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Speaker 1: The Hound by H. P. Lovecraft. In my tortured ears,

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there sounds unceasingly a nightmare, wearing and flapping, and a faint,

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distant baying, as of some gigantic hound. It is not dream,

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It is not I fear even madness, for too much

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has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Sinjin

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is a mangled corpse. I alone know why, and such

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is my knowledge that I am about to blow out

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my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the

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same way, down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy

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sweeps the black, shapeless nemesis that drives me to self annihilation.

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May Heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us

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both to so monstrous a fate, wearied with the commonplaces

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of a prosaic world where even the joys of romance

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and adventures soon grow stale. Sinjin and I had followed

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enthusiastically every esthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from

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our devastating on we. The enigmas of the symbolists and

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the ecstasies of the pre Raphaelite all were ours in

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their time, but each new mood was drained too soon

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of its diverting novelty and appeal. Only the somber philosophy

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of the decadence could hold us, and this we found

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potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of

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our penetrations. Beaudelaire and Heismans were soon exhausted of thrills,

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till finally there remained for us only the more direct

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stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. It was this

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frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable

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course which even in my present fear I mentioned with

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shame and timidity, that hideous extremity of human outrage, the

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abhorred practice of grave robbing. I cannot reveal the details

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of our shocking expeditions, or catalog even partly the worst

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of the trophies adorning the nameless museum we prepared in

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the Great Stone House, where we jointly dwelt alone and servantless.

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Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where, with the

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satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi, we had assembled a universe

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of terror and decay to excite our jaded sensibilities. It

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was a secret room, far far underground, where huge winged

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demons carven of basalt and onyx, vomited from wide grinning mouths.

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Weird green and orange light, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled

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into kaleidoscopic dances of death. The lines of red charnel

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things hand in hand, woven in voluminous black hangings through

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these pipes came at will. The odours are moods most craved,

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sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies, sometimes the narcotic

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incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the kingly dead, and sometimes,

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how I shudder to recall it, the frightful soul appeaving

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stenches of the uncovered grave. Round the walls of this

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repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies, alternating with comely

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lifelike bodies, perfectly stuffed and cured by the taxidermist's art,

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and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the world. Niches.

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Here and there can skulls of all shapes and heads,

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preserved in various stages of dissolution. There one might find

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the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the fresh

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and radiantly golden heads of newly buried children, statues and paintings.

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There were all of fiendish subjects, and some executed by

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Sinjin and myself. A locked portfolio bound in tanned human

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skin held certain unknown and unnameable drawings, which it was

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rumored Goya had perpetrated, but dared not acknowledge. There were

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nauseous musical instruments stringed brass and woodwind on which Sinjoin

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and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodmoniacal ghastliness,

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Whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the

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most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomblut ever assembled by

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human madness and perversity. It is of this slute, in particular,

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that I must not speak. Thank God, I had the

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courage to destroy it long before I thought of destroying

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myself off. The predatory excursions on which we collected our

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unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. We were no

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vulgar ghouls, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season,

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and moonlight. These pastimes were to us the most exquisite

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form of esthetic expression, and we gave their details a

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fastidious technical care, an inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect,

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or a clumsy manipulation of the damp sod would almost

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totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the

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exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the earth. Our

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quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate. St.

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John was always the leader, and it was he who

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led the way at last to that mocking, that accursed

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spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. By

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what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard.

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I think it was the dark rumor and legendary the

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tales of one buried for fire centuries, who had himself

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been a ghoul in his time, and had stolen a

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potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. I can recall the

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scene in these final moments, the pale autumnal moon over

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the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the grotesque trees drooping

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sullenly to meet the neglected grass, and the crumbling slabs,

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the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against

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the moon, The antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral

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finger at the livid sky, the phosphorescent insects that danced

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like death fires under the ewes in a distant corner,

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the odors of mold vegetation, and less explicable things that

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mingled feebly with the night wind from over far swamps

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and seas. And worst of all, the faint, deep toned

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baying of some gigantic hound, which we could neither see

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nor definitely place. As we heard the suggestion of baying,

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we shuddered, remembering the tails of the peasantry, for he

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whom we sought had sentries before been found in this

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self same spot, torn and mangled by the claws and

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teeth of some unspeakable beast. I remembered how we delved

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in this ghoul's grave with our spades, and how we

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thrilled the picture of ourselves. The grave, the pale watching moon,

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the horrible shadows, the grotesque trees, the titanic bats, the

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antique church, the dancing death fires, the sickening odors, the

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gently moaning night wind, and the strange, half heard, directionless

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baying of whose objective existence, we could scarcely be sure.

