Dagon

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain

Since by tonight I shall be no more

Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug

Which alone makes life endurable

I can bear the torture no longer

And shall cast myself from this garret window

Into the squalid street below.

Do not think from my slavery to morphine

That I am a weakling or a degenerate.

When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess

Though never fully realise

Why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death

It was in one of the most open

And least frequented parts of the broad Pacific

That the packet of which

I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea-raider.

The great war was then at its very beginning

And the ocean forces of the Hun

Had not completely sunk to their later degradation

So that our vessel was made a legitimate prize

Whilst we of her crew were treated with all the fairness

And consideration due us as naval prisoners

So liberal, indeed, was the discipline of our captors

That five days after we were taken

I managed to escape alone in a small boat

With water and provisions for a good length of time

When I finally found myself adrift and free

I had but little idea of my surroundings

Never a competent navigator

I could only guess vaguely by the sun and stars

That I was somewhat south of the equator

Of the longitude I knew nothing

And no island or coast-line was in sight

The weather kept fair, and for uncounted days

I drifted aimlessly beneath the scorching sun

Waiting either for some passing ship

Or to be cast on the shores of some habitable land

But neither ship nor land appeared

And I began to despair in my solitude

Upon the heaving vastnesses of unbroken blue

The change happened whilst I slept

Its details I shall never know; for my slumber

Though troubled and dream-infested, was continuous.

When at last I awaked

It was to discover myself half sucked

Into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire

Which extended about me

In monotonous undulations as far as I could see

And in which my boat lay grounded some distance away

Though one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder

I was in reality more horrified than astonished

For there was in the air and in the rotting soil a sinister quality

Which chilled me to the very core

The region was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish

And of other less describable things

Which I saw protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plain

Perhaps I should not hope to convey in mere words

The unutterable hideousness

That can dwell in absolute silence and barren immensity

There was nothing within hearing

And nothing in sight save a vast reach of black slime

The sun was blazing down from a sky

Which seemed to me almost black in its cloudless cruelty

As though reflecting the inky marsh beneath my feet

As I crawled into the stranded boat I realised

That only one theory could explain my position

Through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval

A portion of the ocean floor must have been thrown to the surface

Exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years

Had lain hidden under unfathomable watery depths

So great was the extent of the new land which had risen beneath me

That I could not detect the faintest noise of the surging ocean

Strain my ears as I might

Nor were there any sea-fowl to prey upon the dead things

For several hours I sat thinking or brooding in the boat

Which lay upon its side

And afforded a slight shade as the sun moved across the heavens

As the day progressed, the ground lost some of its stickiness

And seemed likely to dry sufficiently

For travelling purposes in a short time.

That night I slept but little

And the next day I made for myself a pack containing food and water

On the third morning I found the soil dry enough to walk upon with ease

The odour of the fish was maddening

But I was too much concerned with graver things to mind so slight an evil

And set out boldly for an unknown goal

All day I forged steadily westward

Guided by a far-away hummock

Which rose higher than any other elevation on the rolling desert

That night I encamped

And on the following day still travelled toward the hummock

Though that object seemed scarcely nearer than when I had first espied it

By the fourth evening I attained the base of the mound

Which turned out to be much higher than it had appeared from a distance

An intervening valley setting it out in sharper relief from the general surface

Too weary to ascend, I slept in the shadow of the hill

I know not why my dreams were so wild that night

But ere the waning and fantastically gibbous moon

Had risen far above the eastern plain

I was awake in a cold perspiration, determined to sleep no more.

Such visions as I had experienced were too much for me to endure again.

And in the glow of the moon I saw how unwise I had been to travel by day.

