He nodded.
In the next two weeks I wanted to return to the tree of dreams and freedom and at the same time I feared the thing and all connected with it. Meanwhile, Theunis was busy with some investigation of the strangest nature, something which involved a mysterious trip and a return in greatest secrecy. On the telephone he told me that he had somewhere found the object mentioned in the ancient book as “The Gem,” and that he was trying to use it on the photographs I had left with him. He spoke of “refraction,” “polarization,” “unknown angles of space and time” and of building a special box.
Sixteen days later I got the shocking message from the hospital in Croydon. Theunis was there and wanted to see me at once. He had some strange seizure. He was found unconscious by friends who had come into his house after hearing cries of mortal fear. Though still weak, he wanted to tell me something. The hospital told me this much over the phone, and in half an hour I was at my friend’s bed. He first asked the nurses to leave in order to speak with me in private[14].
“I saw it!” he said. “You must destroy them all – those pictures. I sent it back by seeing it. That tree will never be seen on the hill again – at least for thousands of years till the next
Year of the Black Goat. You are safe now, and the mankind is safe.”
He paused, then continued.
“But you need to do something. Take the Gem out of the black box and put it in the safe. It must go back where it came from because there’s a time when it may be needed to save the world. They won’t let me leave yet, but I can rest if I know it’s safe. Don’t look through the Gem because it can do the same thing to you as it did to me. And burn those damned photographs!”
In another half an hour I was at his house and looking at the black box on the library table. And next to the box I saw the envelope of pictures I had taken. It did not take me long to examine the box with my earliest picture of the tree at one end and a strange amber-colored crystal at the other. I felt a mixture of emotions. Even after I had put the picture in the envelope with the rest of the photos, I had a wish to save it, and look at it, and run up the hill toward its original again. But the picture also scared me, so I quickly burned the envelope with all the photographs in the fireplace.
Strangely, I never wanted to look through the box before taking out the gem and the photograph. What was shown in the picture by the antique crystal’s lens was not – I was sure of it – what a normal brain could take. Whatever it was, I had been close to it, had been under its spell on that distant hill in the form of a tree and an unfamiliar landscape. And to sleep better at night, I did not wish to know what it had been.
Unfortunately, something had caught my eye[15] before I left the room. It was a paper lying among other papers on the table beside the black box. All papers were blank, but that one had a drawing in pencil. Suddenly I remembered what Theunis had once said about sketching the horror seen through the gem. Out of curiosity, I looked at the drawing and straight into the dark and forbidden design – and fainted.
Since then I have never been quite the same. I will never describe fully what I saw. After a while, I managed to get up and throw the drawing into the dying fire. Then I walked through the quiet streets to my home, thanking God I had not looked through the crystal at the photograph and praying to be able to forget the terrible drawing of Theunis.
Only a few basic elements of the landscape were in the thing. For the most part, the view was clouded by some kind of vapor. Every object that might have been familiar was a part of something vague and unknown – something alien and monstrous, and greater than any human eye could see.
In the landscape itself, where I had seen the twisted tree, there was only a terrible hand with fingers reaching for something on the ground. And right below it I thought I saw an outline in the grass where a man had lain. But the sketch was quick, and I could not be sure.
The beast in the cave
The horrible conclusion I had made was now an awful reality. I was lost, completely lost, in the vast maze of the Mammoth Cave. I turned left and right, but I could not see in any direction any guidepost to show me the way to the right path out of the cave. I thought I would never see the light of day, or the pleasant hills of the beautiful world outside.
The last hope had left me. Yet, I was an educated man, so I did not panic. I had often read of the poor victims who went immediately crazy and hysterical in such situations. I had none of this. I stood calm and quiet when I clearly realized that I had lost my way. I also suspected I had probably walked far beyond the limits of a usual search. If I must die, I decided, then this could be as good a place as any.
My disaster was the result of no one’s fault except my own. Without telling the guide, I had left the group of sightseers and wandered for over an hour in the forbidden parts of the cave. And now I could not find the way back to my companions.
The light of my torch had already begun to fade. Soon I would be surrounded by the total blackness of the earth. As I stood in the dying light, I wondered what exactly my end would be. Starving would kill me, I was sure of this. I remembered the stories which I had heard of the colony of people, who had gone to live in a gigantic cave to find health from the air of the underground world, with its steady temperature and peaceful quiet. Instead, they had found death in strange circumstances. I had seen the sad remains of their cottages as I passed them by with the other sightseers, and had wondered what unnatural effect this cave would have on me. Now, I told myself, I had a chance to find it out.
As the last light of my torch faded, I decided to make sure[16]I had done everything possible to escape. So I started shouting loudly in the vain hope of attracting the attention of the guide. Yet, as I called, I believed in my heart that my cries were useless, and that my voice, reflected by the black maze, could not be heard by anyone.
Suddenly, however, I was startled because I thought that I heard the sound of soft steps on the rocky floor of the cave. Would I be saved so soon? Was it the guide who had noticed my absence and was now looking for me in this limestone maze? The steps were coming closer. I was going to shout again when I froze and listened in horror. In the total silence of the cave these footsteps were not like those of any mortal man. The steps of the guide wearing boots would have sounded like blows. These ones were soft, as of the paws of a cat. Besides, at times, when I listened carefully, I seemed to hear four instead of two feet.
I was now sure that I had attracted some wild beast by my cries, maybe a mountain lion which had lived within the cave. Perhaps, I thought, God had chosen for me a quicker death than that of hunger. Yet the instinct of self-preservation[17] was waking up inside me, and I decided to fight for my life. So I became very quiet, in the hope that the unknown beast would lose its way[18] and pass me by. But it was hopeless because the strange footsteps were coming closer. Perhaps the animal could smell me from a great distance.
I needed a weapon to protect myself against an unseen attack in the dark, so I picked two pieces of rock which were lying around me on the floor of the cave, and, holding one in each hand, I waited. Meanwhile, the paws came near. Certainly, the behavior of the creature was very strange. Most of the time, I heard four footsteps, yet sometimes I thought I could hear only two moving feet. I wondered what animal it was. I thought it could be some unfortunate beast who had also lost its way in that cave. It had been eating fish, bats, and rats of the cave. I tried to imagine the physical features of the beast. But then I remembered that even if I killed it, I would never be able to see it. My torch had long since died[19], and I did not have any matches. Nearer, nearer, the dreadful footsteps came. I wanted to scream, but I could not. I was terrified and frozen to the spot. I doubted if my arm would throw the stone at the oncoming thing when the right moment came.
Now the steady pat, pat of the steps was close, very