Заявление Рэндольфа Картера [with w_cat] - [2]

[26] I now observed that I had with me an electric lantern and two spades, whilst my companion was supplied with a similar lantern and a portable telephone outfit.

[27] No word was uttered, for the spot and the task seemed known to us; and without delay we seized our spades and commenced to clear away the grass, weeds, and drifted earth from the flat, archaic mortuary.

[28] After uncovering the entire surface, which consisted of three immense granite slabs, we stepped back some distance to survey the charnel scene; and Warren appeared to make some mental calculations.

[29] Then he returned to the sepulcher, and using his spade as a lever, sought to pry up the slab lying nearest to a stony ruin which may have been a monument in its day.

[30] He did not succeed, and motioned to me to come to his assistance. Finally our combined strength loosened the stone, which we raised and tipped to one side.

[31] The removal of the slab revealed a black aperture, from which rushed an effluence of miasmal gases so nauseous that we started back in horror.

[32] After an interval, however, we approached the pit again, and found the exhalations less unbearable.

[33] Our lanterns disclosed the top of a flight of stone steps, dripping with some detestable ichor of the inner earth, and bordered by moist walls encrusted with niter.

[34] And now for the first time my memory records verbal discourse, Warren addressing me at length in his mellow tenor voice; a voice singularly unperturbed by our awesome surroundings.

[35] "I'm sorry to have to ask you to stay on the surface," he said, "but it would be a crime to let anyone with your frail nerves go down there.

[36] You can't imagine, even from what you have read and from what I've told you, the things I shall have to see and do. It's fiendish work, Carter, and I doubt if any man without ironclad sensibilities could ever see it through and come up alive and sane.

[37] I don't wish to offend you, and Heaven knows I'd be glad enough to have you with me; but the responsibility is in a certain sense mine, and I couldn't drag a bundle of nerves like you down to probable death or madness.

[38] I tell you, you can't imagine what the thing is really like!

[39] But I promise to keep you informed over the telephone of every move—you see I've enough wire here to reach to the center of the earth and back!"

[40] I can still hear, in memory, those coolly spoken words; and I can still remember my remonstrances.

[41] I seemed desperately anxious to accompany my friend into those sepulchral depths, yet he proved inflexibly obdurate.

[42] At one time he threatened to abandon the expedition if I remained insistent; a threat which proved effective, since he alone held the key to the thing.

[43] All this I can still remember, though I no longer know what manner of thing we sought.

After he had obtained my reluctant acquiescence in his design, Warren picked up the reel of wire and adjusted the instruments.

[44] At his nod I took one of the latter and seated myself upon an aged, discolored gravestone close by the newly uncovered aperture.

[45] Then he shook my hand, shouldered the coil of wire, and disappeared within that indescribable ossuary.

[46] For a minute I kept sight of the glow of his lantern, and heard the rustle of the wire as he laid it down after him; but the glow soon disappeared abruptly, as if a turn in the stone staircase had been encountered, and the sound died away almost as quickly.

[47] I was alone, yet bound to the unknown depths by those magic strands whose insulated surface lay green beneath the struggling beams of that waning crescent moon.

[48] I constantly consulted my watch by the light of my electric lantern, and listened with feverish anxiety at the receiver of the telephone; but for more than a quarter of an hour heard nothing.

[49] Then a faint clicking came from the instrument, and I called down to my friend in a tense voice.

[50] Apprehensive as I was, I was nevertheless unprepared for the words which came up from that uncanny vault in accents more alarmed and quivering than any I had heard before from Harley Warren.

[51] He who had so calmly left me a little while previously, now called from below in a shaky whisper more portentous than the loudest shriek:

[52] "God! If you could see what I am seeing!"

[53] I could not answer. Speechless, I could only wait. Then came the frenzied tones again:

[54] "Carter, it's terrible—monstrous—unbelievable!"

[55] This time my voice did not fail me, and I poured into the transmitter a flood of excited questions. Terrified, I continued to repeat, " Warren , what is it? What is it?"

[56] Once more came the voice of my friend, still hoarse with fear, and now apparently tinged with despair:

[57] "I can't tell you, Carter! It's too utterly beyond thought—I dare not tell you—no man could know it and live—Great God! I never dreamed of this!"

[58] Stillness again, save for my now incoherent torrent of shuddering inquiry. Then the voice of Warren in a pitch of wilder consternation: