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- Говард Лавкрафт
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Many
people
will
probably
judge
us
callous
as
well
as
mad
for
thinking
about
the
northward
tunnel
and
the
abyss
so
soon
after
our
somber
discovery
,
and
I
am
not
prepared
to
say
that
we
would
have
immediately
revived
such
thoughts
but
for
a
specific
circumstance
which
broke
in
upon
us
and
set
up
a
whole
new
train
of
speculations
.
We
had
replaced
the
tarpaulin
over
poor
Gedney
and
were
standing
in
a
kind
of
mute
bewilderment
when
the
sounds
finally
reached
our
consciousness
--
the
first
sounds
we
had
heard
since
descending
out
of
the
open
where
the
mountain
wind
whined
faintly
from
its
unearthly
heights
.
Well-known
and
mundane
though
they
were
,
their
presence
in
this
remote
world
of
death
was
more
unexpected
and
unnerving
than
any
grotesque
or
fabulous
tones
could
possibly
have
been
--
since
they
gave
a
fresh
upsetting
to
all
our
notions
of
cosmic
harmony
.
Had
it
been
some
trace
of
that
bizarre
musical
piping
over
a
wide
range
which
Lake
's
dissection
report
had
led
us
to
expect
in
those
others
--
and
which
,
indeed
,
our
overwrought
fancies
had
been
reading
into
every
wind
howl
we
had
heard
since
coming
on
the
camp
horror
--
it
would
have
had
a
kind
of
hellish
congruity
with
the
aeon-dead
region
around
us
.
A
voice
from
other
epochs
belongs
in
a
graveyard
of
other
epochs
.
As
it
was
,
however
,
the
noise
shattered
all
our
profoundly
seated
adjustments
--
all
our
tacit
acceptance
of
the
inner
antarctic
as
a
waste
utterly
and
irrevocably
void
of
every
vestige
of
normal
life
.
What
we
heard
was
not
the
fabulous
note
of
any
buried
blasphemy
of
elder
earth
from
whose
supernal
toughness
an
age-denied
polar
sun
had
evoked
a
monstrous
response
.
Instead
,
it
was
a
thing
so
mockingly
normal
and
so
unerringly
familiarized
by
our
sea
days
off
Victoria
Land
and
our
camp
days
at
McMurdo
Sound
that
we
shuddered
to
think
of
it
here
,
where
such
things
ought
not
to
be
.
To
be
brief
--
it
was
simply
the
raucous
squawking
of
a
penguin
.
The
muffled
sound
floated
from
subglacial
recesses
nearly
opposite
to
the
corridor
whence
we
had
come
--
regions
manifestly
in
the
direction
of
that
other
tunnel
to
the
vast
abyss
.
The
presence
of
a
living
water
bird
in
such
a
direction
--
in
a
world
whose
surface
was
one
of
age-long
and
uniform
lifelessness
--
could
lead
to
only
one
conclusion
;
hence
our
first
thought
was
to
verify
the
objective
reality
of
the
sound
.
It
was
,
indeed
,
repeated
,
and
seemed
at
times
to
come
from
more
than
one
throat
.
Seeking
its
source
,
we
entered
an
archway
from
which
much
debris
had
been
cleared
;
resuming
our
trail
blazing
--
with
an
added
paper
supply
taken
with
curious
repugnance
from
one
of
the
tarpaulin
bundles
on
the
sledges
--
when
we
left
daylight
behind
.
As
the
glaciated
floor
gave
place
to
a
litter
of
detritus
,
we
plainly
discerned
some
curious
,
dragging
tracks
;
and
once
Danforth
found
a
distinct
print
of
a
sort
whose
description
would
be
only
too
superfluous
.
The
course
indicated
by
the
penguin
cries
was
precisely
what
our
map
and
compass
prescribed
as
an
approach
to
the
more
northerly
tunnel
mouth
,
and
we
were
glad
to
find
that
a
bridgeless
thoroughfare
on
the
ground
and
basement
levels
seemed
open
.
The
tunnel
,
according
to
the
chart
,
ought
to
start
from
the
basement
of
a
large
pyramidal
structure
which
we
seemed
vaguely
to
recall
from
our
aerial
survey
as
remarkably
well-preserved
.
Along
our
path
the
single
torch
showed
a
customary
profusion
of
carvings
,
but
we
did
not
pause
to
examine
any
of
these
.
Suddenly
a
bulky
white
shape
loomed
up
ahead
of
us
,
and
we
flashed
on
the
second
torch
.