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Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold,

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and beheld a rotting, oblong box, crusted with mineral deposits

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from the long undisturbed ground. It was incredibly tough and thick,

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but so old that we finally pried it open and

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feasted our eyes on what it held. Much, amazingly much

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was left of the object, despite the lapse of five

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hundred years. The skeleton, though crushed in places by the

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jaws of the thing that had killed it, held together

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with surprising firmness, and we gloated over the clean white

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skull and its long, firm teeth, and its eyeless sockets

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that had once glowed with a charnel fever like our own.

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In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic

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design which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck.

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It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a crouching winged

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hound or sphinx with a semi canine face, and was

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exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece

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of green jade. The expression on its features was repellent

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in the extreme savoring at once of death, bestiality, and malevolence.

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Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither

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Stingin nor I could identify, And on the bottom, like

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a maker's seal, was grave in a grotesque and formidable skull.

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Immediately upon beholding this amulet, we knew that we must

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possess it, that this treasure alone was our logical palf

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from the sentried grave. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar,

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we would have desired it. But as we looked more closely,

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we saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar alien. It

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indeed was to all art and literature which sane and

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balanced readers know. But we recognized it as the thing

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hinted of in the forbidden necronomicon of the mad Arab

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abdul ahasred, the ghastly soul symbol of the corpse eating

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colt of inaccessible Lange in Central Asia. All too well

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did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the old

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Arab demonologist, lineaments he wrote drawn from some obscure supernatural

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manifestation of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed

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the dead. Seizing the green jade object, we gave a

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last glance at the bleached and cavernized face of its owner,

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and closed up the grave as we found it. As

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we hastened from that abhorrent spot, the stolen amulet in

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StJohn's pocket, we thought we saw the bats descend in

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a body to the earth we had so lately rifled,

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as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. But

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the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and we could

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not be sure. So too, as we sailed the next

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day away from Holland to our home, we thought we

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heard the faint, distant bang of some gigantic hound in

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the background, But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan,

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and we could not be sure. Less than a week

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after our return to England, strange things began to happen.

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We lived as recluses, devoid of friends, alone and without servants,

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in a few rooms of an ancient manor house on

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a bleak and unfrequented more so that our doors were

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seldom disturbed by the knock of the visitor. Now, however,

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we were troubled by what seemed to be frequent fumblings

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in the night, not only around the doors, but around

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the windows, also upper as well as lower. Once we

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fancied that a large opaque body darkened the library window

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when the moon was shining against it, and another time

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we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not

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far off. On each occasion, investigation revealed nothing, and we

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began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination alone. That same

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curiously disturbed imagination, which still prolonged in our ears. The

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faint far bang we thought we had heard in the

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Holland churchyard. The jade amulet now reposed in a niche

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in our museum, and sometimes we burned strangely scented candles

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before it. We read much in al Hazard's and Necronomicon

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about its properties and about the relation of Ghul's souls

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to the objects symbolized, and were disturbed by what we read.

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Then terror came. On the night of September twenty fourth, nineteen.

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I heard a knock at my chamber door. Fancying its Sinjohns,

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I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by

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a shrill laugh. There was no one in the corridor.

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When I aroused Sinjhn from his sleep, he professed entire

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ignorance of the event. And became as worried as I.

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It was that night that the faint, distant baying over

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the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality.

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Four days later, whilst we were both in the hidden museum,

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there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door

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which led to the secret library staircase. Our alarm was

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now divided, for, besides our fear of the unknown, we

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had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might

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be discovered. Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the door

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and threw it suddenly open, whereupon we felt an unaccountable

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rush of air, and heard, as if receding far away,

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a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and articulate chatter. Whether

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we were mad, dreaming, or in our senses, we did

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not try to determine. We only realized with the blackest

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of apprehensions that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a

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doubt in the Dutch language. After that we lived in

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growing horror and fascination. Mostly we held to the theory

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that we were jointly going mad from our life of

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unnatural excitements, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize

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ourselves as the victim of some creeping and appalling doom.

