Eldritch Tales

by H.P. Lovecraft

Genres: Dark Fantasy; Ghost; Horror; Science Fiction

Synopsis

The only audio edition of Eldritch Tales authorized by the H. P. Lovecraft Estate!

Following the phenomenal success of Necronomicon, its companion volume brings together Lovecraft’s remaining major stories plus his weird poetry, a number of obscure revisions, and some notable nonfiction, including the seminal critical essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature.”

Gathering together in chronological order the rest of Lovecraft’s rarely seen but extraordinary short fiction, this collection includes the entirety of the long-out-of-print collection of thirty-six sonnets “Fungi from Yuggoth”.

Lovecraft died at the age of forty-seven, but in his short life he turned out dozens of stories that changed the face of horror. His extraordinary imagination spawned both the Elder God Cthulhu and his eldritch cohorts, as well as the strangely compelling town of Innsmouth, all of which feature here.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Release date: July 21, 2011

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 896

Sample

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is probably the most important and influential author of supernatural fiction in the twentieth century. A life-long resident of Providence, Rhode
Island, many of his tales are set in the fear-haunted towns of an imaginary area of Massachusetts, or in the cosmic vistas that exist beyond space and time. Since his untimely death, Lovecraft has
become acknowledged as a master of fantasy fiction and a mainstream American writer second only to Edgar Allan Poe, while his relatively small body of work has influenced countless imitators and
formed the basis of a world-wide industry of books, games and movies based on his concepts.

H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of the tentacled Elder God Cthulhu and his pantheon of alien deities were initially written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and ’30s.
These astonishing tales blend elements of horror and science fiction and are as powerful today as they were when they initially appeared. This companion volume to the best-selling
Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft brings together in chronological order all of Lovecraft’s remaining major stories, his ‘Fungi from Yuggoth’ cycle and
other important weird poetry, a number of obscure revisions and some notable nonfiction, including the seminal critical essay ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’.

‘Lovecraft opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me’

Stephen King

‘H.P. Lovecraft built the stage on which most of the last century’s horror fiction was performed. As doomed as any of his protagonists, he put a worldview into
words that has spread to infect the world. You need to read him – he’s where the darkness starts’

Neil Gaiman

‘As a writer he stands among the best in the field’

August Derleth

‘H.P. Lovecraft is not only the essential link between Edgar Allan Poe and the present day, he has become an almost unimaginably influential force throughout the whole
of our popular culture’

Peter Straub

‘H.P. Lovecraft is the most important single writer of the weird . . . his achievement lies not so much in his influence as in the enduring qualities of his finest
work’

Ramsey Campbell

‘In his case the highest literary genius was allied to the most brilliant and most endearing personal qualities’

Clark Ashton Smith

‘It’s hard to name a single modern writer of weird fiction who hasn’t to some extent, often profoundly, felt the influence of Howard Phillips Lovecraft . . .
It’s possible that I personally would never have written anything if I hadn’t first read H.P. Lovecraft. And I fancy I’m but one of many . . .’

Brian Lumley

‘The thing that particularly drew me to Lovecraft as a young and innocent child was the way his stories and the concepts in them would – in a genuinely eerie way
– activate the creative machinery in my head’

Gahan Wilson

‘One of the twentieth century’s most original writers’

Arthur C. Clarke

‘He’s an American original, whose influence on subsequent writers in the field is all-pervasive’

Joyce Carol Oates

‘In a genre blessed with many great stylists, H. P. Lovecraft’s baroque imagination and outrageous use of language still manages to stand head and shoulders above
the rest. A timeless master of the macabre, and the true connoisseur of dread’

Michael Marshall Smith

‘There will never be another like him’

Edmond Hamilton

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following individuals, whose work was consulted (and in some cases quoted from) in the compilation of this volume: August Derleth, Victor
Gollancz, Otis Kline Associates, Laurence Pollinger, Mr J.J. Jeffery, John Bush, E.D. Nisbet, Mr R. Denton, Giles Gordon, Forrest D. Hartmann, Les Edwards and Gahan Wilson.

