My knowledge of the thing began on Thursday, the seventh of September, with the imprisonment of my cousin Isaac Derleth for crimes related to drunken micturition in the town square. I paid his bail and, at his request, escorted him to a local tavern. I puzzled immediately over his paleness of skin and redness of eyes, and the manner in which he surveyed passers-by, as though they might have been sent to fetch him under the orders of some loathsome, unspeakable man-catcher.

It was not until he was deep into his cup that he offered something of an explanation for his finding such solace in the numbness of drink. My cousin spoke of strange weekend mornings when he had been called to report, for his soldiers, in the grip of dread Cthulhu, had imbibed weird liquors to excess, and smashed their automobiles into trees in mad worship.

His glass shook from trembling hands as he reported vile convocations in carnal temples, where men were seduced physically and monetarily by the gyrations and obscene waddlings of hideous, naked sirens of no small renown among the lost people of Sarnath.