1

We had finished dinner and Carnacki had drawn his big chair up to the fire, and started his pipe.

Jessop, Arkright, Taylor and I had each of us taken up our favourite positions, and waited for Carnacki to begin.

‘What I’m going to tell you about happened in the next room,’ he said, after drawing at his pipe for a while. ‘It has been a terrible experience. Doctor Witton first brought the case to my notice. We’d been chatting over a pipe at the Club one night about an article in the Lancet, and Witton mentioned having just such a similar case in a man called Bains. I was interested at once. It was one of those cases of a gap or flaw in a man’s protection barrier, I call it. A failure to be what I might term efficiently insulated — spiritually — from the outer monstrosities.

‘From what I knew of Witton, I knew he’d be no use. You all know Witton. A decent sort, hard-headed, practical, stand-no-kind-of-nonsense sort of man, all right at his own job when that job’s a fractured leg or a broken collarbone; but he’d never have made anything of the Bains case.’

For a space Carnacki puffed meditatively at his pipe, and we waited for him to go on with his tale.

‘I told Witton to send Bains to me,’ he resumed, ‘and the following Saturday he came up. A little sensitive man. I liked him as soon as I set eyes on him. After a bit, I got him to explain what was troubling him, and questioned him about what Doctor Witton had called his “dreams.”

‘“They’re more than dreams,” he said, “they’re so real that they’re actual experiences to me. They’re simply horrible. And yet there’s nothing very definite in them to tell you about. They generally come just as I am going off to sleep. I’m hardly over before suddenly I seem to have got down into some deep, vague place with some inexplicable and frightful horror all about me. I can never understand what it is, for I never see anything, only I always get a sudden knowledge like a warning that I have got down into some terrible place — a sort of hellplace I might call it, where I’ve no business ever to have wandered; and the warning is always insistent — even imperative — that I must get out, get out, or some enormous horror will come at me.”

‘“Can’t you pull yourself back?” I asked him. “Can’t you wake up?”

‘“No,” he told me. “That’s just what I can’t do, try as I will. I can’t stop going along this labyrinth-of-hell as I call it to myself, towards some dreadful unknown Horror. The warning is repeated, ever so strongly — almost as if the live me of my waking moments was awake and aware. Something seems to warn me to wake up, that whatever I do I must wake, wake, and then my consciousness comes suddenly alive and I know that my body is there in the bed, but my essence or spirit is still down there in that hell, wherever it is, in a danger that is both unknown and inexpressible; but so overwhelming that my whole spirit seems sick with terror.

‘ “I keep saying to myself all the time that I must wake up,” he continued, “but it is as if my spirit is still down there, and as if my consciousness knows that some tremendous invisible Power is fighting against me. I know that if I do not wake then, I shall never wake up again, but go down deeper and deeper into some stupendous horror of soul destruction. So then I fight. My body lies in the bed there, and pulls. And the power down there in that labyrinth exerts itself too so that a feeling of despair, greater than any I have ever known on this earth, comes on me. I know that if I give way and cease to fight, and do not wake, then I shall pass out — out to that monstrous Horror which seems to be silently calling my soul to destruction.

‘“Then I make a final stupendous effort,” he continued, “and my brain seems to fill my body like the ghost of my soul. I can even open my eyes and see with my brain, or consciousness, out of my own eyes. I can see the bedclothes, and I know just how I am lying in the bed; yet the real me is down in that hell in terrible danger. Can you get me?” he asked.

‘“Perfectly,” I replied.

‘“Well, you know,” he went on, “I fight and fight. Down there in that great pit my very soul seems to shrink back from the call of some brooding horror that impels it silently a little further, always a little further round a visible corner, which if I once pass I know I shall never return again to this world. Desperately I fight brain and consciousness fighting together to help it. The agony is so great that I could scream were it not that I am rigid and frozen in the bed with fear.

‘“Then, just when my strength seems almost gone, soul and body win, and blend slowly. And I lie there worn out with this terrible extraordinary fight. I have still a sense of a dreadful horror all about me, as if out of that horrible place some brooding monstrosity had followed me up, and hangs still and silent and invisible over me, threatening me there in my bed. Do I make it clear to you?” he asked. “It’s like some monstrous Presence.”

