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because it was answered. For as it was still echoing, I heard a creaking sound through the
pitchy blackness, and knew that a lattice window was opening in that accursed old house beside
us. And because all the other frames were long since fallen, I knew that it was the grisly
glassless frame of that demoniac attic window.
Then came a noxious rush of noisome, frigid air from that same dreaded direction, followed by a
piercing shriek just beside me on that shocking rifted tomb of man and monster. In another
instant I was knocked from my gruesome bench by the devilish threshing of some unseen entity
of titanic size but undetermined nature; knocked sprawling on the root-clutched mold of that
abhorrent graveyard, while from the tomb came such a stifled uproar of gasping and whirring
that my fancy peopled the rayless gloom with Miltonic legions of the misshapen damned. There
was a vortex of withering, ice-cold wind, and then the rattle of loose bricks and plaster; but I
had mercifully fainted before I could learn what it meant.
Manton, though smaller than I, is more resilient; for we opened our eyes at almost the same
instant, despite his greater injuries. Our couches were side by side, and we knew in a few
seconds that we were in St. Mary's Hospital. Attendants were grouped about in tense curiosity,
eager to aid our memory by telling us how we came there, and we soon heard of the farmer
who had found us at noon in a lonely field beyond Meadow Hill, a mile from the old burying
ground, on a spot where an ancient slaughterhouse is reputed to have stood. Manton had two
malignant wounds in the chest, and some less severe cuts or gougings in the back. I was not so
seriously hurt, but was covered with welts and contusions of the most bewildering character,
including the print of a split hoof. It was plain that Manton knew more than I, but he told nothing
to the puzzled and interested physicians till he had learned what our injuries were. Then he said
we were the victims of a vicious bull - - though the animal was a difficult thing to place and
account for.
After the doctors and nurses had left, I whispered an awe struck question:
"Good God, Manton, but what was it? Those scars - - was It like that?"
And I was too dazed to exult when he whispered back a thing I had half expected - -
"No - - it wasn't that way at all. It was everywhere - - a gelatin - - a slime yet it had Shapes, a
thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes - - and a blemish. It was the pit
- - the maelstrom - - the ultimate abomination. Carter, it was the unnamable!"
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