unable to see what it did. In a minute it stood up. It had something in its talons which it put to its mouth and tore at. For the moment I did not realize. Then slowly I comprehended. The thing was stooping again. It was horrible. I started to load my rifle when I looked again the monster was tugging at the stone, moving it to one side. I lent the rifle on the coping and pulled the trigger. The brute collapsed on its face and kicked slightly. Simultaneously almost with the report I heard another sound—that of breaking glass. Waiting only to recharge my weapon I ran from the roof and down the first two flights of stairs. Here I paused to listen. As I did so there came another tinkle of fallen glass. It appeared to come from the floor below. Excitedly I sprang down the steps and guided by the rattle of the window sash, reached the door of one of the empty bedrooms at the back of the house. I thrust it open. The room was but dimly illuminated by the moonlight, most of the light being blotted out by moving figures at the window. Even as I stood one crawled through into the room, leveling my weapon I fired point blank at it, filling the room with a deafening bang. When the smoke cleared I saw that the room was empty and the window free. The room was much lighter. The night hair blew in coldly through the shattered panes. Down below in the night I could hear a soft moaning and a confused murmur of swine voices. Stepping to one side of the window I reloaded and then stood there waiting. Presently I heard a scuffling noise, from where I stood in the shadow I could see without being seen. Nearer came the sounds, and then I saw something come up above the sill and clutch at the broken window frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork, and now I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later the face of one of the swine creatures rose into view. Then before I could use my rifle or do anything there came a sharp crack, crack, and the window frame gave way under the weight of the thing. Next instant a squashing thud and a loud outcry told me that it had fallen to the ground. With a savage hope that it had been killed I went to the window. The moon had gone behind a cloud so that I could see nothing. Though a steady hum of jabbering just beneath where I stood indicated that there were several more of the broods close at hand. As I stood there, looking down, I marveled how it had been possible for the creatures to climb so far. For the wall is comparatively smooth, while the distance to the ground must be at least eighty feet. All at once as I bent peering I saw something indistinctly that cut the gray shadow of the house side with a black line. It passed the window to the left at a distance of about two feet. Then I remembered that it was a gutter pipe that had been put there some years ago to carry off the rain water. I had forgotten about it. I could see now how the creatures had managed to reach the window. Even as the solution came to me I heard a faint slithering, scratching noise, and I knew that another of the broods was coming. I waited some odd moments, then lent out of the window and felt the pipe. To my delight I found that it was quite loose, and I managed using the rifle barrel as a crowbar to lever it out from the wall. I worked quickly. Then taking hold with both hands I wrenched the whole concern away and hurled it down, with the thing still clinging to it into the garden. For a few moments longer I waited there listening. But after the first general outcry I heard nothing. I knew now that there was no more reason to fear an attack from this quarter. I had removed the only means of reaching the window, and as none of the other windows had any adjacent water pipes to tempt the climbing powers of the monsters, I began to feel more confident of escaping their clutches. Leaving the room I made my way down to the study. I was anxious to see how the door had withstood the test of that last assault. Entering I lit two of the candles and then turned to the door. One of the large props had been displaced, and on that side the door had been forced inward some six inches. It was providential that I had managed to drive the broods away just when I did. And that coping stone! I wondered vaguely how I had managed to dislodge it. I had not noticed it loose as I took my shot, and then as I stood up it had slipped away from beneath me. I felt that I owed the dismissal of the attacking force more to its timely fall than to my rifle. Then the thought came, that I had better seize this chance to shore up the door again. It was evident that the creatures had not returned since the fall of the coping stone, but who was to say how long they would keep away. There and then I set to at repairing the door, working hard and anxiously. First I went down to the basement and rummaging round, found several pieces of heavy oak planking. With these I returned to the study, and having removed the props placed the planks up against the door. Then I nailed