The matter of the cult still fascinated me. Sometimes I dreamed of earning fame from serious researches into its origins. I visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and other people of that old-time party. I saw the frightful image, and even questioned some mongrel prisoners. Old Castro, unfortunately, was dead. What I now heard was really no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle wrote before. It excited me once again. I felt sure that I touched a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion. Its discovery will make me a famous scholar. My attitude was absolutly materialistic (I wish it still were) and I discounted the coincidence between Willcox dreams and the cuttings collected by my grand-uncle.
One thing I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that my uncle’s death was not natural. He fell on a narrow hill street. This street was swarming with foreign mongels. He fell after a careless push from a Negro sailor. I did not forget the mixed blood and marine background of the cult-members in Louisiana. I won’t be surprised to learn of poisoned needles and other ruthless secret methods. Legrasse and his men, it is true, are still alive; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw some strange things is dead. Maybe the deeper inquiries of my uncle came to sinister ears? I think Professor Angell died because he knew too much. Or because there was a chance for him to learn too much as well. And at the moment I knew much, too…
III. The Madness from the Sea
I almost ceased my inquiries into what Professor Angell called the “Cthulhu Cult”, and was visiting a learned friend in Paterson, New Jersey. He was the curator of a local museum and a famous mineralogist. One day I was examining the stones in a rear room of the museum. My eye noticed an odd picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. It was the Australian journal, the Sydney Bulletin[54], for April 18, 1925. There was a picture of a hideous stone image almost identical with that which Legrasse found in the swamp.
I read the article in detail. What I read was very important for my investigation. So I carefully tore it out. It read as follows:
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[56].
The Morrison Co.’s freighter Vigilant[57], bound from Valparaiso, arrived this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour. It had 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. On April 2nd, exceptionally heavy storms and monster waves drove the ship considerably south of its course. On April 12th the derelict was sighted. One survivor in a half-delirious condition and one man who was evidently dead for more than a week were found. The living man was holding a horrible stone idol of unknown origin, about foot in height. The authorities at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street were unable to say anything about its origin. The survivor says he found it in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine.
This man told an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian. He is from the two-masted schooner Emma of Auckland, which sailed for Callao February 20th with a complement of eleven men. He says, the great storm of March 1st threw the Emma widely south of her course by. On March 22nd, in S. Latitude 49°51’ W. Longitude 128°34’, the ship encountered the Alert. It was manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes[58]. They ordered to turn back, Capt. Collins refused. The strange crew began to fire savagely and without warning. The schooner began to sink from shots beneath the water-line, but the Emma’s men managed to heave alongside their enemy and board it. They killed them all.
Three of the Emma’s men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, were killed. The remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen continued to navigate the captured yacht. They were going in their original direction to see why they were ordered back The next day, it appears, they found and landed on a small island. None knew about it in that part of the ocean. Six of the men somehow died ashore. Johansen strangely says very little about this part of his story. Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried to manage it. But they were driven by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th the man remembers little. He does not even recall when William Briden, his companion, died. There was no apparent cause for Briden’s death. It happened probably due to excitement or exposure. The Alert was well known there as an island trader[59]. It bore evil reputation. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes. Their frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted curiosity. It started 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. He describes Johansen as a sober and worthy man. The admiralty will start an inquiry. They will try to make Johansen speak more freely than he did before.
This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image. What a train of ideas it started in my mind! Here was new information about the Cthulhu Cult! Here was the evidence that it had strange interests at sea as well as on land. Why did the hybrid crew order the Emma to sail back? What was the unknown island on which six of the Emma’s crew died? Why Johansen was so secretive? And most important, what deep connection was there, between these dates and events so carefully noted by my uncle?
March 1st – or February 28th according to the International Date Line[60] – the earthquake and storm came. From Dunedin the Alert and her crew sailed eagerly. It looked as if somebody summoned it. On the other side of the earth poets and artists began to dream of a strange Cyclopean city while a young sculptor moulded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an unknown island. They left six men dead. On that date the dreams of sensitive men became very vivid and darkened with dread of a giant monster’s malign pursuit. On that date architect went mad and a sculptor went suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2nd – the date on which all dreams of the strange city ceased? The date on which Wilcox recovered from the strange fever? An old Castro talked about the sunken, star-born Old Ones and their coming reign; their faithful cult and their mastery of dreams. In some way the second of April stopped monstrous menace, which began the siege of mankind’s soul.
That evening I took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I was in Dunedin. There I found that little was known of the strange cult-members who spent their time in the old sea-taverns. But there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels made. During that trip faint drumming and red flame were noted on the distant hills. In Auckland I learned that Johansen returned with yellow hair turned white after a questioning at Sydney. Hereafter he sold his cottage in West Street and sailed with his wife to his old home in Oslo. He did not told much to his friends but they gave me his Oslo address.
After that I went to Sydney and talked with seamen and members of the vice-admiralty court but without result. I saw the Alert but gained nothing. The Alert was sold and now in commercial use. The crouching image with its cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park.