probably did not erect it themselves). The black stone is "octagonal in shape, some sixteen feet in height and about a foot and a half thick." A week after arriving the narrator realizes that it is Midsummer Night and makes his way to the stone. He falls asleep an hour before midnight but wakes to find the chanting and dancing people around the stone. After much dancing, during which the narrator is unable to move or do anything but observe, a baby is killed in sacrifice. Shortly a giant toad-like monster appears at the top of the stone and a second sacrifice, a young girl, is offered to it. The narrator faints at this point and decides that it was a dream when he wakes again. But slowly, he realizes that it was no dream. He remembers that Selim Bahadur's case was still with the Count's bones which hadn't been disturbed. The narrator unearths the nobleman's remains and with them, the case belonging to the Turk. He translates the account written by the historian and is horrified by his account of what happened near the Black Stone, how the monstrous creature slaughtered at least ten men before being killed by steel weapons blessed by Muhammad. He realizes that he beheld the cultist worshipers' ghosts bowing before a ghost. He flings the contents of the case into a river. Characters Justin Geoffrey (1898–1926) A poet who wrote "The People of the Monolith" after visiting the village of Stregoicavar and died "screaming in a madhouse" five years before the events of the story. He is remembered by the villagers as acting in an odd manner, with a habit of mumbling to himself. The story opens with this stanza, which is attributed to him: They say foul things of Old Times still lurk In dark forgotten corners of the world. And Gates still gape to loose, on certain nights. Shapes pent in Hell. Lovecraft mentions Geoffrey in The Thing on the Doorstep, saying that he is a friend of Edward Derby, the protagonist of the tale. Lovecraft states in the story that Geoffry "died screaming in a madhouse in 1926 after a visit to a sinister, ill-regarded village in Hungary". This is a detail invented by Lovecraft and not part of Howard's original story. Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt (1795–1840) An eccentric German poet and philosopher noted for his extensive travels and membership in