‘ “Yes,” I said. “I follow you.”

‘The man’s forehead was actually covered with sweat, so keenly did he live again through the horrors he had experienced.

‘After a while he continued:

‘“Now comes the most curious part of the dream or whatever it is,” he said. “There’s always a sound I hear as I lie there exhausted in the bed. It comes while the bedroom is still full of the sort of atmosphere of monstrosity that seems to come up with me when I get out of that place. I hear the sound coming up out of that enormous depth, and it is always the noise of pigs — pigs grunting, you know. It’s just simply dreadful. The dream is always the same. Sometimes I’ve had it every single night for a week, until I fight not to go to sleep; but, of course, I have to sleep sometimes. I think that’s how a person might go mad, don’t you?” he finished.

‘I nodded, and looked at his sensitive face. Poor beggar! He had been through it, and no mistake.

‘“Tell me some more,” I said. “The grunting — what does it sound like exactly?”

‘“It’s just like pigs grunting,” he told me again. “Only much more awful. There are grunts, and squeals and pighowls, like you hear when their food is being brought to them at a pig farm. You know those large pig farms where they keep hundreds of pigs. All the grunts, squeals and howls blend into one brutal chaos of sound — only it isn’t a chaos. It all blends in a queer horrible way. I’ve heard it. A sort of swinish clamouring melody that grunts and roars and shrieks in chunks of grunting sounds, all tied together with squealings and shot through with pig howls. I’ve sometimes thought there was a definite beat in it; for every now and again there comes a gargantuan GRUNT, breaking through the million pig-voiced roaring — a stupendous GRUNT that comes in with a beat. Can you understand me? It seems to shake everything. . . . It’s like a spiritual earthquake. The howling, squealing, grunting, rolling clamour of swinish noise coming up out of that place, and then the monstrous GRUNT rising up through it all, an ever-recurring beat out of the depth — the voice of the swine-mother of monstrosity beating up from below through that chorus of mad swine-hunger. . . . It’s no use! I can’t explain it. No one ever could. It’s just terrible! And I’m afraid you’re saying to yourself that I’m in a bad way; that I want a change or a tonic; that I must buck up or I’ll land myself in a madhouse. If only you could understand! Doctor Witton seemed to half understand, I thought; but I know he’s only sent me to you as a sort of last hope. He thinks I’m booked for the asylum. I could tell it.”

‘“Nonsense!” I said. “Don’t talk such rubbish. You’re as sane as I am. Your ability to think clearly what you want to tell me, and then to transmit it to me so well that you compel my mental retina to see something of what you have seen, stands sponsor for your mental balance.

‘“I am going to investigate your case, and if it is what I suspect, one of those rare instances of a ‘flaw’ or ‘gap’ in your protective barrier (what I might call your spiritual insulation from the Outer Monstrosities) I’ve no doubt we can end the trouble. But we’ve got to go properly into the matter first, and there will certainly be danger in doing so.”

‘“I’ll risk it,” replied Bains. “I can’t go on like this any longer.”

‘ “Very well,” I told him. “Go out now, and come back at five o’clock. I shall be ready for you then. And don’t worry about your sanity. You’re all right, and we’ll soon make things safe for you again. Just keep cheerful and don’t brood about it."’
2

‘I put in the whole afternoon preparing my experimenting room, across the landing there, for his case. When he returned at five o’clock I was ready for him and took him straight into the room.

‘It gets dark now about six-thirty, as you know, and I had just nice time before it grew dusk to finish my arrangements. I prefer always to be ready before the dark comes.

‘Bains touched my elbow as we walked into the room.

‘ “There’s something I ought to have told you,” he said, looking rather sheepish. “I’ve somehow felt a bit ashamed of it.”

‘ “Out with it,” I replied.

‘He hesitated a moment, then it came out with a jerk.

‘ “I told you about the grunting of the pigs,” he said. “Well, I grunt too. I know it’s horrible. When I lie there in bed and hear those sounds after I’ve come up, I just grunt back as if in reply. I can’t stop myself. I just do it. Something makes me. I never told Doctor Witton that. I couldn’t. I’m sure now you think me mad,” he concluded.

