"O friend and companion of night thou who rejoicest in the baying of
dogs (here a hideous howl burst forth) and spilt blood (here nameless
sounds vied with morbid shriekings), who wanderest in the midst of
shades among the tombs (here a whistling sigh occurred), who longest
for blood and bringest terror to mortals (short, sharp cries from
myriad throats), Gorgo (repeated as response), Mormo (repeated with
ecstasy), thousand-faced moon (sighs and flute notes), look favorably
on our sacrifices!" As the chant closed, a general shout went up, and hissing sounds
nearly drowned the croaking of the cracked bass organ. Then a gasp
as from many throats, and a babel of barked and bleated
words--"Lilith, Great Lilith, behold the Bridegroom!" More cries, a
clamor of rioting, and the sharp, clicking footfalls of a running
figure. The footfalls approached, and Malone raised himself to his
elbow to look. The luminosity of the crypt, lately diminished, had now slightly
increased; and in that devil-light there appeared the fleeing form of
that which should not flee or feel or breathe--the glassy-eyed,
gangrenous corpse of the corpulent old man, now needing no support,
but animated by some infernal sorcery of the rite just closed. After
it raced the naked, tittering, phosphorescent thing that belonged on
the carven pedestal, and still farther behind panted the dark men,
and all the dread crew of sentient loathsomenesses. The corpse was
gaining on its pursuers, and seemed bent on a definite object,
straining with every rotting muscle toward the carved golden
pedestal, whose necromantic importance was evidently so great. Another moment and it had reached its goal, whilst the trailing
throng labored on with more frantic speed. But they were too late,
for in one final spurt of strength which ripped tendon from tendon
and sent its noisome bulk floundering to the floor in a state of
jellyish dissolution, the staring corpse which had been Robert Suydam
achieved its object and its triumph. The push had been tremendous,
but the force had held out; and as the pusher collapsed to a muddy
blotch of corruption the pedestal he had pushed tottered, tipped, and
finally careened from its onyx base into the thick waters below,
sending up a parting gleam of carven gold as it sank heavily to
undreamable gulfs of lower Tartarus. In that instant, too, the whole
scene of horror faded to nothingness before Malone's eyes; and he
fainted amidst a thunderous crash which seemed to blot out all the
evil universe. VII

Malone's dream, experienced in full before he knew of Suydam's death
and transfer at sea, was curiously supplemented by some oddities of
the case; though that is no reason why anyone should believe it. The
three old houses in Parker Place, doubtless long rotten with decay in
its most insidious form, collapsed without visible cause while half
the raiders and most of the prisoners were inside; and both of the
greater number were instantly killed. Only in the basements and
cellars was there much saving of life, and Malone was lucky to have
been deep below the house of Robert Suydam. For he really was there,
as no one is disposed to deny. They found him unconscious by the
edge of the night-black pool, with a grotesquely horrible jumble of
decay and bone, identifiable through dental work as the body of
Suydam, a few feet away. The case was plain, for it was hither that
the smugglers' underground canal led; and the men who took Suydam
from the ship had brought him home. They themselves were never
found, or identified; and the ship's doctor is not yet satisfied with
the certitudes of the police. Suydam was evidently a leader in extensive man-smuggling operations,
for the canal to his house was but one of several subterranean
channels and tunnels in the neighborhood. There was a tunnel from
this house to a crypt beneath the dance-hall church; a crypt
accessible from the church only through a narrow secret passage in
the north wall, and in whose chambers some singular and terrible
things were discovered. The croaking organ was there, as well as a
vast arched chapel with wooden benches and a strangely figured altar. The walls were lined with small cells, in seventeen of which--hideous
to relate--solitary prisoners in a state of complete idiocy were
found chained, including four mothers with infants of disturbingly
strange appearance. These infants died soon after exposure to the
light; a circumstance which the doctors thought rather merciful. Nobody but Malone, among those who inspected them, remembered the
somber question of old Delrio: "An sint unquan daemones incubi et
succubae, et an ex tali, congressu proles nasci queat?" Before the canals were filled up they were thoroughly dredged, and
yielded forth a sensational array of sawed and split bones of all
sizes. The kidnapping epidemic, very clearly, had been traced home;
though only two of the surviving prisoners could by any legal thread
be connected with it. These men are now in prison, since they failed
of conviction as accessories in the actual murders. The carved
golden pedestal or throne so often mentioned by Malone as of primary
occult importance was never brought to light, though at one place
under the Suydam house the canal, was observed to sink into a well
too deep for dredging. It was choked up at the mouth and cemented
over when the cellars of the new houses were made, but Malone often
speculates on what lied beneath. The police, satisfied that they had
shattered a dangerous gang of maniacs and alien smugglers, turned
over to the Federal authorities the unconvicted Kurds, who before
their deportation were conclusively found to belong to the Yezidee
clan of devils-worshippers. The tramp ship and its crew remain an
elusive mystery, though cynical detectives are once more ready to
combat its smuggling and rum-running ventures. Malone thinks these
detectives show a sadly limited perspective in their lack of wonder
at the myriad unexplainable details, and the suggestive obscurity of
the whole case; though he is just as critical of the newspapers,
which saw only a morbid sensation and gloated over a minor sadist
cult when they might have proclaimed a horror from the universe's
very heart. But he is content to rest silent in Chepachet, calming
his nervous system and praying that time may gradually transfer his
terrible experience from the realm of present reality to that of
picturesque and semi-mythical remoteness. Robert Suydam sleeps beside his bride in Greenwood Cemetery. No
funeral was held over the strangely released bones, and relatives are
grateful for the swift oblivion which overtook the case as a whole. The scholar's connection with the Red Hook horrors, indeed, was never
emblazoned by legal proof; since his death forestalled the inquiry he
would otherwise have faced. His own end is not much mentioned, and
the Suydams hope that posterity may recall him only as a gentle
recluse who dabbled in harmless magic and folk-lore.