The relief party not having returned when we reached camp, we rested a day, but still convinced we were on the right track, I put off the following day with ten men, riding twenty miles due south. Towards dusk, just as we were about to turn towards camp again having met with no success, we were fired on from all sides. When I came to myself, I was surrounded by natives, two of whom were busy staunching the blood flowing from a wound in my forearm. From time to time they forced me to drink something which revived me and puzzled me at the same moment for it is not the way of those beggars to first try to murder you and then to patch you up. Something much worse evidently lay at the back of it all.
Later, when my senses began to quicken, I noticed that there seemed to be a great troop of natives gathered around. Someone came up and tied a bandage over my eyes and mounted me on a horse, and we began to move in what I fancied was an easterly direction. For three nights we travelled, lying hidden during the day, and all that time I was made to keep the bandage over my eyes. Otherwise I had nothing to complain of, but that didn’t decrease my wonder as to what the end was going to be.
As far as I could guess, it was the dawn of the third day when we rode into some great echoing gateway. Here I was dismounted and led down a few steps into what I imagined was an underground chamber. When I attempted to remove the eye covering, a voice that I recognised as the Holy Priest’s warned me to drop my hand.
“You shall suffer no harm if you obey,” he said, and having heard a good deal about the methods of Jurwash and seen the results of his handiwork during many years in the S.P., I obeyed his command.
After eating a messy preparation they brought me, Jurwash himself took me by the elbow and led me out, up the steps and along stone passages which gave back in strange echoes the sound of our footsteps.
“Come quietly,” said the priest. “You shall learn how the gods of the heathens deal with those who treat them with indignity.”
The sneer in his voice when he used our own words “gods of the heathens” told me I must prepare myself for his vengeance.
At the end of the passage we entered what felt like a vast apartment, judging from the echo. Here I was brought to a standstill while someone placed an iron band round my body. This in turn was attached to a clanking chain and then someone removed my bandage. It was some moments before I got my eyes focussed to the dim light, but I soon realized that I was standing with my back to the wall, chained securely round the waist and blinking into the gloom of the subterranean cavern.
I could make out no figures of my jailors, though a faint bluish glow of light in a downward direction told me I was standing upon a height, and then out of that thick gloom arose a strange whimpering…. I have heard many sounds that were unpleasant, but nothing like that. It filled me with horror, knowing as I did to what awful lengths those beggars will go.
The bluish glow increased till I made out a perfect circle of light which grew gradually brighter and sent out a peculiar smoke.
As the brightness increased and the smoke rose higher and higher in a slow, wavering ring of fire, I heard again that whimpering coming out of the shadow down to the left of the flame. Something seemed to move from where it came and I distinctly heard a slow chink, chink, as though something fretted in its chains. And all the time that horrid whimpering.
As time went on, the flame round the circle grew greater, and then it was I saw the thing lying in its chains and whining. Once when it raised a blackened stump and waved it aimlessly to and fro with a monotonous movement I shouted in a loud voice, “Hallett!” But no notice was taken of my call, and knowing the ways of our captors, I guessed it was wiser to keep a firm hold on myself, and I watched closely.
It wasn’t long before I saw a change come over the crouching figure outside that ring of fire. It appeared to be listening acutely for some sound too subtle for ears, much as I strained them for any further devilment that might be lying in wait for us. My eyes were sore with peering into the smoke and through the flame, and when I turned them onto the figure again, I saw that it was lying down on its left side with its ear to the ground, listening. Now, I’ve lived a long time among the heathen, heard much and believe what I’ve seen, and at that moment my blood ran cold.
Rising to its feet, the figure stood peering through the flame separating it from the inner circle. Then I saw that it was staring at a little door opening under the thighs of a graven image squatting in the middle of the floor, and towering up into the rolling clouds of luminous smoke above. Through this door came a priest dressed in what they called “full raiment”, and dragging a trembling, almost naked girl. Immediately the whole place echoed with the howling from that poor chained being, straining his chains and tearing at his fetters in vain efforts to burst through.
A second priest followed the first through the door, dressed in “half-raiment” and carrying wands. The girl was dragged by the two of them to the knees of the god and chained fast by a silver chain. This done, somewhere away in the darkness beyond came a low tinkle of a bell, and the second priest stepped forward and beat the girl seven times. The place was filled with the terrible howlings of that mad figure tearing at its chains. A second time that bell sounded above the hideous din—and what was done was bad for anyone to look upon. Three times the girl fainted, and the figure dashed itself about on the edge of the flames in its vain attempts to get at the men. I went mad and screamed like any woman, rather than a man who had witnessed the things in the East for half a lifetime.
And suddenly, as I tore wildly at my bonds, Jurwash appeared beside me, and I sprang at him, hoping to squeeze the very life out of him.
“At dawn, each day,” he said, stepping swiftly out of my reach, and turned his wicked face towards the flame.
Whether the priests were preparing to go on with their fiendish work or not I can’t say, but at that moment Jurwash said something in a voice of command and leaped down swiftly towards the fire. I saw then that the figure was working quietly and as though inspired at the fastenings of the chain which bound its ankles. One of them was loose, and Jurwash had noticed this and ran at him with a knife. Before he could strike, however, the figure twisted itself up and struck out with the loosed chain, and Jurwash the Holy died the death he deserved. One mighty wrench at the second chain, and the figure was free—a madman free to wreak his vengeance on his torturers.
Within the circle the two priests stood as if petrified, not knowing what to do, so sudden had been the turn of events. And then the figure dashed through the flames and the two priests went to their deaths without seeming to fight so far as I could see, but the two of them died swiftly.