‘He looked into my face, anxious and queerly ashamed.

‘“It’s only the natural sequence of the abnormal events, and I’m glad you told me,” I said, slapping him on the back. “It follows logically on what you had already told me. I have had two cases that in some way resembled yours.”

‘“What happened?” he asked me. “Did they get better?”

‘“One of them is alive and well today, Mr. Bains,” I replied. “The other man lost his nerve, and fortunately for all concerned, he is dead.”

‘I shut the door and locked it as I spoke, and Bains stared round, rather alarmed, I fancy, at my apparatus.

‘“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Will it be a dangerous experiment?”

‘“Dangerous enough,” I answered, “if you fail to follow my instructions absolutely in everything. We both run the risk of never leaving this room alive. Have I your word that I can depend on you to obey me whatever happens?”

‘He stared round the room and then back at me.

‘“Yes,” he replied. And, you know, I felt he would prove the right kind of stuff when the moment came.

‘I began now to get things finally in train for the night’s work. I told Bains to take off his coat and his boots. Then I dressed him entirely from head to foot in a single thick rubber combination-overall, with rubber gloves, and a helmet with ear-flaps of the same material attached.

‘I dressed myself in a similar suit. Then I began on the next stage of the night’s preparations.

‘First I must tell you that the room measures thirty-nine feet by thirty-seven, and has a plain board floor over which is fitted a heavy, half-inch rubber covering.

‘I had cleared the floor entirely, all but the exact centre where I had placed a glass-legged, upholstered table, a pile of vacuum tubes and batteries, and three pieces of special apparatus which my experiment required.

‘“Now Bains,” I called, “come and stand over here by this table. Don’t move about. I’ve got to erect a protective ‘barrier’ round us, and on no account must either of us cross over it by even so much as a hand or foot, once it is built.”

‘We went over to the middle of the room, and he stood by the glass-legged table while I began to fit the vacuum tubing together round us.

‘I intended to use the new spectrum “defense” which I have been perfecting lately. This, I must tell you, consists of seven glass vacuum circles with the red on the outside, and the colour circles lying inside it, in the order of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

‘The room was still fairly light, but a slight quantity of dusk seemed to be already in the atmosphere, and I worked quickly.

‘Suddenly, as I fitted the glass tubes together I was aware of some vague sense of nerve-strain, and glancing round at Bains who was standing there by the table I noticed him staring fixedly before him. He looked absolutely drowned in uncomfortable memories.

‘“For goodness’ sake stop thinking of those horrors,” I called out to him. “I shall want you to think hard enough about them later; but in this specially constructed room it is better not to dwell on things of that kind till the barriers are up. Keep your mind on anything normal or superficial — the theatre will do — think about that last piece you saw at the Gaiety. I’ll talk to you in a moment.”

‘Twenty minutes later the “barrier” was completed all round us, and I connected up the batteries. The room by this time was greying with the coming dusk, and the seven differently coloured circles shone out with extraordinary effect, sending out a cold glare.

‘“By Jove! “ cried Bains, “that’s very wonderful — very wonderful!”

‘My other apparatus which I now began to arrange consisted of a specially made camera, a modified form of phonograph with ear-pieces instead of a horn, and a glass disk composed of many fathoms of glass vacuum tubes arranged in a special way. It had two wires leading to an electrode constructed to fit round the head.

‘By the time I had looked over and fixed up these three things, night had practically come, and the darkened room shone most strangely in the curious upward glare of the seven vacuum tubes.

‘“Now, Bains,” I said, “I want you to lie on this table. Now put your hands down by your sides and lie quiet and think. You’ve just got two things to do,” I told him. “One is to lie there and concentrate your thoughts on the details of the dream you are always having, and the other is not to move off this table whatever you see or hear, or whatever happens, unless I tell you. You understand, don’t you?”

‘“Yes,” he answered, “I think you may rely on me not to make a fool of myself. I feel curiously safe with you somehow.”

