Haggopian and Other Stories

For the second time a feverish excitement made itself apparent in Haggopian’s voice and attitude; and again his agitation showed as his whole body trembled, seemingly in the grip of massive, barely repressed emotions.

“Did you know,” he suddenly burst out, “that in 1928 Innsmouth was purged by Federal agents? Purged of what, I ask you? And why were depth-charges dropped off Devil’s Reef? It was after this blasting and following the storms of 1930 that many oddly fashioned articles of golden jewellery were washed up on the New England beaches; and at the same time those black, broken, horribly hieroglyphed stones began to be noticed and picked up by beachcombers!

“Iä-R’lyeh! What monstrous things lurk even now in the ocean depths, Belton, and what other things return to that cradle of Earthly life?”

Abruptly he stood up to begin pacing the patio in his swaying, clumsy lope, mumbling gutturally and incoherently to himself and casting occasional glances in my direction where I sat, very disturbed now by his obviously aberrant mental condition, at the table.

At that distinct moment of time, had there been any easy means of escape, I believe I might quite happily have given up all to be off Haggopiana. I could see no such avenue of egress, however, and so I nervously waited until the Armenian had calmed himself sufficiently to resume his seat. Again moisture was seeping in a slow trickle from beneath the dark lenses, and once more he drank of the unknown liquid in his glass before continuing:

“Once more I ask you to accept my apologies, Mr. Belton, and I crave your pardon for straying so wildly from the principal facts. I was speaking before of my book, Denizens of the Deep, and of my dissatisfaction with certain chapters. Well, when finally my interest in New England’s shores and mysteries waned, I returned to that book, and especially to a chapter concerning ocean parasites. I wanted to compare this specific branch of the sea’s creatures with its land-going counterpart, and to introduce, as I had in my other chapters, oceanic myths and legends that I might attempt to explain them away.

“Of course, I was limited by the fact that the sea cannot boast so large a number of parasitic creatures as the land. Why, almost every land-going animal—bird and insect included—has its own little familiar living in its hair or feathers or feeding upon it in some parasitic fashion or other.

“Nonetheless I dealt with the hagfish and lamprey, with certain species of fish-leech and whale-lice, and I compared them with fresh-water leeches, types of tapeworm, fungi and so on. Now, you might be tempted to believe that there is too great a difference between sea- and land-dwellers, and of course in a way there is—but when one considers that all life as we know it sprang originally from the sea…?”

“When I think now, Mr. Belton, of the vampire in legend, occult belief and supernatural fiction—how the monster brings about hideous changes and deteriorations in his victim until that victim dies and then returns as a vampire himself—then I wonder what mad fates drove me on. And yet how was I to know, how could any man foresee…?

“But there—I anticipate, and that will not do. My revelation must come in its own time, you must be prepared, despite your assurances that you are not easily frightened.

“In 1956 I was exploring the seas of the Solomon Islands in a yacht with a crew of seven. We had moored for the night on a beautiful uninhabited little island off San Cristobal, and the next morning, as my men were de-camping and preparing the yacht for sea, I walked along the beach looking for conches. Stranded in a pool by the tide I saw a great shark, its gills barely in the water and its rough back and dorsal actually breaking the surface. I was sorry for the creature, of course, and even more so when I saw that it had fastened to its belly one of those very bloodsuckers with which I was still concerned. Not only that, but the hagfish was a beauty! Four feet long if it was an inch and definitely of a type I had never seen before. By that time Denizens of the Deep was almost ready, and but for that chapter I have already mentioned the book would have been at the printer’s long since.

“Well, I could not waste the time it would take to tow the shark to deeper waters, but none the less I felt sorry for the great fish. I had one of my men put it out of its misery with a rifle. Goodness knows how long the parasite had fed on its juices, gradually weakening it until it had become merely a toy of the tides.

“As for the hagfish, he was to come with us! Aboard my yacht I had plenty of tanks to take bigger fish than him, and of course I wanted to study him and include a mention of him in my book.