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THE SORCERY CLUB

by

ELLIOTT O'DONNELL

Author of _Byways of Ghostland_, _Werwolves_,
_Dreams and Their Meanings_, _Some Haunted Houses of England
and Wales_, _Scottish Ghost Tales_, _Haunted Houses of London_, etc., etc.

London
William Rider & Son, Limited
8 Paternoster Row, E.C.

1912







[Illustration: "FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE KEEP OFF!" KELSON SHRIEKED]



CONTENTS


I HOW THEY FIRST HEARD OF ATLANTIS

II THE BLACK ART OF ATLANTIS

III LEARNING TO SIN

IV THE TESTS

V THE INITIATION

VI THE FIRST POWER

VII SAN FRANCISCO LADIES AND DIVINATION

VIII TWO DREAMS

IX LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

X HOW THE DREAMS WERE INTERPRETED

XI LEON HAMAR CALLS ON THE MARTINS

XII THE GREAT CHALLENGE

XIII THE MODERN SORCERY CO. LTD. GIVE A GRATIS PERFORMANCE

XIV SHIEL TO THE RESCUE

XV HOW HAMAR, CURTIS AND KELSON ENTERED THE ASTRAL PLANE

XVI HAMAR MAKES ADVANCES

XVII THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

XVIII STAGE THREE

XIX A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES

XX THE STAGE OF HAUNTINGS

XXI THE SELLING OF SPELLS

XXII THE PERSECUTION OF THE MARTINS

XXIII LOVE

XXIV THE SUBPOENA

XXV CURTIS IN A NEW ROLE

XXVI IN HYDE PARK AT NIGHT

XXVII THE RIGHT GIRL TO MARRY

XXVIII WHOM WILL HE MARRY?

XXIX THE END AND 'THE BEYOND'




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE KEEP OFF," KELSON SHRIEKED (frontispiece)

THE INITIATION

THEY GAZED FASCINATED

THE ROOM FILLED WITH LUMINOUS, STRIPED FIGURES






CHAPTER I

HOW THEY FIRST HEARD OF ATLANTIS


Rain is responsible for a great deal more than the mere growth of
vegetables--it is a controller, if a somewhat capricious controller,
of man's destiny. It was mainly, if not entirely, owing to rain that
the French lost the Battle of Agincourt; whilst, if I mistake not,
Confucius alone knows how many victories have been snatched from the
Chinese by the same factor.

It was most certainly rain that drove Leon Hamar to take refuge in a
second-hand bookshop; for so deep-rooted was his aversion to any
literature saving a financial gazette or the stock and shares column
of a daily, that nothing would have induced him to get within touching
distance of a book save the risk of a severe wetting. Now, to his
unutterable disgust, he found himself surrounded by the things he
loathed. Books ancient--very ancient, judging by their bindings--and
modern--histories, biographies, novels and magazines--anything from
ten dollars to five cents, and all arrayed with most laudable tact
according to their bulk and condition. But Hamar was neither to be
tempted nor mollified. He frowned at one and all alike, and the
colossal edition of Miss Somebody or Other's poems--that by reason of
its magnificent cover of crimson and gold occupied a most prominent
position--met with the same vindictive reception as the tattered and
torn volumes of Whittier stowed away in an obscure corner.

Backing still further into the entrance of the store for a better
protection from the rain, which, now falling heavier and heavier, was
blown in by the wind, Hamar collided with a stand of books, with the
result that one of them fell with a loud bang on the pavement.

A man, evidently the owner of the store, and unmistakably a Jew,
instantly appeared. Picking up the book, and wiping it with a dirty
handkerchief, he thrust it at Hamar.

"See!" he said, "you have damaged this property of mine. You must
either buy it or give me adequate compensation."

"What!" Hamar cried, "compensation for such rubbish as that? Why all
your books together are not worth five dollars. Indeed I've seen twice
as many sold at a sale for half that amount. You can't Jew me!"

The two men eyed each other quizzically.

"Perhaps," the owner of the store observed slowly, "perhaps some of
your ancestors were once Yiddish. In which case there ought to be a
bond of sympathy between us. You may have that book for a nickel.
What, no! Your cheeks are hollow, your fingers thin. A nickel is too
much for you. I will take your chain in exchange."

"And leave me the watch!" Hamar retorted, with a grim smile. "You are
a philanthropist--not a storekeeper."

"I should leave you nothing!" the Jew laughed.

