Then
came the storm of April 2nd, and a gathering of the clouds about his
consciousness. There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid
gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a
comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and
from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating
chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, bat-winged
mocking imps of Tartarus. Out of that dream came rescue--the _Vigilant_, the vice-admiralty
court, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the
old house by the Egeberg. He could not tell--they would think him mad. He would write of what he knew before death came, but his wife must not
guess. Death would be a boon if only it could blot out the memories. That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box
beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall
go this record of mine--this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced
together that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I have
looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the
skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison
to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as
poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still
lives. Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone
which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is
sunken once more, for the _Vigilant_ sailed over the spot after the
April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and
slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been
trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world
would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness
waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering
cities of men. A time will come--but I must not and can not think! Let
me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put