On our return at one a.m., Danforth was close to hysterics, but kept an
admirably stiff upper lip. It took no persuasion to make him promise
not to show our sketches and the other things we brought away in our
pockets, not to say anything more to the others than what we had agreed
to relay outside, and to hide our camera films for private development
later on; so that part of my present story will be as new to Pabodie,
McTighe, Ropes, Sherman, and the rest as it will be to that world in
general. Indeed--Danforth is closer mouthed than I: for he saw, or
thinks he saw, one thing he will not tell even me. As all know, our report included a tale of a hard ascent--a
confirmation of Lake's opinion that the great peaks are of archæan
slate and other very primal crumpled strata unchanged since at least
middle Comanchean time, a conventional comment on the regularity of the
clinging cube and rampart formations, a decision that the cave mouths
indicate dissolved calcareous veins, a conjecture that certain slopes
and passes would permit of the scaling and crossing of the entire range
by seasoned mountaineers, and a remark that the mysterious other side
holds a lofty and immense superplateau as ancient and unchanging as the
mountains themselves--twenty thousand feet in elevation, with grotesque
rock formations protruding through a thin glacial layer and with low
gradual foothills between the general plateau surface and the sheer
precipices of the highest peaks. This body of data is in every respect true so far as it goes, and
it completely satisfied the men at the camp. We laid our absence of
sixteen hours--a longer time than our announced flying, landing,
reconnoitering, and rock-collecting program called for--to a long
mythical spell of adverse wind conditions, and told truly of our
landing on the farther foothills. Fortunately our tale sounded realistic and prosaic enough not to tempt
any of the others into emulating our flight. Had any tried to do that,
I would have used every ounce of my persuasion to stop them--and I do
not know what Danforth would have done. While we were gone, Pabodie, Sherman, Ropes, McTighe, and Williamson
had worked like beavers over Lake's two best planes, fitting them
again for use, despite the altogether unaccountable juggling of their
operative mechanism. We decided to load all the planes the next morning and start back for
our old base as soon as possible. Even though indirect, that was the
safest way to work toward McMurdo Sound; for a straight-line flight
across the most utterly unknown stretches of the æon-dead continent
would involve many additional hazards. Further exploration was hardly feasible in view of our tragic
decimation and the ruin of our drilling machinery. The doubts and
horrors around us--which we did not reveal--made us wish only to escape
from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly
as we could. *       *       *       *       *

As the public knows, our return to the world was accomplished without
further disasters. All planes reached the old base on the evening of
the next day--January 27th--after a swift nonstop flight; and on the
28th we made McMurdo Sound in two laps, the one pause being very brief,
and occasioned by a faulty rudder, in the furious wind over the ice
shelf after we had cleared the great plateau. In five days more, the _Arkham_ and _Miskatonic_, with all hands and
equipment on board, were shaking clear of the thickening field ice
and working up Ross Sea, with the mocking mountains of Victoria Land
looming westward against a troubled antarctic sky and twisting the
wind's wails into a wide-ranged musical piping which chilled my soul to
the quick. Less than a fortnight later we left the last hint of polar land behind
us and thanked heaven that we were clear of a haunted, accursed realm
where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous
alliances in the unknown epochs since matter first writhed and swam on
the planet's scarce-cooled crust. Since our return we have all constantly worked to discourage antarctic
exploration, and have kept certain doubts and guesses to ourselves with
splendid unity and faithfulness. Even young Danforth, with his nervous
breakdown, has not flinched or babbled to his doctors. Indeed, as I have said, there is one thing he thinks he alone saw
which he will not tell even me, though I think it would help his
psychological state if he would consent to do so. It might explain and
relieve much, though perhaps the thing was no more than the delusive
aftermath of an earlier shock. That is the impression I gather after
those rare, irresponsible moments when he whispers disjointed things to
me--things which he repudiates vehemently as soon as he gets a grip on
himself again. It will be hard work deterring others from the great white south, and
some of our efforts may directly harm our cause by drawing inquiring
notice. We might have known from the first that human curiosity is
undying, and that the results we announced would be enough to spur
others ahead on the same age-long pursuit of the unknown. Lake's reports of those biological monstrosities had aroused
naturalists and palæontologists to the highest pitch, though we were
sensible enough not to show the detached parts we had taken from the
actual buried specimens, or our photographs of those specimens as
they were found. We also refrained from showing the more puzzling of
the scarred bones and greenish soapstones; while Danforth and I have
closely guarded the pictures we took or drew on the superplateau across
the range, and the crumpled things we smoothed, studied in terror, and
brought away in our pockets. But now that Starkweather-Moore party is organizing, and with a
thoroughness far beyond anything our outfit attempted--if not
dissuaded, they will get to the innermost nucleus of the antarctic
and melt and bore till they bring up that which we know may end the
world. So I must break through all reticences at last--even about that
ultimate, nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness. IV. It is only with vast hesitancy and repugnance that I let my mind go
back to Lake's camp and what we really found there--and to that other
thing beyond the awful mountain wall. I have told of the wind-ravaged terrain, the damaged shelters, the
disarranged machinery, the varied uneasiness of our dogs, the missing
sledges and other items, the deaths of men and dogs, the absence of
Gedney, and the six insanely buried biological specimens, strangely
sound in texture for all their structural injuries, from a world forty
million years dead. I do not recall whether I mentioned that upon
checking up the canine bodies we found one dog missing. We did not
think much about that till later--indeed, only Danforth and I have
thought of it at all.