Kitabı oku: «The Call of Cthulhu / Зов Ктулху», sayfa 9
Three of theEmma’smen, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green87, were killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen88 proceeded to navigate the captured yacht. The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island, although none knew about it in that part of the ocean. Six of the men somehow died ashore; Johansen 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 were driven by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th the man remembers little, and he does not even recall when William Briden89, his companion, died. There was no apparent cause for Briden’s death, and it happened probably due to excitement or exposure. The Alertwas well known as an island trader90, and bore an evil reputation. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes whose 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 Emmaand her crew an excellent reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and worthy man. The admiralty will make Johansen speak more freely than he has done hitherto.
This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image; but what a train of ideas it started in my mind! Here were new data on the Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that it had strange interests at sea as well as on land. Why did the hybrid crew order theEmmato sail back? What was the unknown island on which six of the Emma’screw had died, and about which Johansen was so secretive? And most important, what deep connection of dates was there, so carefully noted by my uncle?
March 1st – or February 28thaccording to the International Date Line91 – the earthquake and storm had come. The Alertand her crew had sailed eagerly from Dunedin as if somebody had summoned it, and on the other side of the Earth poets and artists had begun to dream of a strange Cyclopean city, while a young sculptor had moulded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emmalanded on an unknown island and left six men dead; and on that date the dreams of sensitive men gained heightened vividness and darkened with dread of a giant monster’s malign pursuit, while an architect had gone mad and a sculptor had gone suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2nd – the date on which all dreams of the strange city ceased, and 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 had stopped monstrous menace, 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, however, I found that little was known of the strange cult-members who had entered the old sea-taverns. But there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels had made, during which faint drumming and red flame were noted on the distant hills. In Auckland I learned that Johansen had returned withyellow hair turned white92 after a questioning at Sydney, and had thereafter sold his cottage in West Street and sailed with his wife to his old home in Oslo. All the admiralty officials could do was to give me his Oslo address.
After that I went to Sydney and talked uselessly with seamen and members of the vice-admiralty court. I saw theAlert, now sold and in commercial use, but gained nothing. The crouching image with its cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park; and I studied it long and well. Geologists, the curator told me, had found it a monstrous puzzle; for they vowed that the rock like it did not exist. Then I remembered the words Old Castro had told Legrasse about the Old Ones: “They had come from the stars, and had brought Their images with Them.”
I decided to visit Mate Johansen in Oslo. Johansen lived, I discovered, in the Old Town. I made a brief taxi-trip, and knocked at the door of a neat and ancient building. A sad-faced woman in black came out and told me that Gustaf Johansen was dead.