"There's no watch there! See!" and he pointed to the concave surface
of the watch-pocket. "I noticed its absence at once. It's been keeping
you alive for some days past. I'll give you four dollars on the
chain--and you may have the book!"

"The book's no good to me!" Hamar grunted. "The money is. Here! hand
me over the four dollars and you can have the chain. It's eighteen
carat gold and worth at least ten dollars."

"Then why not take it to some one who will give you ten dollars!"
sneered the Jew. "Because you know better. You're no greenhorn. That
chain is fifteen carat at the most, and there's not a man in this city
who would give you more than four dollars for it."

"Very well, then!" Hamar said sulkily. "I agree. No! the money first."

The Jew dived deep down into his trouser pocket, and, after foraging
about for some seconds, produced a handful of greasy coins, out of
which he carefully selected the sum named.

Hamar, who had been watching him greedily, grabbed the coins, bit them
with his teeth, and rang them on the counter. With an air of relief he
then slipped his watch-chain into the outstretched palm before him,
remarked upon the fact that the rain had suddenly ceased, and prepared
to take his departure.

"Here's the book!" the Jew ejaculated, whilst his face became suffused
with a smirk. "Don't go without it. Now! there's no knowing but what
we may not have further dealings with one another. I'm a
money-lender--I've a place down-stairs--I take all sorts of
things--all sorts of things. On the strict Q.T. mind. Sabez!"

In another moment Hamar found himself standing on the wet pavement,
nursing the four dollars in his waistcoat pocket with one hand, and
mechanically clutching the despised volume with the other. Had he ever
acted upon impulse, he would most certainly have hurled the book into
the gutter; but on second thoughts he came to the conclusion that it
would be better to dispose of it less obstrusively.

It was now evening, and having tasted nothing since mid-day, he
realized, for at least the hundredth time that week, that he was
hungry. The touch of the dollars, however, only made him smile. He
could eat his full for twenty-five cents and yet live well for another
four days. And, besides, he still had a tie-pin and a fur coat. He
might get a dollar on the one and two, if not two and a half, on the
other; which would carry him through till the end of the week when
something else might turn up--something which would not involve too
hard work and would just keep him clear of jail. He turned sharply
down Montgomery Street, crossed Kearney Street, and slipped
noiselessly through the side doorway of a restaurant, in a
suspicious-looking alley, not a hundred yards distant from the
gorgeously illuminated Palace Hotel. Here, within five minutes, he was
served with as good a meal as one could get in San Francisco for the
money--and if the table linen was not as clean as it might have been,
the food was not a whit the less excellent for that. At least so Hamar
thought; and it was not until there was nothing left to eat that he
left off eating. When he thought no one was looking in his direction,
he popped the despised book under his chair and rose to go. Before he
had gone ten yards, however, one of the waiters came running after
him.

"Hi, sir, stop, sir!" the fellow cried. "You've left something
behind!" And in spite of Hamar's denials the officious menial
persisted the book was his. In the end Hamar was obliged to submit.
He took the book, and rewarded the waiter with curses.

Hamar next tried to dispose of it down the area of a Chinese laundry;
but a policeman saw him, and he only escaped being taken up on
suspicion, by parting with a dollar. This was the climax. He did not
dare make any further attempt to dispose of the book, but, with bitter
hatred in his heart, tucked it savagely under his arm, and made direct
for his room in 115th Street.

To his annoyance--for under the circumstances he preferred to be
alone--he found two men sitting in front of his empty hearth. They
were Matt Kelson and Ed Curtis; both of whom had been his colleagues
at Meidler, Meidler & Co., in Sacramento Street, and like himself had
been thrown out of work when the firm had "smashed." Since that affair
Hamar had studiously avoided them. It was true he had once been as
friendly with them as he deemed it politic to be friendly with any
one; but now--they were out of employment, and in danger of
starvation. That made all the difference. He did not believe in
poverty encouraging poverty, any more than he believed in charity
among beggars. He had nothing to share with them, not even a thought;
and resolving to get rid of his quondam friends as soon as possible,
he confined his welcome to a frown.

"Hulloa! what's the matter?" Kelson exclaimed. "When a man frowns like
that, it usually means he is crossed in love."

"Or has an empty stomach, which amounts to the same thing," Curtis
interposed. "Come--let the sun loose, Leon! We've good news for
you!--haven't we, Matt?"

Kelson nodded.

"What is it, then?" Hamar grunted. "Have you both got cancer?"

"No! We've come to borrow from you!"

