The Mountains Of Madness
Part 2

They're not even savages — because of what they've done? Horrible awakening in the coldness of that unknown age — may be an attack by a four-legged beast, barking frantically, <TAG1>, and a confused defense against them and a white simian who is just as frantic as strange wrappers and fixtures. . . Poor Lake, poor Gedney . . and poor Old Man! Scientists until the end of — what have they done that we will not do in their place? God, great intelligence and perseverance! What an incredible face, just as the relatives and the well-carved man faced things that were just a little less incredible! Emitting radiation, vegetables, monsters, star-eggs — whatever they are, man!

They had crossed the ice peaks that had pointed slopes they had once worshipped and explored among the fern trees. They found their dead city brooding under its curse, and have read its carvings the last few days as we have done. They have been trying to reach people living in the darkness that they have never seen — and what have they found? All of this flashed simultaneously through Danforth and I's thinking as we looked at it from a headless form, the slime-coated ones to the disgusting palimpsest statues and the evil dot groups of fresh slime on the wall beside them — looked and understood what must have won. And survive there, in the Cyclopean water town in the overnight gorge of the penguin, who, where even now the sinister curly mist began to belch palely as if in response to Danforth's hysterical scream.

The shock realized that the fierce and headless slime had frozen us into mute, motionless statues, and it was only through subsequent conversations that we learned about the complete identity of our thoughts at the time. It seemed to have been a long time since we were standing there, but in truth it couldn't have been more than ten or fifteen seconds. That hateful and pale fog curved forward as if it was actually pushed by some people who were much more advanced — and then came a sound that disappointed many of what just now we decide, and thus break the spell and allow us to run like the raging past, confused the penguins on top of our former trail back to the city, along the megalithic corridors are concave ice to a large open circle, and up the ancient spiral staircase in an automatic plunge of frenzy for sane outdoor air and day light.

That new voice, as I have already put it, greatly irritated us; for that is what the unfortunate Lake dissection has led us to connect it with the people we have just put to death. That, Danforth then told me, exactly what he had captured in an infinitely muffled form when in that place outside the corner of the alley above the glacier level; and it certainly bears a surprising resemblance to the wind pipe we both heard around the tall mountain cave. At risk it seems like I would have added something else as well; if only because of the surprising way Danforth's impression chimed with me. Of course the general reading is what prepares the two of us to make an interpretation, although Danforth has hinted at a strange idea of the unexpected and illicit sources that Poe might have accessed when writing his Arthur Gordon Pym a century ago. It must be remembered that in that fantastic tale there is an unknown word but of terrible and extraordinary significance associated with Antarctica and screamed forever by the spectral snowy giant bird of the core of the evil realm that's. “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" I admit, that's exactly what we thought we heard delivered by the sudden noise behind the advancing white mist that was — dangerous music sounds that enveloped a very wide range.

Then, noting that we actually got our pursuers, it occurred to us that the entity might be hurt. However, we were unable to take the risk, as it very clearly approached to answer Danforth's shout rather than flying from any other entity. The time is too close to admit any doubt. About the existence of a less plausible and less mentionable nightmare that — protoplasmic mountains spewing out slime and unbranched whose races have conquered the abyss and sent the land pioneers to carve back and wriggling through the burrow of the hills — we can't guess; and it makes us have to go to great lengths to leave this disabled Old One — perhaps a lone survivor — at the risk of being recaptured and a nameless fate.

Thank goodness we didn't relax our journey. The curving mist had thickened again, and was speeding up; while the penguins straying behind us were clucking, screaming, screaming, and it showed signs of panic that were really shocking given their relatively small confusion as we passed them. Once again comes the spooky and spacious piping it— “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" We're mistaken. The object was unharmed, but only stopped when it found the corpses of the fallen families and the slime writing of hell above them. We never knew what the daemon message was — but burials at Lake camp have shown how important living beings are attached to their deaths. Our reckless torches are now revealed in front of us a large open cavern where various ways meet, he said, and we are happy to leave those terrible palimpsest statues — almost felt even when rarely seen — behind.