For there be divers
sorts of death--some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth
quite away with the spirit. This commonly occureth only in solitude (such
is God's will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone
on a long journey--which indeed he hath; but sometimes it has happened
in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the
spirit dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was
in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth
with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where
the body did decay.
Pondering these words of
Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full meaning, as one who, having
an intimation, yet doubts if there be not something behind other than that
which he is discerned, I noted not whither I had strayed until a sudden
chill wind striking my face revived in me a sense of my surroundings. I
observed with astonishment that everything seemed unfamiliar. On every
side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain, covered with
a tall overgrowth of sere grass, which rustled and whistled in the autumn
wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded
at long intervals above it stood strangely shaped and somber-colored rocks,
which seemed to have an understanding with one another and to exchange
looks of uncomfortable significance, as if they had reared their heads
to watch the issue of some foreseen event. A few blasted trees here and
there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.
The day, I thought, must be far
advanced, though the sun was invisible; and although sensible that the
air was raw and chill my consciousness of that fact was rather mental than
physical--I had no feeling of discomfort. Over all the dismal landscape
a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse. In all
this there were a menace and a portent--a hint of crime, an intimation
of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in the
bare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its
dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful
repose of that dismal place.
I observed in
the herbage a number of weather-worn stones, evidently shaped with tools.
They were broken, covered with moss and half sunken in the earth. Some
lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles, none was vertical. They were
obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer
existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered
here and there, more massive blocks shoed where some pompous tomb or ambitious
monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion. So old seemed
these relics, these vestiges of vanity and memorials of affection and piety,
so battered and worn and stained--so neglected, deserted, forgotten the
place, that I could not help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground
of a prehistoric race of men whose very name was long extinct. (1)
Filled with these reflections,
I was for some time heedless of the sequence of my own experiences, but
soon I thought, "How came I hither?" A moment's reflection seemed to make
this all clear and explain at the same time, though in a disquieting way,
the singular character with which my fancy had invested all that I saw
and heard. I was ill. I remembered now that I had been prostrated by a
sudden fever, and that my family had told me that in my periods of delirium
I had constantly cried out for liberty and air, and had been held in bed
to prevent my escape out-of-doors. Now I had eluded the vigilance of my
attendants and had wandered hither to--to where? I could not conjecture.
Clearly I was at a considerable distance from the city where I dwell--the
ancient and famous city of Carcosa.
No signs of human life were anywhere
visible nor audible; no rising smoke, no watchdog's bark, no lowing of
cattle, no shouts of children at play--nothing but that dismal burial place,
with its air of mystery and dread, due to my own disordered brain. Was
I not becoming again delirious, there beyond human aid? Was it not indeed
all
an illusion of my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons,
reached out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walked among the crumbling
stones and in the withered grass.
A noise behind me caused me to
turn about. A wild animal--a lynx--was approaching. The thought came to
me: If I break down here in the desert--if the fever returns and I fail,
this beast will be at my throat. I sprang toward it, shouting. It trotted
tranquilly by within a hand's breadth of me and disappeared behind a rock.
A moment later a man's head appeared
to rise out of the ground a short distance away. He was ascending the far
slope of a low hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguished from the
general level. His whole figure soon came into view against the background
of gray cloud. He was half naked, half clad in skins. His hair was unkempt,
his beard long and ragged. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow; the
other held a blazing torch with a long trail of black smoke. He walked
slowly and with caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed
by the tall grass. This strange apparition surprised but did not alarm,
and taking such a course as to intercept him, I met him almost face to
face, accosting him with the salutation, "God keep you."
He gave no heed, nor did he arrest
his pace.
"Good stranger," I continued,
"I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa."
The man broke into a barbarous
chant in an unknown tongue, passing on and away.
An owl on the branch of a decayed
tree hooted dismally and was answered by another in the distance. Looking
upward, I saw through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades!
In all this there was a hint of night--the lynx, the man with the torch,
the owl. Yet I saw--I saw even the stars in the absence of darkness. I
saw, but was apparently not seen nor heard. Under what awful spell did
I exist?
I seated myself at the root of
a great tree, seriously to consider what it was best to do. That I was
mad I could no longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction.
Of fever I had not trace. I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor
altogether unknown to me--a feeling of mental and physical exaltation.
My senses seemed all alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance;
I could hear the silence.
A great root of the giant tree
against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab
of stone, a part of which protruded into a recess formed by another root.
The stone was thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly decomposed.
its edges were worn around, its corners eaten away, its face deeply furrowed
and scaled. Glittering particles of mica were visible in the earth around
it--vestiges of its decomposition. This stone had apparently marked the
grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago. The trees's exacting roots
had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner.
A sudden wind pushed some dry
leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of the stone; I saw the low-relief
letters of an inscription and bent to read it. God in Heaven! my
name in full!--the date of my birth!--the date of my death!
A level shaft of rosy light illuminated
the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was
rising in the east. I stood between the tree and his broad red disk--no
shadow darkened the trunk!
A chorus of howling wolves saluted
the dawn. I saw them sitting on their haunches, singly and in groups, on
the summits of irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert
prospect and extending to the horizon; and then I knew that these were
ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.
------------
Such are the
facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib Alar Robardin.
(2)
THE END
...---///---...
NOTES:
While various early printings had a number
of different paragraph breaks there are two major variations which have
appeared in this story in its various printings:
