Chapter 1: A Harrowing Tale

September 4th, 1857

The extraordinary series of events I have undertaken to document within these pages were relayed to me by a mariner and long-time acquaintance going by the name of Starkweather. He, in his vocation as rigger’s mate upon a ship of Her Majesty’s navy had been told the tale as you will read it here by a Captain of some renown whom he had served under.[image error]

                The Captain, Cross by name, of whose credibility and upstanding reputation I am steadfastly assured, encounter, during a furlough in the port of Bombay, a most fascinating apparition. An emaciated man curled over upon himself pitiably within the gloomy confines of a dockside tavern whom Captain Cross, being of an inquisitive and charitable nature, felt compelled to engage with, in the passage of time and to perhaps inject in so dour-looking a figure a little of the cheer of fellowship, in conversation. It transpired that the man in question was Doctor John Fairchild of whose theses on the interactions between naturally-occurring chemicals and the physical body of man are well known to readers of scientific journals.

                Deep in his cups already upon the approach of Captain Cross, the Doctor revealed after some time, the nature of his malaise. This he told to Captain Cross, who told it unto my dear friend Starkweather, who henceforth relayed it to me, and I now to you.

                Some months before, while visiting Munich for a conference of notable scientific minds on the subject of and developments within the field of chemical research, Doctor John Fairchild had held a lecture on the behaviour of certain metallic compounds. A the conclusion of a talk I am informed was well-received, Fairchild was sought out by a messenger clutching a package addressed to the Doctor. Within was a thick assemblage of handwritten sheets detailing the experiences of one Emily Fitzpatrick, a woman of wealth and grace whom Fairchild had, a decade earlier, endeavoured to court without success. Perplexed at this unexpected contact, the Doctor retired to his rooms, there to begin reading the lengthy and puzzling correspondence.

                This correspondence from the beautiful Emily Fitzpatrick to Doctor Fairchild he communicated from memory to Captain Cross, who unerringly imparted it to Starkweather, my friend who conveyed it to my own noble self that I might duplicate it here now.

                Emily Fitzpatrick had married another man, as it transpired and as Fairchild would have considered natural and to be expected. The man in question was an explorer of note and recipient of many royal honours for expeditions into the heart of the Dark Continent. Wealthy and highly-regarded, it was a good marriage and one in which Emily was happy until one morning of half a year previously when she, searching for a fresh ink-pot in the study of her husband, Peter Ross. There she happened, by chance, upon a small case resembling a sea chest in miniature and, overcome by innocent curiosity, she carelessly opened the case in question and unknowingly, like Pandora of myth, unleashed a dark knowledge into her marriage and her life. Emily’s battle with this secret knowledge provided the impetus for her reaching out to her old friend and one-time suitor, Doctor Fairchild. Imploring him for advice and solicitude in this, her time of anguished indecision, she set about reproducing the document she had discovered in her husband’s study, loathe as she was to remove it from that hidden place lest her husband note its disappearance and know the she had seen it.[image error]

                The document, she wrote, spoke of an extraordinary sequence of events that her husband, Peter Ross, had been told of by an ancient native medicine-man during one expedition into the depths of Central Africa. The wise old savage had told Ross a tale that Ross had recorded and carelessly left in the desk of his study, whereupon it was discovered by his wife, the lovely Emily, who recounted it by correspondence to Doctor Fairchild, later to be drunkenly relayed by him to Captain Cross who told it to Starkweather and he to I and I to you. The horrifying and inexplicable nature of the account affected the intrepid explorer, Ross, so completely that he had chosen then to retire from the exploration service and undertake life as a married and wealthy man about town, never travelling again beyond the bounds of London.

                What tale could be so harrowing as to provoke so violent a shift in the course of a brave Englishman’s life? I shall tell it to you now, though beware! Horrors lurk in the world of men, but none so terrifying, so unnerving as to unmake a man, but those that lurk not in the world, but in the hearts of men.

                The ancient medicine man’s story was as follows:

                Some years before his fateful meeting with the explorer, Ross, the savage whose name could not be spelled out in these pages for the letters to correspond to the sounds in question do not presently exist, had met another such explorer, a Dutchman by the name of De Vries. De Vries was endeavouring to trace the course of the Zambezi to its source and rested a night in the village of our shaman, who had learned some of the languages of white men and engaged the explorer in conversation. It was then that De Vries told the medicine man of a peculiar encounter he had had whilst at sea when his ship drew, as is custom, alongside a whaling schooner out of Lisbon to pass news, letters and partake of minor trade between crews. During this stopping of the two ships, De Vries had met a caulker’s mate upon the deck of the Portuguese vessel who offered to trade for a jade necklace worn by De Vries, which he had acquired years before in the Orient. As payment for the jade, the mate, named Almeida, offered a story both startling and true, which he would undertake to tell unto De Vries but conclude only with the jade in his hand. Amused by this offer, De Vries accepted, and the sailor began relaying him the tale.

                When it neared its conclusion, a badly shaken De Vries wordlessly handed over his jade necklace, unable to part from the caulker’s mate until he had concluded the story. That story he repeated to the ancient savage, who in turn told it to Ross whose wife, Emily, discovered an account of it in his study and forwarded a copy to her friend, Doctor Fairchild, who told it to Captain Cross, who passed it to Starkweather and he to I so that I might put it to ink and paper and preserve it thus.[image error]

                The Portuguese sailor, Almeida told of a woman in white who had once stolen aboard a ship on which he had served as she set sail from Lisbon for London. An Englishwoman whom, once discovered, pleaded mercy from the crew that they would allow her to remain on-board. When asked why, she began to relay a tale…