What it suggested, however, was of portentous significance to my
flagging quest; and I carefully tore it out for immediate action. It
read as follows:

                     MYSTERY DERELICT FOUND AT SEA

    _Vigilant_ Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow. One Survivor and Dead Man Found Aboard. Tale of Desperate Battle
    and Deaths at Sea. Rescued Seaman Refuses Particulars of Strange
    Experience. Odd Idol Found in His Possession. Inquiry to Follow. *       *       *       *       *

    The Morrison Co.'s freighter _Vigilant_, bound from Valparaiso,
    arrived this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour, having in tow
    the battled and disabled but heavily armed steam yacht _Alert_ of
    Dunedin, N. Z., which was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude 34° 21',
    W. Longitude 152° 17', with one living and one dead man aboard. The _Vigilant_ left Valparaiso March 25th, and on April 2d was
    driven considerably south of her course by exceptionally heavy
    storms and monster waves. On April 12th the derelict was sighted;
    and though apparently deserted, was found upon boarding to contain
    one survivor in a half-delirious condition and one man who had
    evidently been dead for more than a week. The living man was clutching a horrible stone idol of unknown
    origin, about a foot in height, regarding whose nature authorities
    at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College
    Street all profess complete bafflement, and which the survivor says
    he found in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine of
    common pattern. This man, after recovering his senses, told an exceedingly strange
    story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian
    of some intelligence, and had been second mate of the two-masted
    schooner _Emma_ of Auckland, which sailed for Callao February 20th,
    with a complement of eleven men. The _Emma_, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her
    course by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22d, in S.
    Latitude 49° 51´, W. Longitude 128° 34´, encountered the _Alert_,
    manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes. Being ordered peremptorily to turn back, Capt. Collins refused;
    whereupon the strange crew began to fire savagely and without
    warning upon the schooner with a peculiarly heavy battery of brass
    cannon forming part of the yacht's equipment. The _Emma's_ men showed fight, says the survivor, and though the
    schooner began to sink from shots beneath the waterline they managed
    to heave alongside their enemy and board her, grappling with the
    savage crew on the yacht's deck, and being forced to kill them all,
    the number being slightly superior, because of their particularly
    abhorrent and desperate though rather clumsy mode of fighting. Three of the _Emma's_ men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate
    Green, were killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate
    Johansen proceeded to navigate the captured yacht, going ahead in
    their original direction to see if any reason for their ordering
    back had existed. The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island,
    although none is known to exist in that part of the ocean; and six
    of the men somehow died ashore, though Johansen is queerly reticent
    about this part of his story and speaks only of their falling into
    a rock chasm. Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried
    to manage her, but were beaten about by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th, the man remembers
    little, and he does not even recall when William Briden, his
    companion, died. Briden's death reveals no apparent cause, and was
    probably due to excitement or exposure. Cable advices from Dunedin report that the _Alert_ was well known
    there as an island trader, and bore an evil reputation along the
    waterfront. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes whose
    frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted no little
    curiosity; and it had set sail in great haste just after the storm
    and earth tremors of March 1st. Our Auckland correspondent gives the _Emma_ and her crew an
    excellent reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and
    worthy man. The admiralty will institute an inquiry on the whole matter
    beginning tomorrow, at which every effort will be made to induce
    Johansen to speak more freely than he has done hitherto. *       *       *       *       *

This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image; but what
a train of ideas it started in my mind! Here were new treasuries of
data on the Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that it had strange interests
at sea as well as on land. What motive prompted the hybrid crew to
order back the _Emma_ as they sailed about with their hideous idol? What was the unknown island on which six of the _Emma's_ crew had
died, and about which the mate Johansen was so secretive? What had the
vice-admiralty's investigation brought out, and what was known of the
noxious cult in Dunedin? And most marvelous of all, what deep and more
than natural linkage of dates was this which gave a malign and now
undeniable significance to the various turns of events so carefully
noted by my uncle? March 1st--our February 28th according to the International Date
Line--the earthquake and storm had come. From Dunedin the _Alert_ and
her noisome crew had darted eagerly forth as if imperiously summoned,
and on the other side of the earth poets and artists had begun to
dream of a strange, dank Cyclopean city whilst a young sculptor had
molded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the
crew of the _Emma_ landed on an unknown island and left six men dead;
and on that date the dreams of sensitive men assumed a heightened
vividness and darkened with dread of a giant monster's malign pursuit,
whilst an architect had gone mad and a sculptor had lapsed suddenly
into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2nd--the date on which
all dreams of the dank city ceased, and Wilcox emerged unharmed from
the bondage of strange fever? What of all this--and of those hints of
old Castro about the sunken, star-born Old Ones and their coming reign;
their faithful cult _and their mastery of dreams_? Was I tottering on
the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man's power to bear? If so, they
must be horrors of the mind alone, for in some way the second of April
had put a stop to whatever monstrous menace had begun its siege of
mankind's soul. *       *       *       *       *

That evening, after a day of hurried cabling and arranging, I bade my
host adieu and took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month
I was in Dunedin; where, however, I found that little was known of
the strange cult-members who had lingered in the old sea taverns.