the mouth rolled over
and over. People from every quarter flocked to the spot, and judging
Hamar, from his proximity to the child, to be responsible for its
condition, shouted for the police. The latter, however, arrived too
late. Hamar, whose presence of mind had only left him for the moment
seeing a bicycle leaning against a store door, jumped on it and soon
put a respectable distance between himself and the crowd.

That night the trio met once more in Hamar's room for test six. There
was a wood fire in the grate, and on it a tin vessel containing the
prescribed ingredients. Somewhat unpleasantly conspicuous amongst
these ingredients were the death's-head moth, and the soil from
Satan's grave. As soon as the mixture had been heated three hours, the
vessel was removed, the fire extinguished, and the room made
absolutely dark. Then the three sat close together and waited.

On the stroke of two every article in the room began to rattle, whilst
out of the tin vessel flew a blood red moth. After circling three
times round each of the sitter's heads, the moth flew back again into
the vessel, and the silence that ensued was followed by a soft tapping
at the window, and the appearance of something, that resembled a big
tube filled with a thick, pale blue fluid, made up of a mass of
distinct veins. This tube floated into the room, and passing close to
the three sitters, who involuntarily shrank away from it, disappeared
in the wall, behind them. A loud crack as if the branch of a tree had
broken, terminated the phenomena--the room again becoming pitch dark.
But the three sitters, although they knew there would be no further
manifestation that night, were too terrified to move. They remained
huddled together in the same spot till the morning was well advanced.

CHAPTER V

THE INITIATION

San Francisco possesses one great advantage--you can easily get out of
it. Leaving the pan-handle of the Park behind one, and following the
turn of the cars, one passes through a pretty valley, green and fair
as any garden, and dotted with small houses. An old cemetery lies to
one side of it; where unconventional inscriptions and queer epitaphs
can be traced on the half-buried stones, covered with a tangle of
vines and weeds. Still moving forward one reaches Olympus, and
climbing to its heights, one sees away below, in the far distance, the
Coast Range--like a rampart of strength; the blue waters of the bay,
sparkling and dancing