Inhuman agony had etched itself in
deep lines on the white face, and gnawing anguish smoldered in the
sunken eyes. I cannot hope to convey the utter strangeness, the
atmosphere of unearthliness that surrounded him, almost as palpable as
the fetid tomb-stench that welled from his dark garments. He waved a
black-swathed arm to the vacant seat at the head of the table, and I sat
down. This nightmare sense of unreality! I seemed to be in a dream, with a
hidden part of my mind slowly waking from sleep into evil life to take
command of my faculties. The table was set with old-fashioned goblets
and trenchers such as had not been used for hundreds of years. There was
meat on the trenchers, and red liquor in the jeweled goblets. A heady,
overpowering fragrance swam up into my nostrils, mixed with the
grave-smell of my companions and the musty odor of a dank and sunless
place. Every white face was turned to me, faces that seemed oddly familiar,
although I did not know why. Each face was alike in its blood-red,
sensual lips and its expression of gnawing agony, and burning black eyes
like the abysmal pits of Tartarus stared at me until I felt the short
hairs stir on my neck. But--I was a Kralitz! I stood up and said boldly
in archaic German that somehow came familiarly from my lips, "I am
Franz, twenty-first Baron Kralitz. What do you want with me?" A murmur of approval went around the long table. There was a stir. From
the foot of the board a huge bearded man arose, a man with a frightful
scar that made the left side of his face a horror of healed white
tissue. Again the odd thrill of familiarity ran through me; I had seen
that face before, and vaguely I remembered looking at it through dim
twilight. The man spoke in the old guttural German. "We greet you, Franz, Baron
Kralitz. We greet you and pledge you, Franz--and we pledge the House of
Kralitz!" With that he caught up the goblet before him and held it high. All along
the long table the black-swathed ones arose, and each held high his
jeweled cup, and pledged me. They drank deeply, savoring the liquor, and
I made the bow custom demanded. I said, in words that sprang almost
unbidden from my mouth:

"I greet you, who are the warders of the secret of Kralitz, and I pledge
you in return." All about me, to the farthermost reaches of the dim cavern, a hush fell,
and the bellows and howlings, and the insane tittering of the flying
things, were no longer heard. My companions leaned expectantly toward
me. Standing alone at the head of the board, I raised my goblet and
drank. The liquor was heady, exhilarating, with a faintly brackish
flavor. And abruptly I knew why the pain-racked, ruined face of my companion had
seemed familiar; I had seen it often among the portraits of my
ancestors, the frowning, disfigured visage of the founder of the House
of Kralitz that glared down from the gloom of the great hall. In that
fierce white light of revelation I knew my companions for what they
were; I recognized them, one by one, remembering their canvas
counterparts. But there was a change! Like an impalpable veil, the stamp
of ineradicable evil lay on the tortured faces of my hosts, strangely
altering their features, so that I could not always be sure I recognized
them. One pale, sardonic face reminded me of my father, but I could not
be sure, so monstrously altered was its expression. I was dining with my ancestors--the House of Kralitz! My cup was still held high, and I drained it, for somehow the grim
revelation was not entirely unexpected. A strange glow thrilled through
my veins, and I laughed aloud for the evil delight that was in me. The
others laughed too, a deep-throated merriment like the barking of
wolves--tortured laughter from men stretched on the rack, mad laughter
in hell! And all through the hazy cavern came the clamor of the devil's
brood! Great figures that towered many spans high rocked with thundering
glee, and the flying things tittered slyly overhead. And out over the
vast expanse swept the wave of frightful mirth, until the half-seen
things in the black waters sent out bellows that tore at my eardrums,
and the unseen roof far overhead sent back roaring echoes of the clamor. And I laughed with them, laughed insanely, until I dropped exhausted
into my seat and watched the scarred man at the other end of the table
as he spoke. "You are worthy to be of our company, and worthy to eat at the same
board. We have pledged each other, and you are one of us; we shall eat
together." And we fell to, tearing like hungry beasts at the succulent white meat
in the jeweled trenchers. Strange monsters served us, and at a chill
touch on my arm I turned to find a dreadful crimson thing, like a
skinned child, refilling my goblet. Strange, strange and utterly
blasphemous was our feast. We shouted and laughed and fed there in the
hazy light, while all around us thundered the evil horde. There was hell
beneath Castle Kralitz, and it held high carnival this night. *       *       *       *       *

Presently we sang a fierce drinking-song, swinging the deep cups back
and forth in rhythm with our shouted chant. It was an archaic song, but
the obsolete words were no handicap, for I mouthed them as though they
had been learned at my mother's knee. And at the thought of my mother a
trembling and a weakness ran through me abruptly, but I banished it with
a draft of the heady liquor. Long, long we shouted and sang and caroused there in the great cavern,
and after a time we arose together and trooped to where a narrow,
high-arched bridge spanned the tenebrous waters of the lake. But I may
not speak of what was at the other end of the bridge, nor of the
unnamable things that I saw--and did! I learned of the fungoid, inhuman
beings that dwell on far cold Yuggoth, of the cyclopean shapes that
attend unsleeping Cthulhu in his submarine city, of the strange
pleasures that the followers of leprous, subterranean Yog-Sothoth may
possess, and I learned, too, of the unbelievable manner in which Iod,
the Source, is worshipped beyond the outer galaxies. I plumbed the
blackest pits of hell and came back--laughing. I was one with the rest
of those dark warders, and I joined them in the saturnalia of horror
until the scarred man spoke to us again. "Our time grows short," he said, his scarred and bearded white face like
a gargoyle's in the half-light. "We must depart soon. But you are a true
Kralitz, Franz, and we shall meet again, and feast again, and make merry
for longer than you think. One last pledge!" I gave it to him. "To the House of Kralitz! May it never fall!" And with an exultant shout we drained the pungent dregs of the liquor. Then a strange lassitude fell upon me. With the others I turned my back
on the cavern and the shapes that pranced and bellowed and crawled
there, and I went up through the carved stone portal.