‘ “I’m glad of that,” I replied. “But I don’t want you to minimise the possible danger too much. There may be horrible danger. Now, just let me fix this band on your head,” I added, as I adjusted the electrode. I gave him a few more instructions, telling him to concentrate his thoughts particularly upon the noises he heard just as he was waking, and I warned him again not to let himself fall asleep. “Don’t talk,” I said, “and don’t take any notice of me. If you find I disturb your concentration keep your eyes closed.”

‘He lay back and I walked over to the glass disk arranging the camera in front of it on its stand in such a way that the lens was opposite the centre of the disk.

‘I had scarcely done this when a ripple of greenish light ran across the vacuum tubes of the disk. This vanished, and for maybe a minute there was complete darkness. Then the green light rippled once more across it — rippled and swung round, and began to dance in varying shades from a deep heavy green to a rank ugly shade; back and forward, back and forward.

‘Every half second or so there shot across the varying greens a flicker of yellow, an ugly, heavy repulsive yellow, and then abruptly there came sweeping across the disk a great beat of muddy red. This died as quickly as it came, and gave place to the changing greens shot through by the unpleasant and ugly yellow hues. About every seventh second the disk was submerged, and the other colours momentarily blotted out by the great beat of heavy, muddy red which swept over everything.

‘ “He’s concentrating on those sounds,” I said to myself, and I felt queerly excited as I hurried on with my operations. I threw a word over my shoulder to Bains.

‘“Don’t get scared, whatever happens,” I said. “You’re all right!”

‘I proceeded now to operate my camera. It had a long roll of specially prepared paper ribbon in place of a film or plates. By turning the handle the roll passed through the machine exposing the ribbon.

‘It took about five minutes to finish the roll, and during ail that time the green lights predominated; but the dull heavy beat of muddy red never ceased to flow across the vacuum tubes of the disk at every seventh second. It was like a recurrent beat in some unheard and somehow displeasing melody.

‘Lifting the exposed spool of paper ribbon out of the camera I laid it horizontally in the two “rests” that I had arranged for it on my modified gramaphone. Where the paper had been acted upon by the varying coloured lights which had appeared on the disk, the prepared surface had risen in curious, irregular little waves.

‘I unrolled about a foot of the ribbon and attached the loose end to an empty spool-roller (on the opposite side of the machine) which I had geared to the driving clockwork mechanism of the gramophone. Then I took the diaphragm and lowered it gently into place above the ribbon. Instead of the usual needle the diaphragm was fitted with a beautifully made metal-filament brush, about an inch broad, which just covered the whole breadth of the ribbon. This fine and fragile brush rested lightly on the prepared surface of the paper, and when I started the machine the ribbon began to pass under the brush, and as it passed, the delicate metal-filament “bristles” followed every minute inequality of those tiny, irregular wave-like excrescences on the surface.

‘I put the ear-pieces to my ears, and instantly I knew that I had succeeded in actually recording what Bains had heard in his sleep. In fact, I was even then hearing “mentally” by means of his effort of memory. I was listening to what appeared to be the faint, far-off squealing and grunting of countless swine. It was extraordinary, and at the same time exquisitely horrible and vile. It frightened me, with a sense of my having come suddenly and unexpectedly too near to something foul and most abominably dangerous.

‘So strong and imperative was this feeling that I twitched the ear-pieces out of my ears, and sat a while staring round the room trying to steady my sensations back to normality.

‘The room looked strange and vague in the dull glow of light from the circles, and I had a feeling that a taint of monstrosity was all about me in the air. I remembered what Bains had told me of the feeling he’d always had after coming up out of “that place” — as if some horrible atmosphere had followed him up and filled his bedroom. I understood him perfectly now — so much so that I had mentally used almost his exact phrase in explaining to myself what I felt.

‘Turning round to speak to him I saw there was something curious about the centre of the “defense.”

‘Now, before I tell you fellows any more I must explain that there are certain, what I call “focussing”, qualities about this new “defense” I’ve been trying.

‘The Sigsand manuscript puts it something like this: “Avoid diversities of colour; nor stand ye within the barrier of the colour lights; for in colour hath Satan a delight. Nor can he abide in the Deep if ye adventure against him armed with red purple. So be warned. Neither forget that in blue, which is God’s colour in the Heavens, ye have safety.”

