It would seem that the late Amos Tuttle had been one of those few scholars on Earth who was still able to decipher the mysterious, ancient language in which the R'lyeh Text was written, for his R'lyehian Key was none other than a glossary of the ancient language, together with some speculations on verb forms and grammatical structure.
Hoskins, who had become fascinated by the mysterious text, spent the last months of his life translating it into English. The labor had broken his health, both in mind and body, but when he was taken away to die raving in the asylum, the manuscript of his version of the Text was salvaged from the cabin.
According to the reporter's account, the “Hoskins Translation” now reposed in the secret shelves of the Miskatonic University Library.
Thither I went, bright and early, the very next morning.
I WAS ushered into Dr. Llanfer's office and he greeted me amicably enough, for we had had dealings over the past few months, during which my employer had sought access to the Necronomicon and other books. While these abhorrent old volumes are strictly forbidden to the general public, they are accessible to qualified scholars. Moreover, I was by this time well acquainted with Dr. Llanfer, so I imagined I should encounter no difficulty in gaining access to the Hoskins translation. I was in for a surprise.
"Mr. Blaine," the white-haired archivist said to me with a troubled note in his weary voice, “come with me if you will.” He motioned me to follow him into the Special Collections room, then through a double-locked door. Proceeding across the carpeted floor to a metal set of shelves, he unlocked this, too, and displaced two or three metal strongboxes of various shapes and sizes (some of which could hardly contain books. I mentally remarked). He turned toward me with one of these metal Cases, unlocked it, and opened it as gingerly as if he were a lion tamer parting the jaws of a ferocious beast.
“Here it is. Not much to look at, is it? Just a set of scribbled notes on pad paper not a year old. No ancient artifact, though God knows we house enough of those. This is the translation you're looking for. I have no plausible pretext under which to bar you from reading it, though I half-wish I did! This text has meant madness and death to at least three men of my own acquaintance. And so far as I know, all they did was to read it. As for myself, I have not perused its contents, not even after young Mr. Hoskins made reading it so much easier. Do not misunderstand me. I have the love of learning, of recovering lost knowledge even as these men did. But unlike Amos and Paul Tuttle and Bryant Hoskins, I do not have a suicide urge. I hope that you do not have it, either.”
Taken aback by this monologue, I scarcely knew how to reply. "What of Dr. Harker? It is he who has sent me. I am only his emissary. If the book is nor available to him, it will be my duty to tell him so. This I will do without qualm. But you must realize that he will not rest until he has had a chance to consult that book. Especially since, as you say, you can hardly deny a qualified scholar access to the official holdings of the library."
"Yes, all that you say is quite true, Mr. Blaine. Quite true. Only promise me that you will play your role as disinterested stenographer well. Read and transcribe what you must. But hold it within you only as long as it may rake you to get back to Harker's home and tell him. I fear he has already progressed too far down his path to be helped. And it would be cruel to prolong his agony. May the forbidden knowledge of the text of R’lyeh deliver the inevitable blow swiftly and mercifully. Here. Take what you need."
I proceeded to avail myself of Dr. Llanfer's oddly grudging generosity, intimidated by now at the prospect of whatever shocking revelations I should meet with. What could a mere text, however ancient and recondite, contain? I opened my notebook and commenced jotting down the greater part of the translation, feeling more and more a sense of anticlimax the further I went. At long last, after a couple of hours, I finished my task with something akin to a sense of disappointment, almost as if I had failed to find something I had sought within the text. Of course, I had no idea what it was my employer might be looking for. I knew not whether he should recognize whatever he sought in these strange litanies. nor whether disappointment might not be hotter than satisfaction, given Dr. Llanfer's manifest opinion of the ancient screed.
When I returned to Dr. Harker's manse that evening, it was plain he had been waiting with intense agitation, for he fairly grabbed the notebook from me and, without a word, turned and closed the door of his study. I was half-minded to linger just outside and listen for any demonstrative reaction within, but I rebuked myself for such juvenile scheming and retired for the night.
My curiosity had by now reached a zenith, its fires only banked by the silence in which the old clergyman shrouded the whole business. He only grew less and less communicative as his baffling condition worsened, seeking to make himself understood chiefly by monotone mutterings and waves of his bandage-mittened hands. Yet even such charades as these made it evident to me that somehow we were running a race against time. Was it a race to attain some goal, still unknown to me? Or was the race to escape some-frightful doom worse even than the physical debilitation that seemed rapidly and steadily to be consuming him? Strictly speaking, it was no business of mine. Certainly Dr. Harker never sought to share his burden with me.
I had more than an inkling that the reticent Dr. Sprague knew more than he dared say. He approached his ministrations with what appeared to me a hint of fear, though mixed with a greater dose of resignation, this made no sense to me at the time.
On one occasion I had exchanged pleasantries with the elderly physician as I made to leave the house and make another bicycle trip into Arkham to consult again the volumes in the university library. Upon learning my destination. Dr. Sprague offered to drive me into town on his way back. I felt some-revelation to be at hand, but as it happened I was disappointed. As he seemed to expect, I asked him about the precise nature of my employer's mysterious malady. Contrary to my own expectation, he had little to tell me.
"Beyond the physical symptoms which are as evident to you as they are to me, I can only say that what plagues Dr. Harker is something more in the nature of a spiritual affliction." He plainly wished nor to discuss the matter at greater length, but I had the very definite feeling that he had meant by his cryptic words to warn me of some danger. Could the old missionary’s pestilence be somehow contagious?
AS the days passed, I began to mark new symptoms plaguing Dr. Harker, chiefly an inability to sleep through the night. Though he denied it, it was clear that nightmares were displacing his nocturnal respite. Once I believed I heard him chanting one of the Psalms, as if to ward off his nightly nemesis: “He giveth to his beloved sleep ....”
Once his agitation passed over the line into actual screaming, and of such urgency as to awaken me, asleep as I was at the opposite end of the house. He himself remained asleep, and seemed to calm somewhat as I crept softly to his bedside, knowing that, despite my good intentions, such an invasion of his privacy might lead to my immediate dismissal. But I had to be sure the old man was all right. His breaching had slowed somewhat, but I noted that his nightmare flailings of a few moments previously had disarranged the gauzy wrappings of his face. The disturbance was but slight, and yet what I saw disturbed me profoundly. I have said that Dr. Harker had been quite plump on my first sight of him and had, with the progress of his disease, continued to bloat in a most unwholesome fashion. This I vaguely attributed to the side effects of some medicine he must he caking, since otherwise one would expect advancing degeneration to shrink and wither the body. Nothing I had seen prepared me for what I saw now.