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nothin' - - they know naow - - Run fer it - - quick - - aout o' this taown - -"
Another heavy wave dashed against the loosing masonry of the bygone wharf, and changed the mad
ancient's whisper to another inhuman and blood-curdling scream. "E-yaahhhh! . . . Yheaaaaaa!. . ."
Before I could recover my scattered wits he had relaxed his clutch on my shoulder and dashed
wildly inland toward the street, reeling northward around the ruined warehouse wall.
I glanced back at the sea, but there was nothing there. And when I reached Water Street and looked
along it toward the north there was no remaining trace of Zadok Allen.
I V
I can hardly describe the mood in which I was left by this harrowing episode - - an episode at
once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying. The grocery boy had prepared me for it, yet the
reality left me none the less bewildered and disturbed. Puerile though the story was, old Zadok's
insane earnestness and horror had communicated to me a mounting unrest which joined with my
earlier sense of loathing for the town and its blight of intangible shadow.
Later I might sift the tale and extract some nucleus of historic allegory; just now I wished to
put it out of my head. The hour grown perilously late - - my watch said 7:15, and the Arkham bus
left Town Square at eight - - so I tied to give my thoughts as neutral and practical a cast as
possible, meanwhile walking rapidly through the deserted streets of gaping roofs and leaning
houses toward the hotel where I had checked my valise and would find my bus.
Though the golden light of late afternoon gave the ancient roofs and decrepit chimneys an air of
mystic loveliness and peace, I could not help glancing over my shoulder now and then. I would
surely be very glad to get out of malodorous and fear-shadowed Innsmouth, and wished there were
some other vehicle than the bus driven by that sinister-looking fellow Sargent. Yet I did not
hurry too precipitately, for there were architectural details worth viewing at every dent corner;
and I could easily, I calculated, cover the necessary distance in a half-hour.
Studying the grocery youth's map and seeking a route I had not traversed before, I chose Marsh
Street instead of State for my approach to Town Square. Near the corner of Fall street I began to
see scattered groups of furtive whisperers, and when I finally reached the Square I saw that
almost all the loiterers were congregated around the door of the Gilman House. It seemed as if
many bulging, watery, unwinking eyes looked oddly at me as I claimed my valise in the lobby, and I
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hoped that none of these unpleasant creatures would be my fellow-passengers on the coach.
The bus, rather early, rattled in with three passengers somewhat before eight, and an evil-looking
fellow on the sidewalk muttered a few indistinguishable words to the driver. Sargent threw out a
mail-bag and a roll of newspapers, and entered the hotel; while the passengers - - the same men
whom I had seen arriving in Newburyport that morning - - shambled to the sidewalk and exchanged
some faint guttural words with a loafer in a language I could have sworn was not English. I
boarded the empty coach and took the seat I had taken before, but was hardly settled before
Sargent re-appeared and began mumbling in a throaty voice of paculiar repulsiveness.
I was, it appeared, in very bad luck. There had been something wrong with the engine, despite the
excellent time made from Newburyport, and the bus could not complete the journey to Arkham. No,
it could not possibly be repaired that night, nor was there any other way of getting
transportation out of Innsmouth either to Arkham or elsewhere. Sargent was sorry, but I would have
to stop over at the Gilman. Probably the clerk would make the price easy for me, but there was
nothing else to do. Almost dazed by this sudden obstacle, and violently dreading the fall of night
in this decaying and half-unlighted town, I left the bus and reentered the hotel lobby; where the
sullen queer-looking night clerk told me I could have Room 428 on next the top floor - - large,
but without running water - - for a dollar.
Despite what I had heard of this hotel in Newburyport, I signed the register, paid my dollar, let
the clerk take my valise, and followed that sour, solitary attendant up three creaking flights of
stairs past dusty corridors which seemed wholly devoid of life. My room was a dismal rear one
with two windows and bare, cheap furnishings, overlooked a dingy court-yard otherwise hemmed in by
low, deserted brick blocks, and commanded a view of decrepit westward-stretching roofs with a
marshy countryside beyond. At the end of the corridor was a bathroom - - a discouraging relique
with ancient marble bowl, tin tub, faint electric light, and musty wooded paneling around all the
plumbing fixtures.
It being still daylight, I descended to the Square and looked around for a dinner of some sort;
noticing as I did so the strange glances I received from the unwholesome loafers. Since the
grocery was closed, I was forced to patronise the restaurant I had shunned before; a stooped,
narrow-headed man with staring, unwinking eyes, and a flat-nosed wench with unbelievably thick,
clumsy hands being in attendance. The service was all of the counter type, and it relieved me to
find that much was evidently served from cans and packages. A bowl of vegetable soup with crackers
was enough for me, and I soon headed back for my cheerless roam at the Gilman; getting a evening
paper and a fly-specked magazine from the evil-visaged clerk at the rickety stand beside his desk.
As twilight deepened I turned on the one feeble electric bulb over the cheap, iorn-framed bed, and
tried as best I could to continue the reading I had begun. I felt it advisable to keep my mind
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