The Sea Of Sleep

: The House On The Borderland

For a considerable period after the last incident which I have narrated

in my diary, I had serious thoughts of leaving this house, and might

have done so; but for the great and wonderful thing, of which I am

about to write.



How well I was advised, in my heart, when I stayed on here--spite of

those visions and sights of unknown and unexplainable things; for, had I

not stayed, then I had not seen again the ace of her I loved. Yes,

though few know it, none now save my sister Mary, I have loved and,

ah! me--lost.



I would write down the story of those sweet, old days; but it would be

like the tearing of old wounds; yet, after that which has happened, what

need have I to care? For she has come to me out of the unknown.

Strangely, she warned me; warned me passionately against this house;

begged me to leave it; but admitted, when I questioned her, that she

could not have come to me, had I been elsewhere. Yet, in spite of this,

still she warned me, earnestly; telling me that it was a place, long

ago given over to evil, and under the power of grim laws, of which none

here have knowledge. And I--I just asked her, again, whether she would

come to me elsewhere, and she could only stand, silent.



It was thus, that I came to the place of the Sea of Sleep--so she

termed it, in her dear speech with me. I had stayed up, in my study,

reading; and must have dozed over the book. Suddenly, I awoke and sat

upright, with a start. For a moment, I looked 'round, with a puzzled

sense of something unusual. There was a misty look about the room,

giving a curious softness to each table and chair and furnishing.



Gradually, the mistiness increased; growing, as it were, out of

nothing. Then, slowly, a soft, white light began to glow in the room.

The flames of the candles shone through it, palely. I looked from side

to side, and found that I could still see each piece of furniture; but

in a strangely unreal way, more as though the ghost of each table and

chair had taken the place of the solid article.



Gradually, as I looked, I saw them fade and fade; until, slowly, they

resolved into nothingness. Now, I looked again at the candles. They

shone wanly, and, even as I watched, grew more unreal, and so vanished.

The room was filled, now, with a soft, yet luminous, white twilight,

like a gentle mist of light. Beyond this, I could see nothing. Even the

walls had vanished.



Presently, I became conscious that a faint, continuous sound, pulsed

through the silence that wrapped me. I listened intently. It grew more

distinct, until it appeared to me that I harked to the breathings of

some great sea. I cannot tell how long a space passed thus; but, after a

while, it seemed that I could see through the mistiness; and, slowly, I

became aware that I was standing upon the shore of an immense and silent

sea. This shore was smooth and long, vanishing to right and left of me,

in extreme distances. In front, swam a still immensity of sleeping

ocean. At times, it seemed to me that I caught a faint glimmer of light,

under its surface; but of this, I could not be sure. Behind me, rose up,

to an extraordinary height, gaunt, black cliffs.



Overhead, the sky was of a uniform cold grey color--the whole place

being lit by a stupendous globe of pale fire, that swam a little above

the far horizon, and shed a foamlike light above the quiet waters.



Beyond the gentle murmur of the sea, an intense stillness prevailed.

For a long while, I stayed there, looking out across its strangeness.

Then, as I stared, it seemed that a bubble of white foam floated up out

of the depths, and then, even now I know not how it was, I was looking

upon, nay, looking into the face of Her--aye! into her face--into her

soul; and she looked back at me, with such a commingling of joy and

sadness, that I ran toward her, blindly; crying strangely to her, in a

very agony of remembrance, of terror, and of hope, to come to me. Yet,

spite of my crying, she stayed out there upon the sea, and only shook

her head, sorrowfully; but, in her eyes was the old earth-light of

tenderness, that I had come to know, before all things, ere we

were parted.



"At her perverseness, I grew desperate, and essayed to wade out to her;

yet, though I would, I could not. Something, some invisible barrier,

held me back, and I was fain to stay where I was, and cry out to her in

the fullness of my soul, 'O, my Darling, my Darling--' but could say no

more, for very intensity. And, at that, she came over, swiftly, and

touched me, and it was as though heaven had opened. Yet, when I reached

out my hands to her, she put me from her with tenderly stern hands, and

I was abashed--"







THE FRAGMENTS



(The legible portions of the mutilated leaves.)



... through tears ... noise of eternity in my ears, we parted ... She

whom I love. O, my God ...!



I was a great time dazed, and then I was alone in the blackness of the

night. I knew that I journeyed back, once more, to the known universe.

Presently, I emerged from that enormous darkness. I had come among the

stars ... vast time ... the sun, far and remote.



I entered into the gulf that separates our system from the outer suns.

As I sped across the dividing dark, I watched, steadily, the

ever-growing brightness and size of our sun. Once, I glanced back to the

stars, and saw them shift, as it were, in my wake, against the mighty

background of night, so vast was the speed of my passing spirit.



I drew nigher to our system, and now I could see the shine of Jupiter.

Later, I distinguished the cold, blue gleam of the earthlight.... I had

a moment of bewilderment. All about the sun there seemed to be bright,

objects, moving in rapid orbits. Inward, nigh to the savage glory of the

sun, there circled two darting points of light, and, further off, there

flew a blue, shining speck, that I knew to be the earth. It circled the

sun in a space that seemed to be no more than an earth-minute.



... nearer with great speed. I saw the radiances of Jupiter and

Saturn, spinning, with incredible swiftness, in huge orbits. And ever I

drew more nigh, and looked out upon this strange sight--the visible

circling of the planets about the mother sun. It was as though time had

been annihilated for me; so that a year was no more to my unfleshed

spirit, than is a moment to an earth-bound soul.



The speed of the planets, appeared to increase; and, presently, I was

watching the sun, all ringed about with hair-like circles of different

colored fire--the paths of the planets, hurtling at mighty speed, about

the central flame....



"... the sun grew vast, as though it leapt to meet me.... And now I was

within the circling of the outer planets, and flitting swiftly, toward

the place where the earth, glimmering through the blue splendor of its

orbit, as though a fiery mist, circled the sun at a monstrous

speed...."