That Which Should Not Be Read Free Page A

the rest.  Word of Ashcroft’s fate had reached Arkham, but not the details.  Henry appeared to have them, and their curiosity was irrepressible.
    “The British,” he continued, “passed Ashcroft off to an American clipper ship rounding the Horn from San Francisco en route to Boston.  The ship’s doctor attempted, as best he could, to learn what had befallen Ashcroft and his men.  To learn the fate of the thirty-nine who had set out across that ice-locked desert.  But whatever ailed Ashcroft was beyond his feeble talents, and the words that streamed from his gibbering lips were as ineffable as the shroud of horror that hung like a mask upon his face.”
    “Tell me Henry,” I said, interrupting, “how is it that you know of all this?  I have followed the news of Ashcroft’s disappearance and rescue and learned no more than the barest details.  Yet, you seem to know it all.”
    “Yes, Henry,” said one of the others, “is this just one of your stories?  An imagined tale for our amusement?”
    Henry looked up at me as he held his pipe between his teeth and smiled. 
    “My dear Carter,” he said between puffs of smoke, “patience is indeed a virtue you lack.  But if you will allow me a moment, I will explain.  This is no idle talk, and if you open your mind you may yet learn much about the ageless and ancient worlds that predate our own.”
    I merely nodded, and he continued.
    “I know of what I speak, my good friends, because Dr. Ashcroft was moved from Boston to the Arkham Asylum two weeks ago.  He lies not three miles from where we now sit.  The learned men of Boston could make nothing of his ravings, but those doctors of Arkham, bred and trained at fairest Miskatonic, their minds are not closed to the sprawling mysteries that engulf us.  From Dr. Ashcroft’s seemingly mad ramblings, they drew forth a story, one which I will now relay.
    “Dr. Ashcroft and his men set forth across the wasteland of the Antarctic with more than sufficient supplies to reach their goal, the southern pole.  They would attempt a more southerly route than the expeditions before them, bypassing the Dome Argus where so many men have lost their lives.  It was in that uncharted, cold waste that Dr. Ashcroft met his destiny.  He should have known, he said, to turn back when he and his men came upon a mountain range where no mountains should be.  He should have seen that something had gone horribly wrong.  That the expedition had stepped into a world that presented impossibilities that ours does not hold.  But when he viewed those peaks whose crest would look down upon the mountains of the Kathmandu, he saw nothing but an obstacle to be conquered.  So he began his ascent, and his men began to die.”
    Henry paused then, for his pipe had extinguished.  He struck a match, and as it flared, the light illuminated the room which had gone dark, casting for a brief moment furtive shadows that seemed to be watching us before darting back into the darkness. 
    “Every day they would climb, and each night they would make camp on the slopes of those fearful mountains.  And then the light of the pallid sun would peak over the Antarctic horizon to show a camp of fewer men than when it had left them the night before.  Some would simply disappear, perhaps stumbling off to their death in the cold waste, driven mad by the chill that could be beaten back but never defeated.  Strange, then, that they left no footprints to mark their passing.  Unusual that their tents were in perfect order.  
    “But not all the tragedy that befell Ashcroft’s men was unexplained.  Any attempting such an ascent would face mortal dangers.  And on an uncharted slope those dangers were compounded by the unknown.  How many fell into a yawning abyss, crevices that would appear and then seal themselves in seconds, entombing the screaming man below in eternal silence?  Only Ashcroft knows, I suppose.  But what we know is this — within a week,