Now that very stone formed the center of a vast space
thrashed around by the mountainous horror, whilst upon its slightly
concave surface was a thick fetid deposit of the same tarry stickiness
observed on the floor of the ruined Whateley farmhouse when the horror
escaped. Men looked at one another and muttered. Then they looked down
the hill. Apparently the horror had descended by a route much the same
as that of its ascent. To speculate was futile. Reason, logic, and
normal ideas of motivation stood confounded. Only old Zebulon, who
was not with the group, could have done justice to the situation or
suggested a plausible explanation. Thursday night began much like the others, but it ended less happily. The whippoorwills in the glen had screamed with such unusual
persistence that many could not sleep, and about 3 a. m. all the party
telephones rang tremulously. Those who took down their receivers
heard a fright-mad voice shriek out, "Help, oh, my Gawd!..." and some
thought a crashing sound followed the breaking off of the exclamation. There was nothing more. No one dared do anything, and no one knew
till morning whence the call came. Then those who had heard it called
everyone on the line, and found that only the Fryes did not reply. The
truth appeared an hour later, when a hastily assembled group of armed
men trudged out to the Frye place at the head of the glen. It was
horrible, yet hardly a surprize. There were more swaths and monstrous
prints, but there was no longer any house. It had caved in like an
egg-shell, and amongst the ruins nothing living or dead could be
discovered--only a stench and a tarry stickiness. The Elmer Fryes had
been erased from Dunwich. 8

In the meantime a quieter yet even more spiritually poignant phase of
the horror had been blackly unwinding itself behind the closed door of
a shelf-lined room in Arkham. The curious manuscript record or diary of
Wilbur Whateley, delivered to Miskatonic University for translation,
had caused much worry and bafflement among the experts in languages
both ancient and modern; its very alphabet, notwithstanding a general
resemblance to the heavily shaded Arabic used in Mesopotamia, being
absolutely unknown to any available authority. The final conclusion of
the linguists was that the text represented an artificial alphabet,
giving the effect of a cipher; though none of the usual methods of
cryptographic solution seemed to furnish any clue, even when applied
on the basis of every tongue the writer might conceivably have used. The ancient books taken from Whateley's quarters, while absorbingly
interesting and in several cases promising to open up new and terrible
lines of research among philosophers and men of science, were of no
assistance whatever in this matter. One of them, a heavy tome with
an iron clasp, was in another unknown alphabet--this one of a very
different cast, and resembling Sanskrit more than anything else. The
old ledger was at length given wholly into the charge of Dr. Armitage,
both because of his peculiar interest in the Whateley matter, and
because of his wide linguistic learning and skill in the mystical
formulæ of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Armitage had an idea that the alphabet might be something esoterically
used by certain forbidden cults which have come down from old times,
and which have inherited many forms and traditions from the wizards of
the Saracenic world. That question, however, he did not deem vital;
since it would be unnecessary to know the origin of the symbols if,
as he suspected, they were used as a cipher in a modern language. It
was his belief that, considering the great amount of text involved, the
writer would scarcely have wished the trouble of using another speech
than his own, save perhaps in certain special formulæ and incantations. Accordingly he attacked the manuscript with the preliminary assumption
that the bulk of it was in English. Dr. Armitage knew, from the repeated failures of his colleagues, that
the riddle was a deep and complex one, and that no simple mode of
solution could merit even a trial. All through late August he fortified
himself with the massed lore of cryptography, drawing upon the fullest
resources of his own library, and wading night after night amidst the
arcana of Trithemius' _Poligraphia_, Giambattista Porta's _De Furtivis
Literarum Notis_, De Vigenere's _Traité des Chiffres_, Falconer's
_Cryptomenysis Patefacta_, Davys' and Thicknesse's Eighteenth Century
treatises, and such fairly modern authorities as Blair, von Marten,
and Klüber's _Kryptographik_. He interspersed his study of the books
with attacks on the manuscript itself, and in time became convinced
that he had to deal with one of those subtlest and most ingenious of
cryptograms, in which many separate lists of corresponding letters are
arranged like the multiplication table, and the message built up with
arbitrary key-words known only to the initiated. The older authorities
seemed rather more helpful than the newer ones, and Armitage concluded
that the code of the manuscript was one of great antiquity, no doubt
handed down through a long line of mystical experimenters. Several
times he seemed near daylight, only to be set back by some unforeseen
obstacle. Then, as September approached, the clouds began to clear. Certain letters, as used in certain parts of the manuscript, emerged
definitely and unmistakably; and it became obvious that the text was
indeed in English. On the evening of September second the last major barrier gave way, and
Dr. Armitage read for the first time a continuous passage of Wilbur
Whateley's annals. It was in truth a diary, as all had thought; and
it was couched in a style clearly showing the mixed occult erudition
and general illiteracy of the strange being who wrote it. Almost the
first long passage that Armitage deciphered, an entry dated November
26, 1916, proved highly startling and disquieting. It was written, he
remembered, by a child of three and a half who looked like a lad of
twelve or thirteen. Today learned the Aklo for the Sabaoth, [it ran] which did not
    like, it being answerable from the hill and not from the air. That
    upstairs more ahead of me than I had thought it would be, and is
    not like to have much earth brain. Shot Elam Hutchins's collie
    Jack when he went to bite me, and Elam says he would kill me if he
    dast. I guess he won't. Grandfather kept me saying the Dho formula
    last night, and I think I saw the inner city at the 2 magnetic
    poles. I shall go to those poles when the earth is cleared off, if
    I can't break through with the Dho-Hna formula when I commit it. They from the air told me at Sabbat that it will be years before I
    can clear off the earth, and I guess Grandfather will be dead then,
    so I shall have to learn all the angles of the planes and all the
    formulas between the Yr and the Nhhngr. They from outside will
    help, but they can not take body without human blood.