‘You see, from that statement in the Sigsand manuscript I got my first notion for this new “defense” of mine. I have aimed to make it a “defense” and yet have “focussing” or “drawing” qualities such as the Sigsand hints at. I have experimented enormously, and I’ve proved that reds and purples — the two extreme colours of the spectrum — are fairly dangerous; so much so that I suspect they actually “draw” or “focus” the outside forces. Any action or “meddling” on the part of the experimentalist is tremendously enhanced in its effect if the action is taken within barriers composed of these colours, in certain proportions and tints.

‘In the same way blue is distinctly a “general defense.” Yellow appears to be neutral, and green a wonderful protection within limits. Orange, as far as I can tell, is slightly attractive and indigo is dangerous by itself in a limited way, but in certain combinations with the other colours it becomes a very powerful “defense”. I’ve not yet discovered a tenth of the possibilities of these circles of mine. It’s a kind of colour organ upon which I seem to play a tune of colour combinations that can be either safe or infernal in its effects. You know I have a keyboard with a separate switch to each of the colour circles.

‘Well, you fellows will understand now what I felt when I saw the curious appearance of the floor in the middle of the “defense.” It looked exactly as if a circular shadow lay, not just on the floor, but a few inches above it. The shadow seemed to deepen and blacken at the centre even while I watched it. It appeared to be spreading from the centre outwardly, and all the time it grew darker.

‘I was watchful, and not a little puzzled; for the combination of lights that I had switched on approximated a moderately safe “general defense.” Understand, I had no intention of making a focus until I had learnt more. In fact, I meant that first investigation not to go beyond a tentative inquiry into the kind of thing I had got to deal with.

‘I knelt down quickly and felt the floor with the palm of my hand, but it was quite normal to the feel, and that reassured me that there was no Saaaiti mischief abroad; for that is a form of danger which can involve, and make use of, the very material of the “defense” itself. It can materialise out of everything except fire.

‘As I knelt there I realised all at once that the legs of the table on which Bains lay were partly hidden in the ever blackening shadow, and my hands seemed to grow vague as I felt at the floor.

‘I got up and stood away a couple of feet so as to see the phenomenon from a little distance. It struck me then that there was something different about the table itself. It seemed unaccountably lower.

‘“It’s the shadow hiding the legs,” I thought to myself. “This promises to be interesting; but I’d better not let things go too far.”

‘I called out to Bains to stop thinking so hard. “Stop concentrating for a bit,” I said; but he never answered, and it occurred to me suddenly that the table appeared to be still lower.

‘“Bains,” I shouted, “stop thinking a moment.” Then in a flash I realised it. “Wake up, man! Wake up!” I cried.

‘He had fallen over asleep — the very last thing he should have done; for it increased the danger twofold. No wonder I had been getting such good results! The poor beggar was worn out with his sleepless nights. He neither moved nor spoke as I strode across to him.

‘“Wake up!” I shouted again, shaking him by the shoulder.

‘My voice echoed uncomfortably round the big empty room; and Bains lay like a dead man.

‘As I shook him again I noticed that I appeared to be standing up to my knees in the circular shadow. It looked like the mouth of a pit. My legs, from the knees downwards, were vague. The floor under my feet felt solid and firm when I stamped on it; but all the same I had a feeling that things were going a bit too far, so striding across to the switchboard I switched on the “full defense.”

‘Stepping back quickly to the table I had a horrible and sickening shock. The table had sunk quite unmistakably. Its top was within a couple of feet of the floor, and the legs had that fore-shortened appearance that one sees when a stick is thrust into water. They looked vague and shadowy in the peculiar circle of dark shadows which had such an extraordinary resemblance to the black mouth of a pit. I could see only the top of the table plainly with Bains lying motionless on it; and the whole thing was going down, as I stared, into that black circle.’
3

‘There was not a moment to lose, and like a flash I caught Bains round his neck and body and lifted him clean up into my arms off the table. And as I lifted him he grunted like a great swine in my ear.

‘The sound sent a thrill of horrible funk through me. It was just as though I held a hog in my arms instead of a human. I nearly dropped him. Then I held his face to the light and stared down at him. His eyes were half opened, and he was looking at me apparently as if he saw me perfectly.

