I have always been a person of leisure, spending my time in historical research, in reading books on philosophy, both natural and metaphysical, and in writing what I believe to be scholarly articles for various learned journals. When I was younger, I was more adventurous; I traveled a great deal, not only to read and research in the great universities of the world, but to do original research in hidden places of the earth, where few learned folk have gone. I was fearless then; neither the rotten fetidness of tropic jungles, nor the arid heat of harsh deserts, nor the freezing cold of polar regions daunted me.
Until the summer of my twenty-sixth year.
I was aboard the White Moon, sailing homeward through the South Seas, after having spent some months exploring the ancient ruins on one of the larger islands. (Their age can be measured in mere centuries; they have nothing to do with the present narrative.)
During the time I had been aboard, I had become quite friendly with Captain Bork, the commander of the three-masted vessel. He was a heavy-set, bluff, hearty fellow, an excellent ship’s officer, and well-read in many subjects far divergent from mere nautical lore. Although self-educated, his behavior was that of one gently born, far above that of the common sailor of the day. He was perhaps a dozen years older than I, but we spent many an hour during that tedious journey discussing various subjects, and I dare say I learned as much from him as he learned from me. We became, I think, good friends.
One evening, I recall, we sat up rather late in his cabin, discoursing on daemonology.
“I’m not a superstitious chap, myself, sir,” said he, “but I will tell you that there are things that take place at sea that could never happen on land. Things I couldn’t explain if I tried.”
“And you attribute them to non-material spirits, Captain?” I asked. “Surely not.”
In the dim light shed by the oil-lamp swinging gently overhead, his face took on a solemn expression. “Not spirits, perhaps, sir. No, not spirits exactly. Something… else.”
I became interested. I knew the captain’s sincerity, and I knew that, whatever he had to tell me, it would be told as he knew it to be.
“What, then, if not spirits?” I asked.
He looked broodingly out the porthole of his cabin. “I don’t really know,” he said slowly in his low, rumbling voice, staring out at the moonless sea-night. After a moment, he looked back at me, but there was no change in his expression. “I don’t really know,” he repeated. “It may be daemons or spirits or whatever, but it’s not the feeling one gets in a graveyard, if you see what I mean. It’s different, somehow. It’s as if there were something down there—”
And he pointed straight downward, as though he were directing my attention down past the deck, past the hull, to the dreadful black sea-bottom so far beneath. I could say nothing.
“Way down there,” he continued solemnly. “There is something old down there—something old, but living. It is far older than we can know. It goes far back beyond the dawn of time. But it is there and it… waits.”
A feeling of revulsion came over me—not against the captain, but against the sea itself, and I realized that I, too, had felt that nameless fear without knowing it.
But of course I could not fall prey to that weird feeling.
“Come, Captain,” said I, in what I hoped was a pleasant tone, “this is surely your imagination. What intelligence could live at the bottom of the sea?”
He looked at me for a long moment, then his countenance changed. There was a look of forced cheerfulness upon his broad face. “Aye, sir, you’re right. A person gets broody at sea, that’s all. I fear I’ve been at sea too long. Have to take a long rest ashore, I will. I’ve been planning a month in port, and it’ll rid me of these silly notions. Will you have another drink, sir?”
I did, and by the time I was in my own cabin, I had almost forgotten the conversation. I lay in my bunk and went fast asleep.
I was awakened by the howling of the wind through the rigging. The ship was heaving from side to side, and I realized that heavy seas had overtaken her. From above, I heard the shouts of the captain and the first mate. I do not remember what they were, for I am not fully conversant with nautical terms, but I could hear the various members of the crew shouting in reply.
It was still dark, and, as it was summertime in the southern hemisphere, that meant that it was still early. I hadn’t the faintest notion of time, but I knew I had not slept long.
I got out of my bunk and headed topside.
It is difficult, even now, for me to describe that storm. The sea was rolling like a thing alive, but the wind was almost mild. It shifted, now blowing one way, now another, but it came nowhere near heavy gale force. The White Moon swerved this way and that under its influence, as though we were caught in some monstrous whirlpool that changed its direction of swirl at varying intervals.
There were no clouds directly overhead. The stars shone as usual in every direction save to the west, where one huge black cloud seemed to blot the sky.
I heard the Captain shout: “Get below, sir! Get below! You’re only a hindrance on deck! Get below!”
I was, after all, no sailor, and he was master of the ship, so I went back to my cabin to wait the storm out. I know not how long that dreadful storm lasted, for there was no dawn that day. The enveloping cloud from the west had spread like heavy smoke, almost blocking out the sun, and the sky was still a darkling grey when the sea subsided into gentle swells. Shortly after it had done so, there was a rap at my cabin door.
“The Captain would like to see you on deck, sir,” said a sailor’s rough voice from without.
I accompanied the sailor up the ladder to the weather deck, where Captain Bork was staring into the greyness abaft the starboard rail.
“What is it, Captain?” I inquired.
Without looking at me, he asked, “Do you smell that, sir?”
I had already perceived the stench which permeated the sea air about us. There was the nauseous aroma of rotting sea flesh combined with the acrid bitterness of burning sulphur. Before I could answer his question, the Captain continued. “I caught that smell once before many years ago.” He turned to look at me. “Have you smelt it before, sir?”
“Once,” I said. “Not exactly the same, Captain, but similar. It was near a volcano. But there was no smell of rotten fish.”
Captain Bork nodded his massive head. “Aye, sir. That’s the smell of it. Somewhere to the west—” He pointed toward the area where the black cloud was densest. “—there’s been a volcanic explosion, the like of which we’ve not seen before. I knew it was no ordinary storm; this is not the season for typhoon.”
“But what is that horrid miasma of decay?” I asked. “No volcano ever gave off a smell like that.”
Before the Captain could answer, a call came from the top of the mizzenmast. “Land Ho-o-o-o!”
Captain Bork jerked his head around and squinted toward the north. He thrust an arm out, pointing. “Land it is, sir,” he said to me, “and that’s where your stench comes from. The seas are shallow in these parts, but there should be no islands about. Look.”