tic figure of Baphomet;
in spite of the intolerable heat pervading the entire chamber this idol
contrived to preserve its outlines and to glow without pulverising. A
ceremony of an impressive nature occurred in this apartment; a wild cat,
which strayed in through an open window, was regarded as the appearance
of a soul in transmigration, and, in spite of its piteous protests, was
passed through the fire to Baal.

And now the crowning function, the Magnum Opus of the mystery, must take
place in the Sheol of Dappah; a long procession filed from the mountain
temples to the charnel-house of the open plain; the night was dark, the
moon had vanished in dismay, black clouds scudded across the heavens, a
feverish rain fell slowly at intervals, and the ground was dimly lighted
by the phosphorescence of the general putrefaction. The Adepts went
stumbling over dead bodies, disturbing Rats and Vultures, and proceeded
to the formation of the magic chain, which consisted in high-grade
Masons, provided with silk hats, sitting down in a vast circle, every
Adept embracing his particular corpse. The ceremony included the
recitation of certain passages borrowed from popular grimoires, the
object in view being the wholesale liberation of Spirits wandering in
the immediate neighbourhood of their bodies. This closed the proceedings
and the doctor confesses that the distractions of the evening occasioned
him a disturbed sleep accompanied by nightmares.

Sec. 6. _A Palladian Initiation._

Before leaving Calcutta our adventurer purchased from Phileas Walder,
for the sum of two hundred francs, the serviceable dignity of a
Palladian Hierarch, "fortified with which he would be enabled to
penetrate everywhere." Regarding all English possessions as peculiarly
productive in the Dead Sea fruit of diabolism, Singapore was the next
scene of his curious researches. The English as a nation are criminal,
but Singapore is the yeast-house of British wickedness, where vice
ferments continually; there man masonifies naturally and most Masons
palladise. The doctor states plainly that one thing only has preserved
the place from the doom of the cities of the plain, and that is the
presence of certain good Christians, otherwise Catholics, in what he
terms the accursed city. For himself he tarried only to witness the
initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which
took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he
t