"Then you've come to the wrong shop! I'm about done, and unless
something turns up mighty quick I shall clear out."

"For good?"

"I don't count on being a ghost nor yet an angel," Hamar said; "when
we've done here, I reckon we've done altogether!"

"I shouldn't have thought suicide was in your line," Curtis remarked.
"More Matt's. I should have credited you with something more
original."

"Original!" Hamar snarled. "I defy any man to be original when he
hasn't a cent, and his stomach contains nothing but air. Give me
money, give me food--then, perhaps, I'll be original."

"You don't mean to say you're cleared out of grub!" Kelson and Curtis
cried in chorus. "We've come to you as our last hope. We've neither of
us tasted anything since yesterday."

"Then you'll taste nothing again to-day--at least as far as I'm
concerned," Hamar jeered. "I tell you I'm broke--haven't as much as a
crumb in the room; and I've pawned everything, save the clothes you
see me in!"

"And yet you can buy books--unless--unless you stole it!" Curtis said,
eyeing with suspicion the volume Hamar had thrown on the table.

"Buy it! Not much!" Hamar cried quickly. "It's one I've had all my
life. Belonged to my grandfather. I took it with me to-night to see
what I could raise on it."

"And no one would have it? I should guess not," Kelson said, drawing
it towards him. "Why it's got a new label inside--S. Leipman! I know
him. He's slick even for a Jew. This looks as if it belonged to your
grandfather, Leon. If I'm not real mistaken you bought the book
to-night. There's something in it you thought you could make capital
of. Trust you for that. Now I wonder what it was!"

"You're welcome to see!" Hamar sneered. "Perhaps you'd like some
water!"

"Water! Why water?"

"Well, instead of tea or whisky to help digest the book. Besides, it's
the only thing I have to offer you."

"Look here, Leon," Curtis interrupted; "what's the good of behaving
like this? We are all in the same boat--starving--desperate. So let us
lay our heads together and see if we can't think of something--some
way out of it."

"A Burglary Company Limited, for instance!" Hamar sneered. "No! I'm
not having any. I've neither tools nor experience. The San Francisco
police handle one roughly, so I'm told, and hard labour isn't to my
liking."

"There are other things besides burglary!" Curtis said in tones of
annoyance. "We might work a fake."

"If I work anything of that sort," Hamar said hastily, "I work alone.
Think of something else."

"I tell you Matt and I are pretty well desperate," Curtis cried, "and
if we don't think of something soon, we shan't be able to think at
all. We've tried our level best to get work--we've answered every
likely and unlikely advertisement in the papers--and all to no
purpose. So if Providence won't help us we must help ourselves.
Robbery, burglary, fakes, anything short of murder--it's all the same
to us now--we're tired of starving--dead sick of it. We would do
anything, sell our very souls for a meal. My God! I never imagined how
terrible it is to feel so hungry. You appear to be interested, Matt.
What is it?"

"Why, look here, you fellows!" Kelson said slowly. "This book is all
about a place called Atlantis that is said to have existed in the
Atlantic Ocean between America and Ireland, and to have been deluged
by an earthquake owing to the wickedness of its inhabitants. They
practised sorcery."

"Practised foolery," Hamar said. "It's tosh--all tosh! Wickedness is
only a matter of climate--and there's no such thing as sorcery."

"So I thought," Kelson replied; "but I'm not so sure now. The author
of this book writes darned sensibly, and is apparently at no loss for
corroborative testimony. He was a professor too. See! Thomas Henry
Maitland, at one time Professor of English at the University of Basle
in Switzerland. There's an asterisk against his name and a footnote in
very old-fashioned handwriting--the 's's' are all 'f's,' and half the
letters capitals. Listen--

"'Thomas Maitland, despite the remonstrances of his friends,
visited Spain. By order of the Holy Inquisition he was arrested,
May 5, 1693, on a charge of practising sorcery, and burned alive
at the Auto da Fe, in the Grand Market Square, Madrid; having in
the interim been subjected to such tortures as only the subtle
brains of the hellish inquisitors could devise. On receipt of a
message from him, delivered in his supernatural body, we attended
his execution, and can readily testify that he suffered no pain,
although the torments endured by those around him were pitiable to
behold.

"(Signed) GEORGE RICHARD POOL, Physician; and ROBERT JAMES FOX,
Merchant.

"Citizens of Boston, Massachusetts; August 1, 1693.'"

"Rot!" Hamar said savagely; "don't waste time reading such bunkum."

