These voodoo
rituals--these Shinto sacrifices--feathered snakes--goats without
horns--black leopard cults--bah! Filth and dust that the wind blows
away! Dregs of the real Unknown--the deep mysteries! Mere echoes from
the Abyss! "'I could tell you things that would shatter your paltry brain! I could
breathe into your ear names that would wither you like a burnt weed! What do you know of Yog-Sothoth, of Kathulos and the sunken cities? None of these names is even included in your mythologies. Not even in
your dreams have you glimpsed the black cyclopean walls of Koth, or
shriveled before the noxious winds that blow from Yuggoth! "'But I will not blast you lifeless with my black wisdom! I cannot
expect your infantile brain to bear what mine holds. Were you as old
as I--had you seen, as I have seen, kingdoms crumble and generations
pass away--had you gathered as ripe grain the dark secrets of the
centuries----'

"He was raving away, his wildly lit face scarcely human in appearance,
and suddenly, noting my evident bewilderment, he burst into a horrible
cackling laugh. "'Gad!' he cried in a voice and accent strange to me, 'methinks I've
frighted ye, and certes, it is not to be marveled at, sith ye be but
a naked savage in the arts of life, after all. Ye think I be old, eh? Why, ye gaping lout, ye'd drop dead were I to divulge the generations
of men I've known----'

"But at this point such horror overcame me that I fled from him as from
an adder, and his high-pitched, diabolical laughter followed me out of
the shadowy house. Some days later I received a letter apologizing for
his manner and ascribing it candidly--too candidly--to drugs. I did not
believe it, but I renewed our relations, after some hesitation." "It sounds like utter madness," I muttered. "Yes," admitted Conrad, hesitantly. "But--Kirowan, have you ever seen
anyone who knew John Grimlan in his youth?" I shook my head. "I have been at pains to inquire about him discreetly," said Conrad. "He has lived here--with the exception of mysterious absences often
for months at a time--for twenty years. The older villagers remember
distinctly when he first came and took over that old house on the hill,
and they all say that in the intervening years he seems not to have
aged perceptibly. When he came here he looked just as he does now--or
did, up to the moment of his death--of the appearance of a man about
fifty. "I met old Von Boehnk in Vienna, who said he knew Grimlan when a
very young man studying in Berlin, fifty years ago, and he expressed
astonishment that the old man was still living; for he said at that
time Grimlan seemed to be about fifty years of age." I gave an incredulous exclamation, seeing the implication toward which
the conversation was trending. "Nonsense! Professor Von Boehnk is past eighty himself, and liable to
the errors of extreme age. He confused this man with another." Yet as I
spoke, my flesh crawled unpleasantly and the hairs on my neck prickled. "Well," shrugged Conrad, "here we are at the house." *       *       *       *       *

The huge pile reared up menacingly before us, and as we reached the
front door a vagrant wind moaned through the near-by trees and I
started foolishly as I again heard the ghostly beat of the bat's wings. Conrad turned a large key in the antique lock, and as we entered, a
cold draft swept across us like a breath from the grave--moldy and
cold. I shuddered. We groped our way through a black hallway and into a study, and here
Conrad lighted a candle, for no gas lights or electric lights were to
be found in the house. I looked about me, dreading what the light might
disclose, but the room, heavily tapestried and bizarrely furnished, was
empty save for us two. "Where--where is--_It_?" I asked in a husky whisper, from a throat gone
dry. "Upstairs," answered Conrad in a low voice, showing that the silence
and mystery of the house had laid a spell on him also. "Upstairs, in
the library where he died." I glanced up involuntarily. Somewhere above our head, the lone master
of this grim house was stretched out in his last sleep--silent, his
white face set in a grinning mask of death. Panic swept over me and
I fought for control. After all, it was merely the corpse of a wicked
old man, who was past harming anyone--this argument rang hollowly in my
brain like the words of a frightened child who is trying to reassure
himself. I turned to Conrad. He had taken a time-yellowed envelope from an
inside pocket. "This," he said, removing from the envelope several pages of closely
written, time-yellowed parchment, "is, in effect, the last word of John
Grimlan, though God alone knows how many years ago it was written. He gave it to me ten years ago, immediately after his return from
Mongolia. It was shortly after this that he had his first seizure. "This envelope he gave me, sealed, and he made me swear that I would
hide it carefully, and that I would not open it until he was dead, when
I was to read the contents and follow their directions exactly. More,
he made me swear that no matter what he said or did after giving me the
envelope, I would go ahead as first directed. 'For,' he said with a
fearful smile, 'the flesh is weak but I am a man of my word, and though
I might, in a moment of weakness, wish to retract, it is far, far too
late now. You may never understand the matter, but you are to do as I
have said.'" "Well?" "Well," again Conrad wiped his brow, "tonight as he lay writhing in his
death-agonies, his wordless howls were mingled with frantic admonitions
to me to bring him the envelope and destroy it before his eyes! As
he yammered this, he forced himself up on his elbows and with eyes
starting and hair standing straight up on his head, he screamed at me
in a manner to chill the blood. And he was shrieking for me to destroy
the envelope, not to open it; and once he howled in his delirium for
me to hew his body into pieces and scatter the bits to the four winds
of heaven!" An uncontrollable exclamation of horror escaped my dry lips. "At last," went on Conrad, "I gave in. Remembering his commands ten
years ago, I at first stood firm, but at last, as his screeches grew
unbearably desperate, I turned to go for the envelope, even though
that meant leaving him alone. But as I turned, with one last fearful
convulsion in which blood-flecked foam flew from his writhing lips, the
life went from his twisted body in a single great wrench." He fumbled at the parchment. "I am going to carry out my promise. The directions herein seem
fantastic and may be the whims of a disordered mind, but I gave my
word. They are, briefly, that I place his corpse on the great black
ebony table in his library, with seven black candles burning about
him. The doors and windows are to be firmly closed and fastened. Then,
in the darkness which precedes dawn, I am to read the formula, charm
or spell which is contained in a smaller, sealed envelope inside the
first, and which I have not yet opened." "But is that all?"