What baffled us was our utter ignorance of the aspect in which we might
encounter the thing. No sane person had ever seen it, and few had ever
felt it definitely. It might be pure energy--a form ethereal and outside
the realm of substance--or it might be partly material; some unknown and
equivocal mass of plasticity, capable of changing at will to nebulous
approximations of the solid, liquid, gaseous, or tenuously unparticled
states. The anthropomorphic patch of mold on the floor, the form of the
yellowish vapor, and the curvature of the tree-roots in some of the old
tales, all argued at least a remote and reminiscent connection with the
human shape; but how representative or permanent that similarity might
be, none could say with any kind of certainty. *       *       *       *       *

We had devised two weapons to fight it; a large and specially fitted
Crookes tube operated by powerful storage batteries and provided with
peculiar screens and reflectors, in case it proved intangible and
opposable only by vigorously destructive ether radiations, and a pair of
military flame-throwers of the sort used in the World War, in case it
proved partly material and susceptible of mechanical destruction--for
like the superstitious Exeter rustics, we were prepared to burn the
thing's heart out if heart existed to burn. All this aggressive
mechanism we set in the cellar in positions carefully arranged with
reference to the cot and chairs, and to the spot before the fireplace
where the mold had taken strange shapes. That suggestive patch, by the
way, was only faintly visible when we placed our furniture and
instruments, and when we returned that evening for the actual vigil. For
a moment I half doubted that I had ever seen it in the more definitely
limned form--but then I thought of the legends. Our cellar vigil began at ten p. m., daylight saving time, and as it
continued we found no promise of pertinent developments. A weak,
filtered glow from the rain-harassed street-lamps outside, and a feeble
phosphorescence from the detestable fungi within, showed the dripping
stone of the walls, from which all traces of whitewash had vanished; the
dank, fetid and mildew-tainted hard earth floor with its obscene fungi;
the rotting remains of what had been stools, chairs, and tables, and
other more shapeless furniture; the heavy planks and massive beams of
the ground floor overhead; the decrepit plank door leading to bins and
chambers beneath other parts of the house; the crumbling stone staircase
with ruined wooden hand-rail; and the crude and cavernous fireplace of
blackened brick where rusted iron fragments revealed the past presence
of hooks, andirons, spit, crane, and a door to the Dutch oven--these
things, and our austere cot and camp chairs, and the heavy and intricate
destructive machinery we had brought. We had, as in my own former explorations, left the door to the street
unlocked; so that a direct and practical path of escape might lie open
in case of manifestations beyond our power to deal with. It was our idea
that our continued nocturnal presence would call forth whatever malign
entity lurked there; and that being prepared, we could dispose of the
thing with one or the other of our provided means as soon as we had
recognized and observed it sufficiently. How long it might require to
evoke and extinguish the thing, we had no notion. It occurred to us,
too, that our venture was far from safe; for in what strength the thing
might appear no one could tell. But we deemed the game worth the hazard,
and embarked on it alone and unhesitatingly; conscious that the seeking
of outside aid would only expose us to ridicule and perhaps defeat our
entire purpose. Such was our frame of mind as we talked--far into the
night, till my uncle's growing drowsiness made me remind him to lie down
for his two-hour sleep. Something like fear chilled me as I sat there in the small hours
alone--I say alone, for one who sits by a sleeper is indeed alone;
perhaps more alone than he can realize. My uncle breathed heavily, his
deep inhalations and exhalations accompanied by the rain outside, and
punctuated by another nerve-racking sound of distant dripping water
within--for the house was repulsively damp even in dry weather, and in
this storm positively swamp-like. I studied the loose, antique masonry
of the walls in the fungus-light and the feeble rays which stole in from
the street through the screened window; and once, when the noisome
atmosphere of the place seemed about to sicken me, I opened the door and
looked up and down the street, feasting my eyes on familiar sights and
my nostrils on wholesome air. Still nothing occurred to reward my
watching; and I yawned repeatedly, fatigue getting the better of
apprehension. Then the stirring of my uncle in his sleep attracted my notice. He had
turned restlessly on the cot several times during the latter half of the
first hour, but now he was breathing with unusual irregularity,
occasionally heaving a sigh which held more than a few of the qualities
of a choking moan. I turned my electric flashlight on him and found his face averted; so
rising and crossing to the other side of the cot, I again flashed the
light to see if he seemed in any pain. What I saw unnerved me most
surprisingly, considering its relative triviality. It must have been
merely the association of any odd circumstance with the sinister nature
of our location and mission, for surely the circumstance was not in
itself frightful or unnatural. It was merely that my uncle's facial
expression, disturbed no doubt by the strange dreams which our
situation prompted, betrayed considerable agitation, and seemed not at
all characteristic of him. His habitual expression was one of kindly and
well-bred calm, whereas now a variety of emotions seemed struggling
within him. I think, on the whole, that it was this _variety_ which
chiefly disturbed me. My uncle, as he gasped and tossed in increasing
perturbation and with eyes that had now started open, seemed not one but
many men, and suggested a curious quality of alienage from himself. *       *       *       *       *

All at once he commenced to mutter, and I did not like the look of his
mouth and teeth as he spoke. The words were at first indistinguishable,
and then--with a tremendous start--I recognized something about them
which filled me with icy fear till I recalled the breadth of my uncle's
education and the interminable translations he had made from
anthropological and antiquarian articles in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. For the venerable Elihu Whipple was muttering _in French_, and the few
phrases I could distinguish seemed connected with the darkest myths he
had ever adapted from the famous Paris magazine. Suddenly a perspiration broke out on the sleeper's forehead, and he
leaped abruptly up, half awake. The jumble of French changed to a cry in
English, and the hoarse voice shouted excitedly, "My breath, my breath!"