"It may be bunkum, but if it takes away his mind from his stomach let
him go on," Curtis interposed. "It's very obvious you haven't arrived
at our pitch of starvation yet, Leon, or you would welcome anything
that would make you forget it even for a moment. Let's hear some more,
Matt! Go on, tell us something. How to make coyottes out of paraffin
paint, or convert a Sunday pair of pants into a glistening harem
skirt! Anything that won't remind us of food."

Thus encouraged Kelson slowly turned over the pages of the book. "I
see it was printed and published for--I presume that means by--A.
Bettesworth and J. Batley in Pater-noster-Row, London, England, in
1690. Basle, London, Boston, Madrid! The author seems to have had
wandering on the brain. By the bye, Leon, with your features you could
easily work off a fake as 'the Wandering Jew.' There's money in
it--people will swallow anything in that line now."

"I don't see how it would profit you anyhow," Hamar snarled. "Leave my
features alone and go on with your reading."

Kelson chuckled--here was one way at least in which he could
occasionally get even with Hamar. Hamar's features were Yiddish, and
the Yids were none too popular in California.

"Oh, all right!" he said; "if the subject is so painful I'll try and
avoid it in future; but it's odd how some things--for instance, murder
and noses--will out. Let me see, what have we here? 'Discovery of
ancient books, manuscripts, etc., relating to Atlantis.' Apparently,
Thomas Maitland, when shipwrecked on an island, called Inisturk, off
Mayo, in Ireland, found a wooden chest of rare workmanship--he had
seen, he says, similar ones in Egypt and Yucatan--containing some very
ancient books--curiously bound, and some vellum manuscripts, which,
after an infinite amount of labour, he managed to translate. The
books, he says, were standard histories, biographies, and scientific
works on occultism--all published in Banchicheisi, the capital of
Atlantis--and the manuscripts, he affirms, had been transcribed by one
Coulmenes, who believed himself to be the only survivor of a
tremendous submarine earthquake that had destroyed the whole of
Atlantis. The manuscripts included a diary of the events leading up to
the catastrophe--even to the meals! How about this?--'Sunrise on the
day of Thottirnanoge in the month of Finn-ra. Breakfasted on cornsop,
fish (Semona, corresponding to salmon), fruit, and much sweet milk.'"

"For God's sake, don't!" Curtis groaned. "Skip over that part. The
very mention of grub makes the gnawing pain in my stomach ten times
worse."

"You're different to me then!" Hamar grinned; "I love to think of it.
My word, what wouldn't I give to be in Sadler's now. Roast beef--done
to a turn, eh! As only Sadler knows how! Potatoes nice and brown and
crisp! Horseradish! Greens! Boiled celery! Pudding under the meat!
Beer!--What, going?"

Curtis had risen from the table with his fingers crammed in his ears.
"There's a fat splice of the devil in you to-night, Leon!" he panted.
"I've had enough of it. I'm off. Come on, Matt. If you want us, you
know where to find us--only if we don't get something to eat
soon--you'll find us dead."




CHAPTER II

THE BLACK ART OF ATLANTIS


For some time after Kelson and Curtis had left him, Hamar lolled back
in his seat, lost in thought. Thought, as he told himself repeatedly,
should be the poor man's chief recreation--it costs nothing: and if
one wants a little variety, and the walls of one's rooms are tolerably
thick, one can think aloud. Hamar often did, and derived much
enjoyment from it.

"I'm convinced of one thing," he suddenly broke out; "I'd rather be
hungry than cold. One can, in a measure, cheat one's stomach by
chewing leather or sucking pebbles, but I'll be hanged if one can kid
one's liver. It's cold that does me! A touch of cold on the liver! I
could jog along comfortably on few dollars for food--but it's a fire,
a fire I want! The temperature of this room is infernally low after
sunset: and half a dozen coats and three pairs of pants don't make
up for half a grateful of fuel. Hunger only makes me think of
suicide--but cold--cold and a chilled liver--makes me think of crime.
Yes, it's cold! Cold that would make me a criminal. I would
steal--burgle--housebreak--cut the sweetest lady's throat in
Christendom--for a fire!

"There! that little outbreak has relieved me. Now let me have a look
at the book."

He dragged the volume towards him, and despite the feeling of
antagonism with which it had inspired him, and despite the cynical
attitude he had, up to the present, adopted towards the supernatural,
he speedily became engrossed. On a few leaves, somewhat clumsily
inserted between the cover and first page of the book, Hamar read an
account, presumably in the author's own penmanship, of how he, Thomas
Maitland, after being shipwrecked, had remained on Inisturk Island for
a fortnight before being rescued, and had spent the greater portion of
that time in examining the books, etc., in the chest he had found--his
only food--shell-fish and a keg of mildewy ship's biscuits.

