The Shadow over Innsmouth / Морок над Инсмутом

He says they brung us fish an’ treasure, an’ shud hev what they hankered arter…

“Nothin’ was to be diff’runt on the aoutside, only we was to keep shy o’ strangers ef we knowed what was good fer us. We all hed to take the Oath o’ Dagon, an’ later on they was secon’ an’ third Oaths that some on us took. Them as ud help special, ud git special rewards – gold an’ sech- No use balkin’, fer they was millions of ’em daown thar. They’d ruther not start risin’ an’ wipin’ aout humankind, but ef they was gave away an’ forced to, they cud do a lot toward jest that.

We didn’t hev them old charms to cut ’em off like folks in the Saouth Sea did, an’ them Kanakys wudn’t never give away their secrets.

“Yield up enough sacrifices an’ savage knick-knacks an’ harbourage in the taown when they wanted it, an’ they’d let well enough alone. Wudn’t bother no strangers as might bear tales aoutside – that is, withaout they got pryin’. All in the band of the faithful – Order o’ Dagon – an’ the children shud never die, but go back to the Mother Hydra an’ Father Dagon what we all come from onct – Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn-”

Old Zadok was fast lapsing into stark raving, and I held my breath.

Poor old soul – to what pitiful depths of hallucination had his liquor, plus his hatred of the decay, alienage, and disease around him, brought that fertile, imaginative brain! He began to moan now, and tears were coursing down his channelled cheeks into the depths of his beard.

“God, what I seen senct I was fifteen year’ old – Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin! – the folks as was missin’, an’ them as kilt theirselves – them as told things in Arkham or Ipswich or sech places was all called crazy, like you’re a-callin’ me right naow – but God, what I seen- They’d a kilt me long ago fer what I know, only I’d took the fust an’ secon’ Oaths o’ Dagon offen Obed, so was pertected unlessen a jury of ’em proved I told things knowin’ an’ delib’rit… but I wudn’t take the third Oath – I’d a died ruther’n take that-

“It got wuss araound Civil War time, when children born senct ’forty-six begun to grow up – some of ’em, that is.

I was afeard – never did no pryin’ arter that awful night, an’ never see one of – them – clost to in all my life. That is, never no full-blooded one.