Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us--Jessop,
Arkright, Taylor and myself--in to dinner.
We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
usual positions, and Carnacki--having got himself comfortable in his big
chair--began without any preliminary:--
"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, I have been
utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that I have come
against. Now listen.
"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
Case was very queer, too.
"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
playing a trick on me.'
"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
all this affects the room?'
"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
her--one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
market again, after a trial.
"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
for the talk up at Arlestrae--Miss Donnehue's place--had made me wonder a
bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
the talk about it, you know.
"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
whistling, coming along the East Corridor--The room is in the East
Wing, you know.
"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
That's how it makes you feel.
"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
said he got it the same way--sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
locked the door.
"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
a rise out of me.'
"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
"'Yes,' he said--'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
nerves; so we sent for you.'
"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
suddenly called out:--'Ssh! Hark!'
"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
corridors to my right.
"'By G--d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
candles, both of you, and come along.'
"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
of some wanton Immense Force--a sense of an actual taint, as you might
say, of monstrosity all about us.
"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
it--with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:--That's Hell. And you
knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
ear, something seemed to be saying to me:--'Get out of here--quick!
Quick! Quick!'
"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, _out_ quick.' And in an instant I
had them into the passage.
"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
there we stood a moment, silent.
"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
said. And directly afterward:--'What on earth made you hustle us all out
like that, Carnacki?'
"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
laughed at.'
"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
dangerous about this thing.'
"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
on the morrow.
"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
more modern doors of the various rooms.
"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
extraordinary whistling.
"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
abnormal in them.
"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
room, I hoped to be safe.
"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
that same _malevolent_ silence--the beastly quietness of a thing that is
looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
as to have light over the _whole_ room.
"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case--you know.
"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
human hairs--the seventh crossing the six others.
"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
human--as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
the _Inanimate_ reproducing the functions of the _Animate_, I made a
grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
I got my hand upon the handle--a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
business. There is no protection against this particular form of
monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
material which you may use, and has the power to '_forme_ wythine the
pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
off down the great passage, and so to bed.
"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
said. '_I_ can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:--
"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
toward the door.
"'No!' I said. 'By Jove--_no!_ I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
"'Haunted--_really_ haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
frequent banter.
"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite _yes_ or _no_ to
such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
subject of a manifestation.
"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
another spell of sleep.
"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
all the way; but I found nothing.
"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room--floor, ceiling,
and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
as you must allow.
"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
'haunting.'
"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
along--tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet--to the sealed door (for
I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
down my spine. You know the feeling.
"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
low, but evidently in glee:--
"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
had spotted me.
"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
_they_ were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
after dark.
"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
microphone will not magnify the sound--will not even transmit it; seems
to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. _I_
cannot--not yet."
He rose to his feet.
"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
without offence, into the night.
A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
began again, where he had left off:--
"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
it, and gone off to bed.
"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
night. It had a queer note in it, I remember--low and constant, queerly
meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
look into the Room, through the window.
"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
itself--can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct--a mighty parody of
the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
lips of a monster with a man's soul.
"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
moonlight....
"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
undisturbed floor of the room--smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide _quietly_ down
the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, _help_. My God! but I
got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
across to it; but there was no one there.
"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
apartment; and then, in a flash, _I knew that Tassoc had never called_. I
whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
mad instant at my revolver; not for _it_, but myself; for the danger was
a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
vertigo of unseeable things. Then _that_ ended, and I knew that I might
live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
of the Room, there was a low whistling.
"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
good whisky--for I was shaken to pieces--and I explained things as much
as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
her prettiness.
"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
power to sing it.
"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace--probably from
that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
you think so?"
"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
a tremendous manifestation?"
"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
plainer in a few words."
"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
become the talk of the whole countryside.
"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
the material expression of the ancient Jester--that his soul, rotten with
hatred, had bred into a monster--eh?" I asked.
"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
_It_ had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, _if_ ever she
had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.