Again I say, I do not know what has become
of Harley Warren, though I think
almost hope—that he is in peaceful oblivion,
 if there be anywhere so blessed a thing.
It is true that I have for five years been his closest friend,
 and a partial sharer of his terrible researches into the unknown.
I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct,
that this witness of yours may have seen us
together as he says, on the Gainsville pike,
walking toward Big Cypress Swamp,
 at half past 11 on that awful night.
That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil
 of wire with attached instruments, I will even affirm;
for these things all played a part
 in the single hideous scene
which remains burned into my shaken recollection.
But of what followed, and of the reason I was found alone 
and dazed on the edge of the swamp next morning,
I must insist that I know nothing
save what I have told you over and over again.
You say to me that there is nothing in the swamp or near it
which could form the setting
for that frightful episode.
I reply that I knew nothing beyond what I saw. 
Vision or nightmare it may have been—
vision or nightmare I fervently hope it was
yet it is all that my mind retains
 of what took place in those 
shocking hours after we left the sight of men.
And why Harley Warren did not return,
he or his shade—or some nameless thing I
cannot describe—alone can tell.
As I have said before, the weird studies of
Harley Warren were well known to me,
and to some extent shared by me.
Of his vast collection of strange, 
rare books on forbidden subjects
I have read all that are written
 in the languages of which I am master;
but these are few as compared with 
those in languages I cannot understand.
Most, I believe, are in Arabic; 
and the fiend-inspired book which brought on the end
—the book which he carried in his pocket out of the world
—was written in characters whose like I never saw elsewhere.
Warren would never tell me just what was in that book.
 As to the nature of our studies
—I must say again that I no longer retain full comprehension
It seems to me rather merciful that I do not,
for they were terrible studies, which I pursued
more through reluctant fascination
than through actual inclination.
Warren always dominated me,
 and sometimes I feared him.
I remember how I shuddered at his facial expression on
the night before the awful happening,
when he talked so incessantly of his theory,
why certain corpses never decay, 
but rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years.
But I do not fear him now,
 for I suspect that he has known horrors beyond my kin.
Now I fear for him.
Once more I say that I have no clear idea
of our subject that night.
Certainly, it had much to do with something in the 
book which Warren carried with him
—that ancient book in undecipherable characters which had
come to him from India a month before
—but I swear I do not know what it was that we
expected to find. Your witness says he saw us
at half past 11 on the Gainsville pike,
headed for Big Cypress Swamp.
This is probably true, but I have no distinct memory of it.
The picture seared into my soul
is of one scene only, and the hour must have been long
after midnight; for a waning crescent moon
was high in the vaporous heavens.
The place was an ancient cemetery; so ancient
that I trembled at the manifold signs of immemorial years.
It was in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown
with rank grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds,
and filled with a vague stench which
my idle fancy associated absurdly with rotting stone.
On every hand were the signs of neglect
and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted by the notion
that Warren and I were the first living
creatures to invade a lethal silence of centuries.
Over the valley's rim a wan, waning crescent
moon peered through the noisome vapors that
seemed to emanate from unheard of catacombs,
and by its feeble, wavering beams I could distinguish
a repellent array of antique slabs,
urns, cenotaphs, and mausoleum facades;
all crumbling, moss-grown, and moisture-stained,
and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance
of the unhealthy vegetation.
My first vivid impression of my own presence
in this terrible necropolis
concerns the act of pausing with Warren 
before a certain half-obliterated sepulcher
and of throwing down some burdens
 which we seemed to have been carrying.
Now I 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After an interval, however, we approached the pit again, 
and found the exhalations less unbearable.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
I tell you, you can't imagine what the thing is really like!
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!"
I can still hear, in memory, those coolly
spoken words; and I can still remember my remonstrances.
I seemed desperately anxious to accompany 
my friend into those sepulchral depths,
yet he proved inflexibly obdurate.
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.
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.
At his nod I took one of the
 latter and seated myself
upon an aged, discolored gravestone
by the newly uncovered aperture.
Then he shook my hand,
 shouldered the coil of wire,
and disappeared
 within that indescribable ossuary.
