In the exact center of the upper surface I noticed a queer shape seemingly carved therein, like a bas-relief. I had to climb up atop the stone to examine it closely, and some residium of the night’s cold, not yet banished by the feeble warmth of daylight, struck bitterly and savagely through my thick gloves and heavy trousers, to sear the flesh with an almost unearthly rigor.
The carving—for it was unmistakably the work of intelligent hands—was weathered and very ancient, but so deeply had those primordial chisels gnawed into the recalcitrant granite, that the form it outlined was distinctly visible. It was a grotesque monstrosity, a gross, corpulent, toad-like thing with an obscene, swollen paunch and huge splayed, clawed feet, but without the forelimbs its toad-like shape might be expected to have. The skill of the ancient sculptor was sophisticated enough to suggest webbing between the spread claws of these hind legs. From a point along the back where the shoulders would have been sprouted crook-ribbed wings, like those of some monstrous bat or one of the fantastic flying reptiles of the saurian age which preceded the coming of mammalian life. Face it had none, but from the forepart of its sloped, bulging, and misshapen head slithering and snake-like tendrils sprouted, like the serpentine tresses of some hideous Medusa.
I repressed an involuntary shudder of disgust; even so, I could nor help admiring the sophistication of the nameless sculptor's technique, in bestowing upon this grisly spawn of his unclean imagination such a lifelike air of realism. It was almost as if the sculptor had worked from a living model.
RETURNING home from my tramp through the woods. J felt reluctant to take up again the dreary task of organizing my notes, and passed the time before lunch by again perusing the diary of my cousin.
Sept. 22nd. Rec'd today photographic copies from Wilmarth of the passages in the Book of Eibon he fancied I might find useful. (Or Liber Ivonis, I should say, since the pages are from the Latin version made by Phillipus Faber.) My Latin being very rusty, it will take me some time to render them into passable English.
In the same mail, haply, came that rare copy of the manuscript titled Of Evill Sorceries etc., for which I paid that skinflint of a dealer in Salem such a high price. Relevant passages too lengthy to quote here in this diary, so I have merely marked them down [here followed page numbers which doubtless referred to the pagination of the bound manuscript I had already found in my cousin’s collection; I decided to look them up later, and read on.—W.H.], but they proved very informative.
Howled chancing in the woods again last night, clearer than before: The frosty air of this rather early winter obviously permits far sounds to travel more easily. Searched the woods again and found, in the recent-fallen snow, those horribly huge, splayed prints as of some unthinkably prodigious Beast and splatters of stinking black ichor of indescribable foulness.
And my dreams are getting worse ....
With a shiver of distaste I set the manuscript aside and sat there for long moments, listlessly pondering on what I had read and trying to fit together some of the pieces of this weird puzzle. Finally, I dug into the heap of mouldering books and took up the bound manuscript, turning to the parts my cousin had marked. And I read:
... gave a very curious and Circumstantiall Relation, saying it was sometimes like a great Toad, but sometimes huge and cloudy, with no Shape, though with a Face which had Serpents grown from it. It had ye name Ossadagowah, which signifi'd ye child of Sadogowah [and here my cousin had written in the margin "Tsathoggua?"], ye which is held to be a Frightfull Spirit spoke of by antients as come down from ye Stars and being formerly worshipt in Lands to ye North. Ye Wampanaugs and ye Nansets and Nahrrigansets knew how to draw It out of ye Heavens, but never did so because of ye exceeding great Evilness of It. They knew also how to catch and prison It, tho’ they cou'd not sent It back whence it came. It was declar’d that ye old Tribes of Lamah [here my cousin had scribbled another marginal gloss: "Lomar?”], who dwelt under ye Great Bear and were antiently destroy’d for their Wickedness, knew how to manage It in all Ways. Many upstart Men pretended to a Knowledge of such and divers other Outer Secrets, but none in these Parts cou’d give any Proof of truly having ye aforesaid Knowledge. It was said by some that Ossadagowah often went back to ye Sky from choice without any sending, but that he cou’d not come back unless Summon’d.
I closed the bound volume and returned to Jared’s manuscript, but found nothing I could make sense out of, merely a series of cryptic, and (to me) meaningless jottings:
1. Lomar. Quasi-mythical ancient place in extreme north. If worshiped in Lomar, perhaps Zobna and Hyperborea also?
2. Child. If of the spawn of Tsath., also known in Hyp.? Tsath. once worshipped there. See Lib. Ivonis.
3. Elemental. Arctic region suggests air elemental like Ithaqua, Hastur. But Tsath. an earth elemental accord, to Cultes des G.
4. Must translate passages from Eibon at once.
That night, after another meager meal, I sat up drinking mug after mug of hot black coffee, waiting for Perseus to rise above the horizon, determined to find out whether the bestial howling-like chants I had seemed to hear in my fitful slumbers the night before were actuality or something in my dreams. For some reason, it occurred to me to turn down the wick and blow our the lamp, so that the interior of the cabin would be in darkness.
I had positioned my chair within clear view of the window. Once the familiar stars of the constellation were aloft, I left the window ajar, despite the cold breath of the night air, and listened closely. For a long time I heard nothing at all unusual, merely the wind moaning in the bare black boughs and the comfortable rustling of dying coals in the Franklin stove.
Then suddenly there came to my ears the sound of many distant voices raised in a rhythmic, if uncouth, chanting. I strained to catch the words of that chant, but could not make them out clearly. They seemed in no language I have ever heard before.
What snatches of the eerie chant I could hear bore a distinct resemblance to some of the weird mouthings Jared had scribbled down in his diary.
I went nearer to the window in order to hear the liturgy better. As I did so, with a thrill of indescribable horror I watched a vast, black shadow drift across the snow-clad clearing before the cabin, vanishing into the Deep Woods. Was it purely my imagination, my nerves wrought by the uncanny things I had read in Jared’s diary and in that damnable old book, or did the shadow-shape seem cast by something toad-like, and bloated, and obese, with huge, membranous, bat-like wings?
I FELL asleep in the wooden chair just before dawn, and woke stiff and groggy and chilled to the bone in very late morning. After heating and devouring the remnants of my supper and huge draughts of hot coffee, the thought passed through my mind that I would be wise to leave this place at once. Surely, a few dollars would persuade Jenkins to loan me his Model T and the use of his driver, in order to transport my few possessions and Jared's books and the manuscript back to Arkham. where I could arrange to have Silas Harding sell the cabin and grounds.