Without the glare of the parching sun

My journey would have cost me less energy; indeed

I now felt quite able to perform the ascent which had deterred me at sunset

Picking up my pack, I started for the crest of the eminence

I have said that the unbroken monotony of the rolling plain

Was a source of vague horror to me

But I think my horror was greater when I gained the summit of the mound

And looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit

Whose black recesses the moon had not yet soared high enough to illumine

I felt myself on the edge of the world

Peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night

As the moon climbed higher in the sky

I began to see that the slopes of the valley

Were not quite so perpendicular as I had imagined

Ledges and outcroppings of rock afforded

Fairly easy foot-holds for a descent

Whilst after a drop of a few hundred feet

The declivity became very gradual

Urged on by an impulse which I cannot definitely analyse

I scrambled with difficulty down the rocks

And stood on the gentler slope beneath

All at once my attention was captured by a vast

And singular object on the opposite slope

Which rose steeply about an hundred yards ahead of me

An object that gleamed whitely

In the newly bestowed rays of the ascending moon

That it was merely a gigantic piece of stone

I soon assured myself

But I was conscious of a distinct impression

That its contour and position were not altogether the work of Nature

A closer scrutiny filled me with sensations I cannot express

For despite its enormous magnitude

And its position in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea

Since the world was young

I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object

Was a well-shaped monolith

Whose massive bulk had known the workmanship

And perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures

Dazed and frightened

Yet not without a certain thrill of the scientist’s delight

I examined my surroundings more closely

The moon, now near the zenith

Shone weirdly and vividly above the towering steeps that hemmed in the chasm

And revealed the fact that a far-flung body of water flowed at the bottom

Winding out of sight in both directions

And almost lapping my feet as I stood on the slope

Across the chasm, the wavelets washed the base of the Cyclopean monolith

On whose surface I could now trace both inscriptions and crude sculptures

The writing was in a system of hieroglyphics unknown to me

And unlike anything I had ever seen in books

Consisting for the most part of conventionalised aquatic symbols

Several characters obviously represented marine things

Which are unknown to the modern world

But whose decomposing forms I had observed on the ocean-risen plain

It was the pictorial carving, however

That did most to hold me spellbound

Plainly visible across the intervening water

On account of their enormous size

I think that these things were supposed to depict men—

At least a certain sort of men

Though the creatures were shewn disporting like fishes

In the waters of some marine grotto

Or paying homage at some monolithic shrine

Which appeared to be under the waves as well

Of their faces and forms I dare not speak in detail

For the mere remembrance makes me grow faint

They were damnably human in general outline

Despite webbed hands and feet

Shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy

Bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall

Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiselled badly

Out of proportion with their scenic background

For one of the creatures

Was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as

But little larger than himself

I remarked, as I say, their grotesqueness and strange size

But in a moment decided that they were merely

The imaginary gods of some primitive fishing or seafaring tribe

Awestruck at this unexpected glimpse into a past

Beyond the conception of the most daring anthropologist

I stood musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections

On the silent channel before me

Then suddenly I saw it

With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface

The thing slid into view above the dark waters

Vast, and loathsome

It darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith

About which it flung its gigantic scaly arms

The while it bowed its hideous head

And gave vent to certain measured sounds

I think I went mad then

Of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff

And of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat

I remember little

I believe I sang a great deal

And laughed oddly when I was unable to sing

I have indistinct recollections of a great storm

Some time after I reached the boat

At any rate I know that

I heard peals of thunder and other tones

Which Nature utters only in her wildest moods

When I came out of the shadows I was in a San Francisco hospital

Brought thither by the captain of the American ship

Which had picked up my boat in mid-ocean

In my delirium I had said much

But found that my words had been given scant attention

Of any land upheaval in the Pacific, my rescuers knew nothing

Nor did I deem it necessary to insist upon a thing

Which I knew they could not believe

Once I sought out a celebrated ethnologist

And amused him with peculiar questions

Regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon the Fish-God

But soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional

I did not press my inquiries

It is at night, especially when the moon is gibbous and waning

That I see the thing. I tried morphine

But the drug has given only transient surcease

And has drawn me into its clutches as a hopeless slave

So now I am to end it all

Having written a full account for the information

Or the contemptuous amusement of my fellow-men

I Often ask myself if it could not all have been a pure phantasm—

A mere freak of fever as I lay sun-stricken

And raving in the open boat

After my escape from the German man-of-war

This I ask myself

But ever does there come before me a hideously vivid vision in reply

I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things

That may at this very moment

Be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed

Worshipping their ancient stone idols

And carving their own detestable likenesses

On submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite

I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows

To drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny

War-exhausted mankind—of a day when the land shall sink

And the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium

The end is near. I hear a noise against the door

As of some immense slippery body lumbering against it

It shall not find me.

God, that hand!

The window! The window!