‘Then he grunted again. I could feel his small body quiver with the sound.

‘I called out to him. “Bains,” I said, “can you hear me?”

‘His eyes still gazed at me; and then, as we looked at each other, he grunted like a swine again.

‘I let go one hand, and hit him across the cheek, a stinging slap.

‘“Wake up, Bains!” I shouted. “Wake up!” But I might have hit a corpse. He just stared up at me. And. suddenly I bent lower and looked into his eyes more closely. I never saw such a fixed, intelligent, mad horror as I saw there. It knocked out all my sudden disgust. Can you understand?

‘I glanced round quickly at the table. It stood there at its normal height; and, indeed, it was in every way normal. The curious shadow that had somehow suggested to me the black mouth of the pit had vanished. I felt relieved; for it seemed to me that I had entirely broken up any possibility of a partial “focus” by means of the full “defense” which I had switched on.

‘I laid Bains on the floor, and stood up to look round and consider what was best to do. I dared not step outside of the barriers, until any “dangerous tensions” there might be in the room had been dissipated. Nor was it wise, even inside the full “defense,” to have him sleeping the kind of sleep he was in; not without certain preparations having been made first, which I had not made.

‘I can tell you, I felt beastly anxious. I glanced down at Bains, and had a sudden fresh shock; for the peculiar circular shadow was forming all round him again, where he lay on the floor. His hands and face showed curiously vague, and distorted, as they might have looked through a few inches of faintly stained water. But his eyes were somehow clear to see. They were staring up, mute and terrible, at me, through that horrible darkening shadow.

‘I stopped, and with one quick lift, tore him up off the floor into my arms, and for the third time he grunted like a swine, there in my arms. It was damnable.

‘I stood up, in the barrier, holding Bains, and looked about the room again; then back at the floor. The shadow was still thick round about my feet, and I stepped quickly across to the other side of the table. I stared at the shadow, and saw that it had vanished; then I glanced down again at my feet, and had another shock; for the shadow was showing faintly again, all round where I stood.

‘I moved a pace, and watched the shadow become invisible; and then, once more, like a slow stain, it began to grow about my feet.

‘I moved again, a pace, and stared round the room, meditating a break for the door. And then, in that instant, I saw that this would be certainly impossible; for there was something indefinite in the atmosphere of the room — something that moved, circling slowly about the barrier.

‘I glanced down at my feet, and saw that the shadow had grown thick about them. I stepped a pace to the right, and as it disappeared, I stared again round the big room and somehow it seemed tremendously big and unfamiliar. I wonder whether you can understand.

‘As I stared I saw again the indefinite something that floated in the air of the room. I watched it steadily for maybe a minute. It went twice completely round the barrier in that time. And, suddenly, I saw it more distinctly. It looked like a small puff of black smoke.

‘And then I had something else to think about; for all at once I was aware of an extraordinary feeling of vertigo, and in the same moment, a sense of sinking — I was sinking bodily. I literally sickened as I glanced down, for I saw in that moment that I had gone down, almost up to my thighs into what appeared to be actually the shadowy, but quite unmistakable, mouth of a pit. Do you under stand? I was sinking down into this thing, with Bains in my arms.

‘A feeling of furious anger came over me, and I swung my right boot forward with a fierce kick. I kicked nothing tangible, for I went clean through the side of the shadowy thing, and fetched up against the table, with a crash. I had come through something that made all my skin creep and tingle — an invisible, vague something which resembled an electric tension. I felt that if it had been stronger, I might not have been able to charge through as I had. I wonder if I make it clear to you?

‘I whirled round, but the beastly thing had gone; yet even as I stood there by the table, the slow greying of a circular shadow began to form again about my feet.

‘I stepped to the other side of the table, and leaned against it for a moment: for I was shaking from head to foot with a feeling of extraordinary horror upon me, that was in some way, different from any kind of horror I have ever felt. It was as if I had in that one moment been near something no human has any right to be near, for his soul’s sake. And abruptly, I wondered whether I had not felt just one brief touch of the horror that the rigid Bains was even then enduring as I held him in my arms.

‘Outside of the barrier there were now several of the curious little clouds. Each one looked exactly like a little puff of black smoke. They............