Special thanks also go, as always, to my editor Jo Fletcher, Malcolm Edwards, Lail Finlay Hernandez, Val and Les Edwards, Charlie Panayiotou and Marcus Gipps for all their
help and support.

‘History of the Necronomicon’, originally published in A History of the Necronomicon (1938).

‘The Alchemist’, originally published in The United Amateur Vo.16, No.4, November 1916.

‘A Reminiscence of Dr Samuel Johnson’, originally published (as by Humphry Littlewit, Esq.) in The United Amateur Vol.17, No.2, September 1917.

‘The Beast in the Cave’, originally published in The Vagrant No.7, June 1918.

‘The Poe-et’s Nightmare’, originally published in The Vagrant No.8, July 1918.

‘Memory’, originally published in The United Co-operative Vol.1, No.2, June 1919.

‘Despair’, originally published in Pine Cones Vol.1, No.4, June 1919.

‘The Picture in the House’, originally published in The National Amateur Vol.41, No.6, July 1919 (1921).

‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’, originally published in Pine Cones Vol.1, No.6, October 1919.

‘Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme’, originally published in The Vagrant, October 1919.

‘The White Ship’, originally published in The United Amateur Vol.19, No.2, November 1919.

‘The House’, originally published in National Enquirer Vol.9, No.11, December 11, 1919.

‘The Nightmare Lake’, originally published in The Vagrant No.12, December 1919.

‘Poetry and the Gods’ originally published (as by Anna Helen Crofts and Henry Paget-Lowe) in The United Amateur Vol.20, No.1, September 1920.

‘Nyarlathotep’, originally published in The United Amateur Vol.20, No.2, November 1920.

‘Polaris’, originally published in The Philosopher Vol.1, No.1, December 1920.

‘The Street’, originally published in The Wolverine No.8, December 1920.

‘Ex Oblivione’, originally published (as by Ward Phillips) in The United Amateur Vol.20, No.4, March 1921.

‘Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family’, originally published in The Wolverine No.9, March 1921.

‘The Crawling Chaos’ originally published (as by Elizabeth Neville Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jr) in The United Co-operative Vol.1, No.3, April 1921.

‘The Terrible Old Man’, originally published in The Tryout Vol.7, No.4, July 1921.

‘The Tree’, originally published in The Tryout Vol.7, No.7, October 1921.

‘The Tomb’, originally published in The Vagrant No.14, March 1922.

‘Celephaïs’, originally published in The Rainbow No.2, May 1922.

‘Hypnos’, originally published in The National Amateur Vol.45, No.5, May 1923.

‘What the Moon Brings’, originally published in The National Amateur Vol.45 No.5, May 1923.

‘The Horror at Martin’s Beach’ originally published under the title ‘The Invisible Monster’ in Weird Tales, November 1923.

‘The Festival’, originally published in Weird Tales, January 1925.

‘The Temple’, originally published in Weird Tales, September 1925.

‘Hallowe’en in a Suburb’, originally published (as ‘In a Suburb’) in The National Amateur Vol.48, No.4, March 1926.

‘The Moon-Bog’, originally published in Weird Tales, June 1926.

‘He’, originally published in Weird Tales, September 1926.

‘Festival’, originally published (as ‘Yule Horror’) in Weird Tales, December 1926.

‘The Green Meadow’ originally published (as Translated by Elizabeth Neville Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jr) in The Vagrant, Spring 1927.

‘Nathicana’, originally published in The Vagrant, Spring 1927.

‘Two Black Bottles’ originally published in Weird Tales, August 1927.

‘The Last Test’ originally published in Weird Tales, November 1928. (A revision of ‘A Sacrifice to Science’, originally published in In the
Confessional and the Following, 1893.)

‘The Wood’, originally published (as by Lewis Theobold, Jr) in The Tryout, Vol.11, No.2, January 1929.

‘The Ancient Track’, originally published in Weird Tales, March 1930.

‘The Electric Executioner’ originally published in Weird Tales, August 1930. (A revision of ‘The Automatic Executioner’, originally published in
The Wave, November 14, 1891.)

‘Fungi from Yuggoth’

‘1: The Book’, originally published in The Fantasy Fan Vol.2, No.2, October 1934.

