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whistle-blast, then wait and capture anything which might issue from the regions
within. At the sound of two whistle-blasts it would advance through the aperture
to oppose the enemy or join the rest of the raiding contingent. The party at the
stone building would accept these respective signals in an analogous manner;
forcing an entrance at the first, and at the second descending whatever passage
into the ground might be discovered, and joining the general or focal warfare
expected to take place within the caverns. A third or emergency signal of three
blasts would summon the immediate reserve from its general guard duty; its
twenty men dividing equally and entering the unknown depths through both
farmhouse and stone building. Capt. Whipple's belief in the existence of
catacombs was absolute, and he took no alternative into consideration when
making his plans. He had with him a whistle of great power and shrillness, and
did not fear any upsetting or misunderstanding of signals. The final reserve at
the landing, of course, was nearly out of the whistle's range; hence would
require a special messenger if needed for help. Moses Brown and John Carter went
with Capt. Hopkins to the river-bank, while President Manning was detailed with
Capt. Mathewson to the stone building. Dr. Bowen, with Ezra Weeden, remained in
Capt. Whipple's party which was to storm the farmhouse itself. The attack was to
begin as soon as a messenger from Capt. Hopkins had joined Capt. Whipple to
notify him of the river party's readiness. The leader would then deliver the
loud single blast, and the various advance parties would commence their
simultaneous attack on three points. Shortly before 1 a.m. the three divisions
left the Fenner farmhouse; one to guard the landing, another to seek the river
valley and the hillside door, and the third to subdivide and attend to teh
actual buildings of the Curwen farm.
Eleazar Smith, who accompanied the shore-guarding party, records in his diary an
uneventful march and a long wait on the bluff by the bay; broken once by what
seemed to be the distant sound of the signal whistle and again by a peculiar
muffled blend of roaring and crying and a powder blast which seemed to come from
the same direction. Later on one man thought he caught some distant gunshots,
and still later Smith himself felt the throb of titanic and thunderous words
resounding in upper air. It was just before dawn that a single haggard messenger
with wild eyes and a hideous unknown odour about his clothing appeared and told
the detachment to disperse quietly to their homes and never again think or speak
of the night's doings or of him who had been Joseph Curwen. Something about the
bearing of the messenger carried a conviction which his mere words could never
have conveyed; for though he was a seaman well known to many of them, there was
something obscurely lost or gained in his soul which set him for evermore apart.
It was the same later on when they met other old companions who had gone into
that zone of horror. Most of them had lost or gained something imponderable and
indescribable. They had seen or heard or felt something which was not for human
creatures, and could not forget it. From them there was never any gossip, for to
even the commonest of mortal instincts there are terrible boundaries. And from
that single messenger the party at the shore caught a nameless awe which almost
sealed their own lips. Very few are the rumours which ever came from any of
them, and Eleazar Smith's diary is the only written record which has survived
from that whole expedition which set forth from the Sign of the Golden Lion
under the stars.
Charles Ward, however, discovered another vague sidelight in some Fenner
correspondence which he found in New London, where he knew another branch of the
family had lived. It seems that the Fenners, from whose house the doomed farm
was distantly visible, had watched the departing columns of raiders; and had
heard very clearly the angry barking of the Curwen dogs, followed by the first
shrill blast which precipitated the attack. This blast had been followed by a
repetition of the great shaft of light from the stone building, and in another
moment, after a quick sounding of the second signal ordering a general invasion,
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there had come a subdued prattle of musketry followed by a horrible roaring cry
which the correspondent Luke Fenner had represented in his epistle by the
characters 'Waaaahrrrrr-R'waaahrrr.'
This cry, however, had possessed a quality which no mere writing could convey,
and the correspondent mentions that his mother fainted completely at the sound.
It was later repeated less loudly, and further but more muffled evidences of
gunfire ensued; together with a loud explosion of powder from the direction of
the river. About an hour afterward all the dogs began to bark frightfully, and
there were vague ground rumblings so marked that the candlesticks tottered on
the mantelpiece. A strong smell of sulphur was noted; and Luke Fenner's father
declared that he heard the third or emergency whistle signal, though the others
failed to detect it. Muffled musketry sounded again, followed by a deep scream
less piercing but even more horrible than the those which had preceded it; a
kind of throaty, nastily plastic cough or gurgle whose quality as a scream must
have come more from its continuity and psychological import than from its actual
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