It was three in the morning when I reached the farm-house, and today I
am all unstrung and quivering after my terrific adventure. As yet I
have told no one. I must move warily in the matter. What would the
poor lonely women, or the uneducated yokels here think of it if I were
to tell them my experience? Let me go to someone who can understand
and advise. April 25.--I was laid up in bed for two days after my incredible
adventure in the cavern. I use the adjective with a very definite
meaning, for I have had an experience since which has shocked me almost
as much as the other. I have said that I was looking round for someone
who could advise me. There is a Dr. Mark Johnson who practices some
few miles away, to whom I had a note of recommendation from Professor
Saunderson. To him I drove, when I was strong enough to get about, and
I recounted to him my whole strange experience. He listened intently,
and then carefully examined me, paying special attention to my reflexes
and to the pupils of my eyes. When he had finished, he refused to
discuss my adventure, saying that it was entirely beyond him, but he
gave me the card of a Mr. Picton at Castleton, with the advice that I
should instantly go to him and tell him the story exactly as I had done
to himself. He was, according to my adviser, the very man who was
pre-eminently suited to help me. I went on to the station, therefore,
and made my way to the little town, which is some ten miles away. Mr.
Picton appeared to be a man of importance, as his brass plate was
displayed upon the door of a considerable building on the outskirts of
the town. I was about to ring his bell, when some misgiving came into
my mind, and, crossing to a neighbouring shop, I asked the man behind
the counter if he could tell me anything of Mr. Picton. "Why," said
he, "he is the best mad doctor in Derbyshire, and yonder is his
asylum." You can imagine that it was not long before I had shaken the
dust of Castleton from my feet and returned to the farm, cursing all
unimaginative pedants who cannot conceive that there may be things in
creation which have never yet chanced to come across their mole's
vision. After all, now that I am cooler, I can afford to admit that I
have been no more sympathetic to Armitage than Dr. Johnson has been to
me. April 27. When I was a student I had the reputation of being a man of
courage and enterprise. I remember that when there was a ghost-hunt at
Coltbridge it was I who sat up in the haunted house. Is it advancing
years (after all, I am only thirty-five), or is it this physical malady
which has caused degeneration? Certainly my heart quails when I think
of that horrible cavern in the hill, and the certainty that it has some
monstrous occupant. What shall I do? There is not an hour in the day
that I do not debate the question. If I say nothing, then the mystery
remains unsolved. If I do say anything, then I have the alternative of
mad alarm over the whole countryside, or of absolute incredulity which
may end in consigning me to an asylum. On the whole, I think that my
best course is to wait, and to prepare for some expedition which shall
be more deliberate and better thought out than the last. As a first
step I have been to Castleton and obtained a few essentials--a large
acetylene lantern for one thing, and a good double-barrelled sporting
rifle for another. The latter I have hired, but I have bought a dozen
heavy game cartridges, which would bring down a rhinoceros. Now I am
ready for my troglodyte friend. Give me better health and a little
spate of energy, and I shall try conclusions with him yet. But who and
what is he? Ah! there is the question which stands between me and my
sleep. How many theories do I form, only to discard each in turn! It
is all so utterly unthinkable. And yet the cry, the footmark, the
tread in the cavern--no reasoning can get past these I think of the
old-world legends of dragons and of other monsters. Were they,
perhaps, not such fairy-tales as we have thought? Can it be that there
is some fact which underlies them, and am I, of all mortals, the one
who is chosen to expose it? May 3.--For several days I have been laid up by the vagaries of an
English spring, and during those days there have been developments, the
true and sinister meaning of which no one can appreciate save myself. I may say that we have had cloudy and moonless nights of late, which
according to my information were the seasons upon which sheep
disappeared. Well, sheep have disappeared. Two of Miss Allerton's,
one of old Pearson's of the Cat Walk, and one of Mrs. Moulton's. Four
in all during three nights. No trace is left of them at all, and the
countryside is buzzing with rumours of gipsies and of sheep-stealers. But there is something more serious than that. Young Armitage has
disappeared also. He left his moorland cottage early on Wednesday
night and has never been heard of since. He was an unattached man, so
there is less sensation than would otherwise be the case. The popular
explanation is that he owes money, and has found a situation in some
other part of the country, whence he will presently write for his
belongings. But I have grave misgivings. Is it not much more likely
that the recent tragedy of the sheep has caused him to take some steps
which may have ended in his own destruction? He may, for example, have
lain in wait for the creature and been carried off by it into the
recesses of the mountains. What an inconceivable fate for a civilized
Englishman of the twentieth century! And yet I feel that it is
possible and even probable. But in that case, how far am I answerable
both for his death and for any other mishap which may occur? Surely
with the knowledge I already possess it must be my duty to see that
something is done, or if necessary to do it myself. It must be the
latter, for this morning I went down to the local police-station and
told my story. The inspector entered it all in a large book and bowed
me out with commendable gravity, but I heard a burst of laughter before
I had got down his garden path. No doubt he was recounting my
adventure to his family. June 10.--I am writing this, propped up in bed, six weeks after my last
entry in this journal. I have gone through a terrible shock both to
mind and body, arising from such an experience as has seldom befallen a
human being before. But I have attained my end. The danger from the
Terror which dwells in the Blue John Gap has passed never to return. Thus much at least I, a broken invalid, have done for the common good. Let me now recount what occurred as clearly as I may. The night of Friday, May 3rd, was dark and cloudy--the very night for
the monster to walk. About eleven o'clock I went from the farm-house
with my lantern and my rifle, having first left a note upon the table
of my bedroom in which I said that, if I were missing, search should be
made for me in the direction of the Gap.