‘2: Pursuit’, originally published in The Fantasy Fan Vol.2, No.2, October 1934.

‘3: The Key’, originally published in The Fantasy Fan Vol.2, No.5, January 1935.

‘4: Recognition’, originally published in Driftwind Vol.11, No.5, December 1936.

‘5: Homecoming’, originally published in The Fantasy Fan Vol.2, No.6, January 1935.

‘6: The Lamp’, originally published in Driftwind Vol.5, No.5, March 1931.

‘7: Zaman’s Hill’, originally published in Driftwind Vol.9, No.4, October 1934.

‘8: The Port’, originally published in Driftwind Vol.5, No.3, November 1930.

‘9: The Courtyard’, originally published in Weird Tales, September 1930.

‘10: The Pigeon-Flyers’, originally published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943).

‘11: The Well’, originally published in The Providence Journal Vol.102, No.116, May 14, 1930.

‘12: The Howler’ originally published in Driftwind Vol.7, No.3, November 1932.

‘13: Hesperia’, originally published in Weird Tales, October 1930.

‘14: Star-Winds’, originally published in Weird Tales, September 1930.

‘15: Antarktos’, originally published in Weird Tales, November 1930.

‘16: The Window’, originally published in Driftwind, April 1931.

‘17: A Memory’, originally published (as ‘Memory’ by Lewis Theobold) in The United Co-operative, April 1921.

‘18: The Gardens of Yin’, originally published in Driftwind, March 1932.

‘19: The Bells’, originally published in Weird Tales, December 1930.

‘20: Night-Gaunts’ originally published in The Providence Journal, March 26, 1930.

‘21: Nyarlathotep’, originally published in The United Amateur, November 1920.

‘22: Azathoth’, originally published in Weird Tales, January 1931.

‘23: Mirage’, originally published in Weird Tales, February–March 1931.

‘24: The Canal’, originally published in Driftwind, March 1932.

‘25: St Toads’, originally published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943).

‘26: The Familiars’, originally published in Driftwind, July 1930.

‘27: The Elder Pharos’, originally published in Weird Tales, February–March 1931.

‘28: Expectancy’, originally published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943).

‘29: Nostalgia’, originally published in The Providence Journal, March 12, 1930.

‘30: Background’, originally published in The Providence Journal, April 16, 1930.

‘31: The Dweller’, originally published in The Providence Journal, May 7, 1930.

‘32: Alienation’, originally published in Weird Tales, April–May 1931.

‘33: Harbour Whistles’, originally published in The Silver Fern, May 1930.

‘34: Recapture’, originally published in Weird Tales, May 1930.

‘35: Evening Star’, originally published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943).

‘36: Continuity’, originally published in Causerie, February 1936.

‘The Trap’ originally published in Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, Vol.2, No.1, March 1932.

‘The Other Gods’, originally published in The Fantasy Fan Vol.1, No.3, November 1933.

‘The Quest of Iranon’, originally published in The Galleon Vol.1, No.5, July–August 1935.

‘The Challenge from Beyond’, originally published in Fantasy Magazine Vol.5, No.4, September 1935. ‘Fragment from the Eltdown Shards’ was originally
written for ‘The Sealed Casket’ by Richard F. Searight (Weird Tales, March 1935), but omitted from the published version.

‘In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk’d’, originally published in Four Acrostic Sonnets on Edgar Allan Poe (1936).

‘Ibid’, originally published in O-Wash-Ta-Nong Vol.3, No.1, January 1938.

‘Azathoth’, originally published in Leaves No.2, 1938.

‘The Descendant’, originally published in Leaves No.2, 1938.

‘The Book’, originally published in Leaves No.2, 1938.

‘The Messenger’, originally published in Weird Tales, July 1938.

‘The Evil Clergyman’, originally published (as ‘The Wicked Clergyman’) in Weird Tales, April 1939.

‘The Very Old Folk’, originally published in Scienti-Snaps Vol.3, No.3, Summer 1940.

‘The Thing in the Moonlight’, originally published in Bizarre Vol.4, No.1, January 1941.

