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101
I
have
digressed
from
my
connected
narrative
--
perhaps
in
the
vain
hope
of
evading
the
telling
of
that
final
incident
;
that
incident
which
of
all
is
most
certainly
an
hallucination
.
But
I
promised
to
relate
it
,
and
I
do
not
break
promises
.
When
I
recovered
--
or
seemed
to
recover
--
my
senses
after
that
fall
down
the
black
stone
stairs
,
I
was
quite
as
alone
and
in
darkness
as
before
.
The
windy
stench
,
bad
enough
before
,
was
now
fiendish
;
yet
I
had
acquired
enough
familiarity
by
this
time
to
bear
it
stoically
.
Dazedly
I
began
to
crawl
away
from
the
place
whence
the
putrid
wind
came
,
and
with
my
bleeding
hands
felt
the
colossal
blocks
of
a
mighty
pavement
.
Once
my
head
struck
against
a
hard
object
,
and
when
I
felt
of
it
I
learned
that
it
was
the
base
of
a
column
--
a
column
of
unbelievable
immensity
--
whose
surface
was
covered
with
gigantic
chiseled
hieroglyphics
very
perceptible
to
my
touch
.
102
Crawling
on
,
I
encountered
other
titan
columns
at
incomprehensible
distances
apart
;
when
suddenly
my
attention
was
captured
by
the
realization
of
something
which
must
have
been
impinging
on
my
subconscious
hearing
long
before
the
conscious
sense
was
aware
of
it
.
103
From
some
still
lower
chasm
in
earth
's
bowels
were
proceeding
certain
sounds
,
measured
and
definite
,
and
like
nothing
I
had
ever
heard
before
.
That
they
were
very
ancient
and
distinctly
ceremonial
I
felt
almost
intuitively
;
and
much
reading
in
Egyptology
led
me
to
associate
them
with
the
flute
,
the
sambuke
,
the
sistrum
,
and
the
tympanum
.
In
their
rhythmic
piping
,
droning
,
rattling
and
beating
I
felt
an
element
of
terror
beyond
all
the
known
terrors
of
earth
--
a
terror
peculiarly
dissociated
from
personal
fear
,
and
taking
the
form
of
a
sort
of
objective
pity
for
our
planet
,
that
it
should
hold
within
its
depths
such
horrors
as
must
lie
beyond
these
aegipanic
cacophonies
.
The
sounds
increased
in
volume
,
and
I
felt
that
they
were
approaching
.
Then
--
and
may
all
the
gods
of
all
pantheons
unite
to
keep
the
like
from
my
ears
again
--
I
began
to
hear
,
faintly
and
afar
off
,
the
morbid
and
millennial
tramping
of
the
marching
things
.
Отключить рекламу
104
It
was
hideous
that
footfalls
so
dissimilar
should
move
in
such
perfect
rhythm
.
The
training
of
unhallowed
thousands
of
years
must
lie
behind
that
march
of
earth
's
inmost
monstrosities
...
padding
,
clicking
,
walking
,
stalking
,
rumbling
,
lumbering
,
crawling
...
and
all
to
the
abhorrent
discords
of
those
mocking
instruments
.
And
then
--
God
keep
the
memory
of
those
Arab
legends
out
of
my
head
!
--
the
mummies
without
souls
...
the
meeting-place
of
the
wandering
kas
...
the
hordes
of
the
devil-cursed
pharaonic
dead
of
forty
centuries
...
the
composite
mummies
led
through
the
uttermost
onyx
voids
by
King
Khephren
and
his
ghoul-queen
Nitocris
.
.
105
The
tramping
drew
nearer
--
Heaven
save
me
from
the
sound
of
those
feet
and
paws
and
hooves
and
pads
and
talons
as
it
commenced
to
acquire
detail
!
