There was a horrific bursting as of an exploding bladder, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was hidden by an acrid green cloud, and – God in heaven! [101] – the distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.
That was all. After that Johansen only watched the idol in the cabin and prepared some food for himself and the laughing maniac. He did not try to navigate, for he was completely exhausted. Then came the storm of April 2nd, and he lost his consciousness.
One day came rescue – the Vigilant, the vice-admiralty court, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the old house. He could not tell – they would think him mad [102]. He wrote of what he knew before death came. Death would be a boon if only it could delete memories.
That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. This record of mine will be placed with them. I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives.
Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. It waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come— but I must not and cannot think about it! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors let nobody read this.
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
I
I don’t want to tell my reasons for opposing the invasion of the Antarctic – with its vast fossil hunt and its melting of the ancient ice caps. I can understand clearly that my story will seem extravagant and incredible. But there are photographs, both ordinary and aerial, and they will count in my favor [103], for they are vivid and graphic. Of course, some people can say that is all fakery. And there are ink drawings which can be jeered at as obvious impostures.
I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any over-ambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It is pity that ordinary men like myself and my colleagues, connected only with a small university, have little chance of making an impression.
In the strictest sense, we are not specialists in the fields concerned. Miskatonic University [104] sent me as a geologist. The aim of our expedition was to secure deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the Antarctic continent. We had a remarkable drill devised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie [105] of our engineering department. I had no wish to be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I hoped that the use of this new mechanical device would discover materials, unacceptable by the ordinary methods of collection.
Pabodie’s drilling apparatus was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity. Three sledges could carry steel head, jointed rods [106], gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick [107], dynamiting paraphernalia [108], cords, rubbish-removal auger, and sectional piping for bores five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep. This was possible due to aluminum alloy. Four large aeroplanes could transport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to various inland points.
We planned to explore a great area, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau south of Ross Sea [109]; regions explored by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd [110]. We expected to get a quite unprecedented amount of material – especially in the pre-Cambrian [111] strata. We wished also to obtain a variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks, since the primal life history of this realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the earth’s past. The Antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical; and we hoped to expand that information in variety, accuracy, and detail.
The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent reports to the Arkham AdvertiserandAssociated Press [112], and through the later articles of Pabodie and myself. There were four men from the University – Pabodie, Lake [113] of the biology department, Atwood [114] of the physics department – also a meteorologist – and myself, representing geology – besides sixteen assistants: seven graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these sixteen, twelve were qualified aeroplane pilots, they were competent wireless operators as well. Eight of them understood navigation with compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood, and I. In addition, of course, our two ships were fully manned [115].
The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation [116] financed the expedition. The dogs, sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five planes were delivered in Boston, and there our ships were loaded. We were marvelously well-equipped for our specific purposes. As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 1930, taking a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama Canal [117], and stopping at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania [118], where we got final supplies. Our ship captains were J. B. Douglas [119], commanding the brig Arkham, and Georg Thorfinnssen [120], commanding the Miskatonic – both veteran whalers in Antarctic waters.
At about 62° South Latitude we noticed our first icebergs – table-like objects with vertical sides – and just before reaching the Antarctic circle [121], which we crossed on October 20th with appropriately ceremonies, we were considerably troubled with field ice. The falling temperature bothered me considerably after our long voyage through the tropics. Very often the curious atmospheric effects enchanted me vastly; distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles.
Pushing through the ice, we regained open water at South Latitude 67°, East Longitude 175°. On the morning of October 26th a snow-clad mountain chain appeared on the south. That was an outpost of the great unknown continent and its cryptic world of frozen death. These peaks were obviously the Admiralty Range discovered by Ross [122], and our task was to round Cape Adare [123] and sail down the east coast of Victoria Land [124] to our base on the shore of McMurdo Sound [125], at the foot of the volcano Erebus