‘The Transition of Juan Romero’, originally published in Marginalia (1944).

‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’, originally published in The Recluse (1927) and The Fantasy Fan, October 1933–February 1935.

‘Afterword: Lovecraft in Britain’ copyright © Stephen Jones 2007, 2011. Originally published in slightly different form in H.P. Lovecraft in Britain: A
Monograph. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Every effort has been made to trace the owners of any copyright material in this book. In the case of any question arising as to the use of such material, the publisher, while expressing regret
for any errors, will be pleased to make the necessary corrections in future editions of the book.

HISTORY OF THE NECRONOMICON



ORIGINAL TITLE Al Azif – azif being the word used by Arabs to designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos’d to be
the howling of daemons.

Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa AD 700. He visited the
ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia – the Roba el Khaliyeh or ‘Empty Space’ of the ancients
– and ‘Dahna’ or ‘Crimson’ desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and
unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final
death or disappearance (AD 738) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible
monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and
to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom
he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.

In AD 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho’ surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was secretly translated into Greek by
Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople under the title Necronomicon. For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch
Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice – once in the fifteenth
century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish) – both editions being without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by internal
typographical evidence only. The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic original was lost as
early as Wormius’ time, as indicated by his prefatory note; and no sight of the Greek copy – which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 – has been reported since the burning
of a certain Salem man’s library in 1692. An English translation made by Dr Dee was never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the original manuscript. Of the Latin texts now
existing one (15th cent.) is known to be in the British Museum under lock and key, while another (17th cent.) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A seventeenth-century edition is in
the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham. Also in the library of the University of Buenos Aires. Numerous other copies probably exist in secret, and a
fifteenth-century one is persistently rumoured to form part of the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. A still vaguer rumour credits the preservation of a sixteenth-century Greek text
in the Salem family of Pickman; but if it was so preserved, it vanished with the artist R.U. Pickman, who disappeared early in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by the authorities of most
countries, and by all branches of organised ecclesiasticism. Reading leads to terrible consequences. It was from rumours of this book (of which relatively few of the general public know) that
Robert W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King in Yellow.

Chronology

Al Azif written circa AD 730 at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred

Tr to Greek AD 950 as Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas

Burnt by Patriarch Michael 1050 (i.e., Greek text). Arabic now lost.

Olaus translates Gr. To Latin 1228

1232 Latin ed. (and Gr.) suppr. by Pope Gregory IX

14 . . . Black-letter printed edition (Germany)

15 . . . Gr. Text printed in Italy

16 . . . Spanish reprint of Latin text





THE ALCHEMIST



HIGH UP, crowning the grassy summit of a swelling mount whose sides are wooded near the base with the gnarled trees of the primeval forest stands
the old chateau of my ancestors. For centuries its lofty battlements have frowned down upon the wild and rugged countryside about, serving as a home and stronghold for the proud house whose
honoured line is older even than the moss-grown castle walls. These ancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumbling under the slow yet mighty pressure of time, formed in the
ages of feudalism one of the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From its machicolated parapets and mounted battlements Barons, Counts, and even Kings had been defied, yet never
had its spacious halls resounded to the footsteps of the invader.

But since those glorious years, all is changed. A poverty but little above the level of dire want, together with a pride of name that forbids its alleviation by the pursuits of commercial life,
have prevented the scions of our line from maintaining their estates in pristine splendour; and the falling stones of the walls, the overgrown vegetation in the parks, the dry and dusty moat, the
ill-paved courtyards, and toppling towers without, as well as the sagging floors, the worm-eaten wainscots, and the faded tapestries within, all tell a gloomy tale of fallen grandeur. As the ages
passed, first one, then another of the four great turrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single tower housed the sadly reduced descendants of the once mighty lords of the estate.

