few minutes,
worn out after the unwonted exertions of the evening, both men were
fast asleep.

They were at breakfast next morning--real _dejeuner a la
carte_--sausages, bread, water--and they were doing ample justice to
it, when some one rapped at the door. For a few seconds there was
silence. Their hearts stood still. Had they been followed, after all?
Was it the police? Some one spoke--and they breathed again. It was
Hamar.

"This looks like starving, I must say!" Hamar exclaimed, as he sniffed
his way into the room and sat on the bed. "Why, from what you fellows
told me last night I thought you were cleared out. And here you are,
stuffing like roosters! You look a bit surprised to see me, but you'll
look more surprised, I reckon, when I tell you what brings me here.
You remember that book?"

Kelson and Curtis nodded.

"Well," Hamar went on. "I read it after you left last night, and I've
come to the conclusion that there's something in it that may be of use
to us."

"Us!" Curtis ejaculated.

"Yes! Us!" Hamar mimicked. "It contains full particulars of how we can
get in touch with certain Occult Powers--that can give us money or
anything else we want!"

"Rot, of course!" Curtis said.

"You say that now. But, listen to me," Hamar replied. "Since I've read
that book, I believe there's a lot more in Occultism than people
imagine. You may recollect the name of the author of the book--Thomas
Maitland? Well! to begin with, he impresses me as being truthful; and
he not only believed in Magic but he practised it. If he hadn't gone
into details I shouldn't think anything of it, but he's so darned
thorough, and tells you exactly what you've got to do to get in touch
with the Occult Powers and to practise sorcery. He learned it all from
that old MS. he found, written by an Atlantean; and the Atlanteans, he
says, were adepts in every form of Occultism. I tell you, this chap
himself scoffed at it at first; and it was more out of curiosity, he
says, than because he was convinced, that he began to experiment. He
afterwards came to the conclusion that the Atlanteans were no fools.
What they had written about the Occult was absolutely correct--there
was another world, and it was possible to get in touch with it. Now,
if Thomas Maitland was able to practise sorcery, why can't we? There
was a gap of close on twenty thousand years between his time and that
of Atlantis, and there's not much more than two hundred years between