“As I says, ’tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin’. D’ye know, young Sir, I’m
right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look at it a lot,
especial when I’d heerd Passon Clark rant o’ Sundays in his big wig. Onct I
tried suthin’ funny – here, young Sir, don’t git skeert – all I done was ter
look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market – killin’ sheep was kinder
more fun arter lookin’ at it – ” The tone of the old man now sank very low,
sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to
the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a
rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific
flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer
seemed not to notice it.
“Killin’ sheep was kinder more fun – but d’ye know, ‘twan’t quite satisfyin’.
Queer haow a cravin’ gits a holt on ye – As ye love the Almighty, young man,
don’t tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun to make me hungry fer
victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy – here, set still, what’s ailin’ ye? – I
didn’t do nothin’, only I wondered haow ‘twud be ef I did – They say meat makes
blood an’ flesh, an’ gives ye new life, so I wondered ef ‘twudn’t make a man
live longer an’ longer ef ’twas more the same – ” But the whisperer never
continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly
increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky
solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple though somewhat
unusual happening.
The open book lay flat between us, with the picture staring repulsively upward.
As the old man whispered the words “more the same” a tiny splattering impact was
heard, and something showed on the yellowed paper of the upturned volume. I
thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red. On the butcher’s
shop of the Anzique cannibals a small red spattering glistened picturesquely,
lending vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it, and
stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it necessary; saw it
and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I
followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the
ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread
even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes. A moment
later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting that accursed house
of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion which alone saved my mind.