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Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Our lonely

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house was seemingly alive with the presence of some malign

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being whose nature we could not guess, And every night

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that demoniac baying rolled over, the wind swept more, always

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louder and louder. On October twenty ninth, we found in

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the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints,

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utterly impossible to describe. They were as baffling as the

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hordes of giant bats which haunted the old manor House

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an unprecedented and increasing numbers. The horror reached a culmination

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on November eighteenth, when Sinjohn, walking home after dark from

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the distant railway station, was seized by some frightful, carnivorous

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thing and torn to ribbons. His screams had reached the house,

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and I hastened to the terrible scene in time to

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hear a whir of wings and see a vague, black,

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cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. My friend was

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dying when I spoke to him, and he could not

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answer coherently. All he could do was to whisper the amulet,

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that damned thing. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of

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mangled flesh. I buried him the next midnight in one

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of our neglected gardens, and mumbled over his body one

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of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. And

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as I pronounced the last demoniac sentence, I heard afar

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on the moor, the faint baying of some gigantic hound.

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The moon was up, but I dared not look at it,

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And when I saw in the dim litton more a wide,

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nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shut my

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eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. When

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I arose trembling, I know not how much later I

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staggered into the house and made shocking obeiences before the

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enshrined amulet of green Jade. Being now afraid to live

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alone in the ancient house on the moor, I departed

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on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet,

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after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the

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impious collection in the museum. But after three nights I

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heard the baying again, and before a week was over

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felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark. One evening,

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as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air,

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I saw a black shape obscure one of the reflections

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of the lamps in the water. A wind stronger than

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the night wind rushed by, and I knew that what

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had befallen sin John must soon befall me me. The

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next day, I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet and

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sailed for Holland. What mercy I might gain by returning

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the thing to its silent, sleeping owner, I knew not,

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but I felt that I must at least try any

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step conceivably logical. What the hound was and why it

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pursued me were questioned still vague, But I had first

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heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and every subsequent event,

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including sin John's dying whisper, had served to connect the

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curse with the stealing of the amulet. Accordingly, I sank

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into the nethermost abysses of despair, when at an inn

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in Rotterdam, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of

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this sole means of salvation. The baying was loud that evening,

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and in the morning I read of a nameless deed

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in the vilest quarter of the city. The rabble were

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in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen, a

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red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the neighborhood.

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In a squalid thieves den, an entire family had been

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torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace,

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And those around had heard all night, above the usual

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clamor of drunken voices, a faint, deep, insistent note as

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of a gigantic hound. So at last I stood again

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in that unwholesome churchyard, where a pale winter moon cast

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hideous shadows, and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered,

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frosty grass and cracking slabs, and the ivied church pointed

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a jeering finger at the unfriendly sky, and the night

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wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and frigid seas.

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The baying was very faint now, and it ceased altogether.

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As I approached the ancient grave I had once violated

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and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which

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had been hovering curiously around it. I know not why

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I went hither unless to pray or gibber out insane

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please and apologies to the calm, white thing that lay within.

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But whatever my reason, I attacked the half frozen sod

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with a desperation, partly mine and partly that of a

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dominating will outside myself. Was much easier than I expected,

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though at one point I encountered a queer interruption when

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a lean vulture darted down out of the cold sky

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and pecked frantically at the grave earth until I killed

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him with a blow of my spade. Finally I reached

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the rotting oblong box and removed the damp, nitrous cover.

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This is the last rational act I ever performed. For

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Crouched within that sentried coffin, embraced by a close packed

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nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was the bony

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thing my friend and I had robbed, not clean and

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placid as we had seen it then, but covered with

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caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and

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leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp and

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sanguine fangs, yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom,

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and when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep,

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sardonic bay, as of some gigantic hound, and I saw

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that it held in its gory, filthy claw the lost

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and fateful amulet of green Jade. I merely screamed and

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ran away idiotically, My screams, soon dissolving into peals of

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hysterical laughter. Madness rides the star wind, claws and teeth

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sharpened on sentries of corpses dripping death, astride a bacchanal

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of bats from night black ruins, of buried temples of Bolile. Now,

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as the baying of that dead, fleshless monstrosity grows louder

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and louder, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those

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accursed web wings circles closer and closer, I shall seek

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with my revolver the oblivion, which is my only refuge

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from the unnamed and unnamable end of the hound,