It was in one of the vast and gloomy chambers of this remaining tower that I, Antoine, last of the unhappy and accursed Counts de C—, first saw the light of day, ninety long years ago.
Within these walls and amongst the dark and shadowy forests, the wild ravines and grottoes of the hillside below, were spent the first years of my troubled life. My parents I never knew. My father
had been killed at the age of thirty-two, a month before I was born, by the fall of a stone somehow dislodged from one of the deserted parapets of the castle. And my mother having died at my birth,
my care and education devolved solely upon one remaining servitor, an old and trusted man of considerable intelligence, whose name I remember as Pierre. I was an only child and the lack of
companionship which this fact entailed upon me was augmented by the strange care exercised by my aged guardian, in excluding me from the society of the peasant children whose abodes were scattered
here and there upon the plains that surround the base of the hill. At that time, Pierre said that this restriction was imposed upon me because my noble birth placed me above association with such
plebeian company. Now I know that its real object was to keep from my ears the idle tales of the dread curse upon our line that were nightly told and magnified by the simple tenantry as they
conversed in hushed accents in the glow of their cottage hearths.

Thus isolated, and thrown upon my own resources, I spent the hours of my childhood in poring over the ancient tomes that filled the shadow-haunted library of the chateau, and in roaming without
aim or purpose through the perpetual dust of the spectral wood that clothes the side of the hill near its foot. It was perhaps an effect of such surroundings that my mind early acquired a shade of
melancholy. Those studies and pursuits which partake of the dark and occult in nature most strongly claimed my attention.

Of my own race I was permitted to learn singularly little, yet what small knowledge of it I was able to gain seemed to depress me much. Perhaps it was at first only the manifest reluctance of my
old preceptor to discuss with me my paternal ancestry that gave rise to the terror which I ever felt at the mention of my great house, yet as I grew out of childhood, I was able to piece together
disconnected fragments of discourse, let slip from the unwilling tongue which had begun to falter in approaching senility, that had a sort of relation to a certain circumstance which I had always
deemed strange, but which now became dimly terrible. The circumstance to which I allude is the early age at which all the Counts of my line had met their end. Whilst I had hitherto considered this
but a natural attribute of a family of short-lived men, I afterward pondered long upon these premature deaths, and began to connect them with the wanderings of the old man, who often spoke of a
curse which for centuries had prevented the lives of the holders of my title from much exceeding the span of thirty-two years. Upon my twenty-first birthday, the aged Pierre gave to me a family
document which he said had for many generations been handed down from father to son, and continued by each possessor. Its contents were of the most startling nature, and its perusal confirmed the
gravest of my apprehensions. At this time, my belief in the supernatural was firm and deep-seated, else I should have dismissed with scorn the incredible narrative unfolded before my eyes.

The paper carried me back to the days of the thirteenth century, when the old castle in which I sat had been a feared and impregnable fortress. It told of a certain ancient man who had once
dwelled on our estates, a person of no small accomplishments, though little above the rank of peasant, by name, Michel, usually designated by the surname of Mauvais, the Evil, on account of his
sinister reputation. He had studied beyond the custom of his kind, seeking such things as the Philosopher’s Stone or the Elixir of Eternal Life, and was reputed wise in the terrible secrets
of Black Magic and Alchemy. Michel Mauvais had one son, named Charles, a youth as proficient as himself in the hidden arts, who had therefore been called Le Sorcier, or the Wizard. This pair,
shunned by all honest folk, were suspected of the most hideous practices. Old Michel was said to have burnt his wife alive as a sacrifice to the Devil, and the unaccountable disappearance of many
small peasant children was laid at the dreaded door of these two. Yet through the dark natures of the father and son ran one redeeming ray of humanity; the evil old man loved his offspring with
fierce intensity, whilst the youth had for his parent a more than filial affection.

One night the castle on the hill was thrown into the wildest confusion by the vanishment of young Godfrey, son to Henri, the Count. A searching party, headed by the frantic father, invaded the
cottage of the sorcerers and there came upon old Michel Mauvais, busy over a huge and violently boiling cauldron. Without certain cause, in the ungoverned madness of fury and despair, the Count
laid hands on the aged wizard, and ere he released his murderous hold, his victim was no more. Meanwhile, joyful servants were proclaiming the finding of young Godfrey in a distant and unused
chamber of the great edifice, telling too late that poor Michel had been killed in vain. As the Count and his associates turned away from the lowly abode of the alchemist, the form of Charles Le
Sorcier appeared through the trees. The excited chatter of the menials standing about told him what had occurred, yet he seemed at first unmoved at his father’s fate. Then, slowly advancing
to meet the Count, he pronounced in dull yet terrible accents the curse that ever afterward haunted the house of C—.