“Hallett! Hallett!” I yelled, but he was fumbling with the fastening which bound the girl, and in a moment he had her free and was running, stumbling through the doorway, with this burden in his blackened arms.
In the light of the dying flame, I worked frantically to free myself. My knife, which fortunately had not been taken, was a poor tool with which to pick out the staple from the wall; but patience and good luck brought success at last, and my chains fell clattering to the ground. Another moment and I was wrapping my coat about my face and dashing through the flames to the doorway which might lead to freedom or death. No one appeared in the silence of that place to bar my escape down those passages along which I felt sure Hallett had carried his precious burden. A small door at the end of one turn was open, and immediately I was out in the dawn among the great sand dunes. Looking back to see if I was followed, I could see nothing but a small hole at the bottom of a huge dune.
Far ahead something was stumbling about with a bundle in its arms. I shouted again and again, forgetting in my eagerness to catch him that it was a mad thing to do, but the figure still stumbled on, and looking round from time to time to see if I was pursued, I could see no living thing in sight; neither could I tell which dune it was that held that underground temple of horrors.
After a long chase, I caught up with Hallett who, when he saw me, laid t
he girl down at my feet and said, “Hallo, Burton. I’ve killed that Jurwash,” and collapsed in a heap on the sand.
Fortunately my men found me later that same day and carried us back to camp. For three days we searched the dunes but never came upon the one which hid that underground temple. At each and all I cried, “Here it is,” but it never was the one we looked for. And so at last, weary and beaten, we turned north again for the edge of the silent desert.
The Halletts live today among green trees and green valleys. How much of that terrible past Mary remembers, I don’t know. She never refers to it. Hallett’s mind, we all know, is blank, mercifully. He will take you into his gay garden and show you his roses or his potatoes which, maimed though he is, seem to thrive under his care. They are far more important in his present life than ever the heathen’s soul will be. So far as he is concerned, the latter can continue in his own particular brand of sin, calling it religious self-respect, or whatever he likes. We in the S.P. call it something else.
A Note on the Texts
Whenever possible, texts for this series have been based on versions that were published in book form, preferably during Hodgson’s lifetime. The major exceptions to this rule are the stories that appear in volumes edited by Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz was known to have access to original manuscripts and other source materials. Some stories were published only in serial form, and have been taken from those primary sources.
Over the years, many of Hodgson’s stories have appeared under variant titles, which are noted below. As a rule, the titles used in this series are based on the first book publication of a story, even if the story previously appeared under a different title, in serial form.
Specific textual sources are noted below. The only changes that have been made to the texts have been to correct obvious typographical errors, and to standardize punctuation and capitalization. British and archaic spellings have been retained.
The House on the Borderland is based on the 1908 Chapman & Hall edition.
“The Thing Invisible” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The New Magazine No. 34 (January 1912).
“The Gateway of the Monster” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The Idler No. 88 (January 1910).
“The House Among the Laurels” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The Idler No. 89 (February 1910).
“The Whistling Room” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The Idler No. 90 (March 1910).
“The Searcher of the End House” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The Idler No. 92 (May 1910).
“The Horse of the Invisible” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913). It was originally published in The Idler No. 91 (April 1910).
“The Haunted Jarvee” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Mycroft & Moran, 1947). It was originally published in The Premier Magazine (March 1929).
“The Find” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Mycroft & Moran, 1947).
“The Hog” is based on its publication in Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Mycroft & Moran, 1947). It was originally published in Weird Tales 39, No. 9 (January 1947).
“The Goddess of Death” is based on its publication in The Haunted Pampero (Grant, 1991). It was originally published in Royal Magazine 11, No. 6 (April 1904).
“Terror of the Water-Tank” is based on its publication in Out of the Storm (Grant, 1975). It was originally published in Blue Book Magazine 5, No. 5 (September 1907).
“Bullion” is based on its publication in The Haunted Pampero (Grant, 1991). It was originally published in Everybody’s Weekly (March, 1911).
“The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship” is based on its publication in Grand Magazine No. 75 (May 1911).
“The Ghosts of the Glen Doon” is based on its publication in The Red Magazine No. 64 (December 1, 1911).
“Mr. Jock Danplank” is based on its publication in The Red Magazine No. 72 (April 1, 1912).
“The Mystery of Captain Chappel” is based on its publication in The Red Magazine No. 193 (April 15, 1917).
“The Home-Coming of Captain Dan” is based on its publication in
The Red Magazine No. 217 (May 1, 1918)
“Merciful Plunder” is based on its publication in Argosy-Allstory Weekly 170, No. 4 (July 25, 1925).
“The Haunting of the Lady Shannon” is based on its publication in Out of the Storm (Grant, 1975).
“The Heathen’s Revenge” (AKA “The Way of the Heathen”) is based on its publication in Terrors of the Sea (Grant, 1996). It was initally published as “The Way of the Heathen” in chapbook form in 1988.
Table of Contents
The Cosmic Circle of Wonder and Imagination
The House on the Borderland
Introduction to the Manuscript
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
Carnacki the Ghost-Finder
The Thing Invisible
The Gateway of the Monster
The House Among the Laurels
The Whistling Room
The Searcher of the End House
The Horse of the Invisible
The Haunted Jarvee
The Find
The Hog
Other Tales of Mystery and Suspense
The Goddess of Death
Terror of the Water-Tank
Bullion
The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship
The Ghosts of the Glen Doon
Mr. Jock Danplank
The Mystery of Captain Chappel
The Home-Coming of Captain Dan
Merciful Plunder
The Haunting of the Lady Shannon
The Heathen’s Revenge
A Note on the Texts
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 58