the heads of the struts to these and driving them well home at the bottoms, nailed them again there. Thus I made the door stronger than ever. For now it was solid with the backing of boards and wood I felt convinced and a heavier pressure than hitherto without giving way. After that I lit the lamp which I had brought from the kitchen, and went down to have a look at the lower windows. Now that I had seen an instance of the strength the creatures possessed, I felt considerable anxiety about the windows on the ground floor, in spite of the fact that they were so strongly barred. I went first to the buttery, having a vivid remembrance of my late adventure there. The place was chilly, and the wind, sowing in through the broken glass, produced an eerie note. Apart from the general air of dismalness, the place was as I had left it the night before. Going up to the window, I examined the bars closely, noting as I did so their comfortable thickness. Still, as I looked more intently, it seemed to me that the middle bar was bent slightly from the straight. Yet it was but trifling, and it might have been so for years. I had never before noticed them particularly. I put my hand through the broken window and shook the bar. It was as firm as a rock. Perhaps the creatures had tried to start it, and finding it beyond their power ceased from the effort. After that I went round to each of the windows in turn, examining them with careful attention. But nowhere else could I trace anything to show, that there had been any tampering. Having finished my survey, I went back to the study and poured myself out a little brandy. Then to the tower to watch. After the attack. It was now about three a.m., and presently the eastern sky began to pale with the coming of dawn. Gradually the day came, and by its light I scanned the gardens earnestly. But nowhere could I see any signs of the brutes. I lent over and glanced down to the foot of the wall to see whether the body of the thing I had shot the night before was still there. It was gone. I suppose that others of the monsters had removed it during the night. Then I went down onto the roof and crossed over the gap from which the coping-stone had fallen. Reaching it I looked over. Yes, there was the stone as I had seen it last. But there was no appearance of anything beneath it, nor could I see the creatures I had killed after its fall. Evidently they had also been taken away. I turned and went down to my study. There I sat down wearily. I was thoroughly tired. It was quite light now, though the sun's rays were not as yet perceptibly hot. A clock chimed the hour of four. I awoke with a start and looked round hurriedly. The clock in the corner indicated that it was three o'clock. It was already afternoon. I must have slept for nearly eleven hours. With a jerky movement I sat forward in the chair and listened. The house was perfectly silent. Slowly I stood up and yawned. I felt desperately tired still and sat down again, wondering what it was that had waked me. It must have been the clock striking I concluded presently, and was commencing to doze off when a sudden noise brought me back once more to life. It was the sound of a step, as of a person moving cautiously down the corridor toward my study. In an instant I was on my feet and grasping my rifle. Noiselessly I waited. Had the creatures broken in whilst I slept, even as I questioned the steps reached my door, halted momentarily, and then continued down the passage. Silently I tiptoed to the doorway and peeped out. Then I experienced such a feeling of relief as must have reprieved criminal. It was my sister. She was going toward the stairs. I stepped into the hall and was about to call her when it occurred to me that it was very queer she should have crept past my door in that stealthy manner. I was puzzled, and for one brief moment the thought occupied my mind that it was not she, but some fresh mystery of the house. Then as I caught a glimpse of her old petticoat, the thought passed as quickly as it had come, and I half laughed. There could be no mistaking that ancient garment. Yet I wondered what she was doing and remembered her condition of mind on the previous day. I felt that it might be best to follow quietly, taking care not to alarm her, and see what she was going to do. If she behaved rationally well and good. If not, I should have to take steps to restrain her. I could run no unnecessary risks under the danger that threatened us. Quickly I reached the head of the stairs and paused the moment. Then I heard a sound that sent me leaping down at a mad rate. It was the rattle of bolts being unshut. That foolish sister of mine was actually unbarring the back door. Just as her hand was on the last bolt I reached her. She had not seen me in the first thing she knew I had hold of her arm. She glanced up quickly like a frightened animal and screamed aloud. Come, Mary, I said sternly, what's the meaning of this nonsense? Do you mean to tell me you don't understand the danger that you