‘May ne’er a noble of thy murd’rous line

Survive to reach a greater age than thine!’

spake he, when, suddenly leaping backwards into the black woods, he drew from his tunic a phial of colourless liquid which he threw into the face of his father’s slayer as he disappeared
behind the inky curtain of the night. The Count died without utterance, and was buried the next day, but little more than two and thirty years from the hour of his birth. No trace of the assassin
could be found, though relentless bands of peasants scoured the neighbouring woods and the meadowland around the hill.

Thus time and the want of a reminder dulled the memory of the curse in the minds of the late Count’s family, so that when Godfrey, innocent cause of the whole tragedy and now bearing the
title, was killed by an arrow whilst hunting at the age of thirty-two, there were no thoughts save those of grief at his demise. But when, years afterward, the next young Count, Robert by name, was
found dead in a nearby field of no apparent cause, the peasants told in whispers that their seigneur had but lately passed his thirty-second birthday when surprised by early death. Louis, son to
Robert, was found drowned in the moat at the same fateful age, and thus down through the centuries ran the ominous chronicle: Henris, Roberts, Antoines, and Armands snatched from happy and virtuous
lives when little below the age of their unfortunate ancestor at his murder.

That I had left at most but eleven years of further existence was made certain to me by the words which I had read. My life, previously held at small value, now became dearer to me each day, as
I delved deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the hidden world of black magic. Isolated as I was, modern science had produced no impression upon me, and I laboured as in the Middle Ages, as
wrapt as had been old Michel and young Charles themselves in the acquisition of demonological and alchemical learning. Yet read as I might, in no manner could I account for the strange curse upon
my line. In unusually rational moments I would even go so far as to seek a natural explanation, attributing the early deaths of my ancestors to the sinister Charles Le Sorcier and his heirs; yet,
having found upon careful inquiry that there were no known descendants of the alchemist, I would fall back to occult studies, and once more endeavour to find a spell, that would release my house
from its terrible burden. Upon one thing I was absolutely resolved. I should never wed, for, since no other branch of my family was in existence, I might thus end the curse with myself.

As I drew near the age of thirty, old Pierre was called to the land beyond. Alone I buried him beneath the stones of the courtyard about which he had loved to wander in life. Thus was I left to
ponder on myself as the only human creature within the great fortress, and in my utter solitude my mind began to cease its vain protest against the impending doom, to become almost reconciled to
the fate which so many of my ancestors had met. Much of my time was now occupied in the exploration of the ruined and abandoned halls and towers of the old chateau, which in youth fear had caused
me to shun, and some of which old Pierre had once told me had not been trodden by human foot for over four centuries. Strange and awesome were many of the objects I encountered. Furniture, covered
by the dust of ages and crumbling with the rot of long dampness, met my eyes. Cobwebs in a profusion never before seen by me were spun everywhere, and huge bats flapped their bony and uncanny wings
on all sides of the otherwise untenanted gloom.

Of my exact age, even down to days and hours, I kept a most careful record, for each movement of the pendulum of the massive clock in the library told off so much of my doomed existence. At
length I approached that time which I had so long viewed with apprehension. Since most of my ancestors had been seized some little while before they reached the exact age of Count Henri at his end,
I was every moment on the watch for the coming of the unknown death. In what strange form the curse should overtake me, I knew not; but I was resolved at least that it should not find me a cowardly
or a passive victim. With new vigour I applied myself to my examination of the old chateau and its contents.

It was upon one of the longest of all my excursions of discovery in the deserted portion of the castle, less than a week before that fatal hour which I felt must mark the utmost limit of my stay
on earth, beyond which I could have not even the slightest hope of continuing to draw breath that I came upon the culminating event of my whole life. I had spent the better part of the morning in
climbing up and down half ruined staircases in one of the most dilapidated of the ancient t