The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos Read Online Free PDF

ever since reading through the old records in the Penzance library.
    Whatever had taken place whenever one of my ancestors had died, they had never been buried here nor, it seemed, were their deaths ever recorded anywhere!
    Closing the vault behind us, we retraced our steps in silence, mystified by our grim discovery, pondering on any possible explanation for this curious state of affairs.
    By some misjudgement of our direction we emerged from the trees, not at the point where we had earlier entered, but close to the cliff edge with the surf pounding onto the rocks directly below. Thus it was we approached the house at an angle from the rear and, as I have intimated earlier, Ambrose’s keen antiquarian eye noticed an odd peculiarity. He drew my attention to it at once.
    At the back of the house, midway between two turrets and obviously forming part of the upper floor, an oblong abutment jutted from the wall, standing out for perhaps ten feet. Although it would have been completely invisible from any other direction, it was obvious from where we stood.
    There could be only one answer. Somewhere at the end of the long upper corridor was a concealed room. That it wasn’t the most ancient part of the house seemed highly significant.
    Now convinced that this had to be the room my uncle had written of, we hurriedly made our way inside and up the wide stairway to the upper floor. Had we not known the room was there, it is extremely unlikely we would ever have found it, for the means of opening the concealed door was well hidden among the embossed carving on the wall. It took several minutes of painstaking examination of these carvings before Ambrose uttered a sharp exclamation as his questing fingers depressed a small, insignificant portion of the design.
    What hidden mechanism controlled the opening and closing of the door we could not tell, for it slid snugly into a narrow cavity in the wall. But from the smooth, silent way it moved, I guessed it had been in use on several previous occasions.
    The room was small and cramped, yet it was just possible for both of us to stand side by side with our heads scraping the low ceiling. There were no windows, nor had we really expected to find any. By the torchlight we saw that the room was completely empty except for the object that stood against the far wall. It was indeed the clock mentioned by my uncle, yet it presented the most singular appearance, for it was totally unlike any I had ever seen.
    It was about nine feet tall, roughly oblong in shape, rather like a grandfather clock. Yet there the resemblance ended. It bore a large oval face with but a single pointer, and around the circumference were all manner of repulsive figures, interspersed with drawings of the sun and moon and planets. The case was not of wood but some kind of black metal, which did not reflect the light from the torch. And although we carried out a minute and meticulous examination of the entire surface, we could discover no means of opening the case to determine what sort of mechanism operated it.
    By this time, the most horrifying conclusions were pushing their way into my mind, but all without any logic to them. That there had to be some connecting link between all of the weird and seemingly inexplicable facts I had ascertained seemed obvious. Some concealed thread wove continuously through the twisted fabric of myth, ancient belief, and genuine reality. I had the feeling it lay right under my nose, but I could not see it.
    Ambrose would have remained longer in the room, for he was clearly fascinated by the clock. At the time, I thought it was because it represented a challenge to him, defying him to probe its secrets. Now I know better, for I think, in retrospect, it was this object that drove him to his final act of destruction and left me to face a hideous end.
    I finally persuaded him to leave it for the time being, and after closing the door by depressing the same motif, we went downstairs and prepared