It
is
odd
how
wholly
this
new
quest
had
turned
our
minds
from
earlier
fears
of
what
might
lurk
near
.
Those
other
ones
,
having
left
their
supplies
in
the
great
circular
place
,
must
have
planned
to
return
after
their
scouting
trip
toward
or
into
the
abyss
;
yet
we
had
now
discarded
all
caution
concerning
them
as
completely
as
if
they
had
never
existed
.
This
white
,
waddling
thing
was
fully
six
feet
high
,
yet
we
seemed
to
realize
at
once
that
it
was
not
one
of
those
others
.
They
were
larger
and
dark
,
and
,
according
to
the
sculptures
,
their
motion
over
land
surfaces
was
a
swift
,
assured
matter
despite
the
queerness
of
their
sea-born
tentacle
equipment
.
But
to
say
that
the
white
thing
did
not
profoundly
frighten
us
would
be
vain
.
We
were
indeed
clutched
for
an
instant
by
primitive
dread
almost
sharper
than
the
worst
of
our
reasoned
fears
regarding
those
others
.
Then
came
a
flash
of
anticlimax
as
the
white
shape
sidled
into
a
lateral
archway
to
our
left
to
join
two
others
of
its
kind
which
had
summoned
it
in
raucous
tones
.
For
it
was
only
a
penguin
--
albeit
of
a
huge
,
unknown
species
larger
than
the
greatest
of
the
known
king
penguins
,
and
monstrous
in
its
combined
albinism
and
virtual
eyelessness
.
When
we
had
followed
the
thing
into
the
archway
and
turned
both
our
torches
on
the
indifferent
and
unheeding
group
of
three
,
we
saw
that
they
were
all
eyeless
albinos
of
the
same
unknown
and
gigantic
species
.
Their
size
reminded
us
of
some
of
the
archaic
penguins
depicted
in
the
Old
Ones
'
sculptures
,
and
it
did
not
take
us
long
to
conclude
that
they
were
descended
from
the
same
stock
--
undoubtedly
surviving
through
a
retreat
to
some
warmer
inner
region
whose
perpetual
blackness
had
destroyed
their
pigmentation
and
atrophied
their
eyes
to
mere
useless
slits
.
That
their
present
habitat
was
the
vast
abyss
we
sought
,
was
not
for
a
moment
to
be
doubted
;
and
this
evidence
of
the
gulf
's
continued
warmth
and
habitability
filled
us
with
the
most
curious
and
subtly
perturbing
fancies
.
We
wondered
,
too
,
what
had
caused
these
three
birds
to
venture
out
of
their
usual
domain
.
The
state
and
silence
of
the
great
dead
city
made
it
clear
that
it
had
at
no
time
been
an
habitual
seasonal
rookery
,
whilst
the
manifest
indifference
of
the
trio
to
our
presence
made
it
seem
odd
that
any
passing
party
of
those
others
should
have
startled
them
.
Was
it
possible
that
those
others
had
taken
some
aggressive
action
or
tried
to
increase
their
meat
supply
?
We
doubted
whether
that
pungent
odor
which
the
dogs
had
hated
could
cause
an
equal
antipathy
in
these
penguins
,
since
their
ancestors
had
obviously
lived
on
excellent
terms
with
the
Old
Ones
--
an
amicable
relationship
which
must
have
survived
in
the
abyss
below
as
long
as
any
of
the
Old
Ones
remained
.
Regretting
--
in
a
flare-up
of
the
old
spirit
of
pure
science
--
that
we
could
not
photograph
these
anomalous
creatures
,
we
shortly
left
them
to
their
squawking
and
pushed
on
toward
the
abyss
whose
openness
was
now
so
positively
proved
to
us
,
and
whose
exact
direction
occasional
penguin
tracks
made
clear
.
Not
long
afterward
a
steep
descent
in
a
long
,
low
,
doorless
,
and
peculiarly
sculptureless
corridor
led
us
to
believe
that
we
were
approaching
the
tunnel
mouth
at
last
.
We
had
passed
two
more
penguins
,
and
heard
others
immediately
ahead
.
Then
the
corridor
ended
in
a
prodigious
open
space
which
made
us
gasp
involuntarily
--
a
perfect
inverted
hemisphere
,
obviously
deep
underground
;
fully
a
hundred
feet
in
diameter
and
fifty
feet
high
,
with
low
archways
opening
around
all
parts
of
the
circumference
but
one
,
and
that
one
yawning
cavernously
with
a
black
,
arched
aperture
which
broke
the
symmetry
of
the
vault
to
a
height
of
nearly
fifteen
feet
.
