For there be divers sorts of death—some wherein the body remaineth;
and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly
occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s will) and, none seeing the
end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed
he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant
testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and
this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for
many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the
body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the
body did decay.
PONDERING these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full
meaning, as one who, having an intimation, yet doubts if there be not
something behind, other than that which he has discerned, I noted not
whither I had strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived
in me a sense of my surroundings. I observed with astonishment that
everything seemed unfamiliar. On every side of me stretched a bleak and
desolate expanse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass,
which rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what
mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded at long intervals above
it, stood strangely shaped and somber-colored rocks, which seemed to have
an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable
significance, as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of
some foreseen event. A few blasted trees here and there appeared as
leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.
The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun was invisible;
and although sensible that the air was raw and chill my consciousness of
that fact was rather mental than physical—I had no feeling of discomfort.
Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung
like a visible curse. In all this there were a menace and a portent—a
hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was
none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the
gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other
sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.
I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones, evidently
shaped with tools. They were broken, covered with moss and half sunken
in the earth. Some lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles, none
was vertical. They were obviously headstones of graves, though the
graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the
years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks
showed where some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had once flung its
feeble defiance at oblivion. So old seemed these relics, these vestiges
of vanity and memorials of affection and piety, so battered and worn and
stained—so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place, that I could not
help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric
race of men whose very name was long extinct.
Filled with these reflections, I was for some time heedless of the
sequence of my own experiences, but soon I thought, “How came I hither?”
A moment’s reflection seemed to make this all clear and explain at the
same time, though in a disquieting way, the singular character with which
my fancy had invested all that I saw or heard. I was ill. I remembered
now that I had been prostrated by a sudden fever, and that my family had
told me that in my periods of delirium I had constantly cried out for
liberty and air, and had been held in bed to prevent my escape
out-of-doors. Now I had eluded the vigilance of my attendants and had
wandered hither to—to where? I could not conjecture. Clearly I was at a
considerable distance from the city where I dwelt—the ancient and famous
city of Carcosa.
No signs of human life were anywhere visible nor audible; no rising
smoke, no watch-dog’s bark, no lowing of cattle, no shouts of children at
play—nothing but that dismal burial-place, with its air of mystery and
dread, due to my own disordered brain. Was I not becoming again
delirious, there beyond human aid? Was it not indeed _all_ an illusion
of my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons, reached
out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walked among the crumbling
stones and in the withered grass.
A noise behind me caused me to turn about. A wild animal—a lynx—was
approaching. The thought came to me: If I break down here in the
desert—if the fever return and I fail, this beast will be at my throat.
I sprang toward it, shouting. It trotted tranquilly by within a hand’s
breadth of me and disappeared behind a rock.
A moment later a man’s head appeared to rise out of the ground a short
distance away. He was ascending the farther slope of a low hill whose
crest was hardly to be distinguished from the general level. His whole
figure soon came into view against the background of gray cloud. He was
half naked, half clad in skins. His hair was unkempt, his beard long and
ragged. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow; the other held a blazing
torch with a long trail of black smoke. He walked slowly and with
caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed by the
tall grass. This strange apparition surprised but did not alarm, and
taking such a course as to intercept him I met him almost face to face,
accosting him with the familiar salutation, “God keep you.”
He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his pace.
“Good stranger,” I continued, “I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech
you, to Carcosa.”
The man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue, passing on and
away.
An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and was answered
by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw through a sudden rift
in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint of
night—the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw—I saw even
the stars in absence of the darkness. I saw, but was apparently not seen
nor heard. Under what awful spell did I exist?
I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what
it were best to do. That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet
recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction. Of fever I had no trace.
I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to
me—a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all
alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I could hear the
silence.
A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held
inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which protruded into a
recess formed by another root. The stone was thus partly protected from
the weather, though greatly decomposed. Its edges were worn round, its
corners eaten away, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glittering
particles of mica were visible in the earth about it—vestiges of its
decomposition. This stone had apparently marked the grave out of which
the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree’s exacting roots had robbed the
grave and made the stone a prisoner.
A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of
the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription and bent to
read it. God in Heaven! _my_ name in full!—the date of _my_ birth!—the
date of _my_ death!
A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang
to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood
between the tree and his broad red disk—no shadow darkened the trunk!
A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw them sitting on their
haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of irregular mounds and
tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon.
And then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of
Carcosa.
* * * * *
Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib
Alar Robardin.