try to throw our two lives away in this fashion? To this she replied nothing, only trembled violently gasping and sobbing as though in the last extremity of fear. Through some minutes I reasoned with her, pointing out the need for caution and asking her to be brave. There was little to be afraid of now, I explained, and I tried to believe that I spoke the truth. But she must be sensible, and not attempt to leave the house for a few days. At last I ceased in despair. It was no use talking to her, she was obviously not quite herself for the time being. Finally I told her she had better go to her room if she could not behave rationally. Still, she took not any notice. So without more ado I picked her up in my arms and carried her there. At first she screamed wildly, but had relapsed into silent trembling by the time I reached the stairs. Arriving at her room I laid her upon the bed. She lay there quietly enough, neither speaking nor sobbing, just shaking in a very egg of fear. I took a rug from a chair nearby and spread it over her. I could do nothing more for her and so crossed to wherepepper lay in a big basket. My sister had taken charge of him since his wound to nurse him, for it had proved more severe than I had thought, and I was pleased to note that, in spite of her state of mind, she had looked after the old dog carefully. Stooping, I spoke to him and in reply he licked my hand feebly. He was too ill to do more. Then, going to bed, I bent over my sister and asked her how she felt. But she only shook the moor and, much as it pained me, I had to admit that my presence seemed to make her worse. And so I left her, locking the door and pocketing the key. It seemed to be the only course to take. The rest of the day I spent between the tower and my study. For food I brought up aloof from the pantry, and on this, sent some claree, I lived for that day. What a long, weary day it was! If only I could have gone out into the gardens as his might want. I should have been content enough, but to be cooped in this silent house with no companions save a madwoman and a sick dog was enough to prey upon the nerves of the hardiest. An out in the tangled shrubberies that surrounded the house lurked, for all I could tell, those infernal swine-creatures waiting their chance. Was ever a man in such straits. Once in the afternoon and again later I went to visit my sister. The second time I found her tending pepper, but at my approach she slid over unobtrusively to the far corner with a gesture that saddened me beyond belief. Poor girl! Her fear cut me intolerably, and I would not intrude on her unnecessarily. She would be better, I trusted in a few days. Meanwhile I could do nothing, and I judged it still needful, hard as it seemed, to keep her confined to her room. One thing there was that I took for encouragement, she had eaten some of the food I had taken to her on my first visit. And so the day passed. As the evening drew on, the air grew chilly, and I began to make preparations for passing a second night in the tower, taking up two additional rifles and a heavy ulster. The rifles I loaded and laid alongside my other, as I intended to make things warm for any of the creatures who might show during the night. I had plenty of ammunition, and I thought to give the Brutes such a lesson as should show them the uselessness of attempting to force an entrance. After that I made the round of the house again, paying particular attention to the props that supported the study door. Then, feeling that I had done all that lay in my power to ensure our safety, I returned to the tower, calling in on my sister and Pepper for a final visit on the way. Pepper was asleep, but woke as I entered, and whacked his tail in recognition. I thought he seemed slightly better. My sister was lying on the bed, though. Whether asleep or not, I was unable to tell, and thus I left them. Reaching the tower, I made myself as comfortable as circumstances would permit, and settled down to watch through the night. Gradually darkness fell, and soon the details of the gardens were merged into shadows. During the first few hours, I sat alert, listening for any sound that might help to tell me if anything were stirring down below. It was far too dark for my eyes to be of much use. Slowly the hours passed without anything unusual happening, and the moon rose showing the gardens apparently empty and silent, and so through the night without disturbance or sound. Toward morning I began to grow stiff and cold with my long vigil. Also, I was getting very uneasy concerning the continued quietness on the part of the creatures. I mistrusted it, and would sooner, far, have had them attack the house openly. Then at least I should have known my danger and been able to meet it. But to wait like this, through a whole night, picturing all kinds of unknown devilment, was to jeopardize one's sanity. Once or twice the thought came to me that perhaps they had gone. But in my heart I found it impossible to believe that it was so.