Down
limitless
reaches
of
sunless
pavement
a
spark
of
light
flickered
in
the
malodorous
wind
and
I
drew
behind
the
enormous
circumference
of
a
Cyclopic
column
that
I
might
escape
for
a
while
the
horror
that
was
stalking
million-footed
toward
me
through
gigantic
hypostyles
of
inhuman
dread
and
phobic
antiquity
.
The
flickers
increased
,
and
the
tramping
and
dissonant
rhythm
grew
sickeningly
loud
.
In
the
quivering
orange
light
there
stood
faintly
forth
a
scene
of
such
stony
awe
that
I
gasped
from
sheer
wonder
that
conquered
even
fear
and
repulsion
.
Bases
of
columns
whose
middles
were
higher
than
human
sight
,
mere
bases
of
things
that
must
each
dwarf
the
Eiffel
Tower
to
insignificance
...
hieroglyphics
carved
by
unthinkable
hands
in
caverns
where
daylight
can
be
only
a
remote
legend
...
106
I
would
not
look
at
the
marching
things
.
That
I
desperately
resolved
as
I
heard
their
creaking
joints
and
nitrous
wheezing
above
the
dead
music
and
the
dead
tramping
.
It
was
merciful
that
they
did
not
speak
...
but
God
!
their
crazy
torches
began
to
cast
shadows
on
the
surface
of
those
stupendous
columns
.
Hippopotami
should
not
have
human
hands
and
carry
torches
...
men
should
not
have
the
heads
of
crocodiles
...
107
I
tried
to
turn
away
,
but
the
shadows
and
the
sounds
and
the
stench
were
everywhere
.
Отключить рекламу
108
Then
I
remembered
something
I
used
to
do
in
half-conscious
nightmares
as
a
boy
,
and
began
to
repeat
to
myself
,
'
This
is
a
dream
!
This
is
a
dream
!
'
But
it
was
of
no
use
,
and
I
could
only
shut
my
eyes
and
pray
...
at
least
,
that
is
what
I
think
I
did
,
for
one
is
never
sure
in
visions
--
and
I
know
this
can
have
been
nothing
more
.
I
wondered
whether
I
should
ever
reach
the
world
again
,
and
at
times
would
furtively
open
my
eyes
to
see
if
I
could
discern
any
feature
of
the
place
other
than
the
wind
of
spiced
putrefaction
,
the
topless
columns
,
and
the
thaumatropically
grotesque
shadows
of
abnormal
horror
.
The
sputtering
glare
of
multiplying
torches
now
shone
,
and
unless
this
hellish
place
were
wholly
without
walls
,
I
could
not
fail
to
see
some
boundary
or
fixed
landmark
soon
.
But
I
had
to
shut
my
eyes
again
when
I
realized
how
many
of
the
things
were
assembling
--
and
when
I
glimpsed
a
certain
object
walking
solemnly
and
steadily
without
any
body
above
the
waist
.
109
A
fiendish
and
ululant
corpse-gurgle
or
death-rattle
now
split
the
very
atmosphere
--
the
charnel
atmosphere
poisonous
with
naftha
and
bitumen
blasts
--
in
one
concerted
chorus
from
the
ghoulish
legion
of
hybrid
blasphemies
.
My
eyes
,
perversely
shaken
open
,
gazed
for
an
instant
upon
a
sight
which
no
human
creature
could
even
imagine
without
panic
,
fear
and
physical
exhaustion
.
The
things
had
filed
ceremonially
in
one
direction
,
the
direction
of
the
noisome
wind
,
where
the
light
of
their
torches
showed
their
bended
heads
--
or
the
bended
heads
of
such
as
had
heads
.
110
They
were
worshipping
before
a
great
black
fetor-belching
aperture
which
reached
up
almost
out
of
sight
,
and
which
I
could
see
was
flanked
at
right
angles
by
two
giant
staircases
whose
ends
were
far
away
in
shadow
.
One
of
these
was
indubitably
the
staircase
I
had
fallen
down
.