He was taken, so the account ran, by his rescuers, on the barque
_Hannah_, to London, where he lived for five years. His lodgings were
in Cheapside, and it was there that he compiled his work on Atlantis,
having obtained his subject matter from the Atlantean books he had
managed to bring with him, and which, after an enormous amount of
perseverance and labour, he had translated into English. Though these
books were subsequently destroyed in a big fire that demolished the
entire street, luckily for him, he had sent his MS. to the publishers,
Messrs. Bettesworth and Batley, a week or so before the conflagration
broke out; so that he was, at any rate, spared the loss of his own
arduous and invaluable work.

The publishers did not accept the MS. at once. At that time there were
very severe laws in operation against anything savouring of witchcraft
and magic, and as the manuscript dealt at length with these subjects,
and in a manner that left no doubt whatever that he, Thomas Maitland,
had practised sorcery extensively, Messrs. Bettesworth and Batley were
forced to consider whether it would be injurious to them to publish
it. Mrs. Bettesworth was eventually consulted--as indeed she always
was, on extraordinary occasions--and her interest in the MS. being
roused, she decided in its favour. Within a week of its publication,
however, it was suppressed by law; all the copies saving three
presentation ones to the author, which he successfully concealed, were
destroyed; Messrs. Bettesworth and Batley were put in the stocks on
Ludgate Hill and fined heavily, and he, Thomas Maitland, was ordered
to be arrested, flogged and imprisoned.

"But," wrote Maitland, "I was not to be caught napping. My previous
adventures and hairbreadth escapes had rendered me unusually wary, and
perceiving a number of people, among whom were two or three sheriff's
officers, approaching my house, I at once interpreted their mission,
and climbing through a trap-door leading on to the roof of the
building, nimbly made my way to the end of the row, and slipping down
a waterpipe easily eluded my enemies. London, however, being now too
hot to hold me, I booked passage on board the _Peterkin_, a Thames
trading vessel of some eighty tons, and sailed for Boston. My flight
had been so hasty that I brought very little with me--nothing in fact
except the clothes I stood in--a stout winter suit of home-spun brown
cloth, a cloak, and a pair of good, strong leather leggings--a purse
of fifty sovereigns (all I had), a knife, pistol and two copies of my
precious book, the third copy, alas! I had left behind in my hurry."

After giving a few unimportant details as to his life on board ship,
Maitland went on to say:--

"Owing to a succession of storms the _Peterkin_ was driven out of her
course, and after narrowly escaping being dashed to pieces on the
Florida reefs, Lat. 24-1/2 deg. N., Long. 82 deg. W., we ran ashore with the
loss of only two lives--the second mate and cabin boy--on the Isthmus
of Yucatan, close to the estuary of a river.[1] Here we were forced to
spend nearly a year, during which time I made several journeys of
exploration into the interior of the continent. In the course of one
of my rambles amid a dense mass of tropical foliage, I suddenly found
myself face to face with a gigantic stone Sphinx, which I at once
recognized and identified. It was Tat-Nuada, an Atlantean deity,
elaborately described in one of the burned books. Much excited, I set
to work, and, after clearing the base of the idol of fungi and other
vegetable growth adhering to it, discovered a superscription in
Atlantean dialect to the effect that the image had been set up there
by one Hullir--to commemorate the destruction of Atlantis, of which
catastrophe Hullir believed himself and his family, _i.e._ his wife
Ozilmeave and daughters, Taramoo and Niketoth, and the crew of his
yacht, the _Chaac-molre_ (ten in number), the sole survivors.

"Here, then, to my unutterable joy, was strong corroborative evidence
of the great disaster narrated in detail in the manuscripts I had
found in Inisturk Island. The existence of Atlantis was now thoroughly
substantiated. On all sides of me I stumbled across further evidences
of these early settlers. Here, standing in bold outline on a slight
eminence, was a stone edifice adorned with symbolical carvings of
eggs, harps, mastodons, triangles, and numerous other objects, all of
which were capable of interpretation, and indicated that the building
was a temple to some god.

"I was much struck by the extraordinary similarity in many of the
things I saw--notably in the sphinx, idols and symbols--to many I had
seen in Egypt, and to some extent in Ireland, and I at once set to
work to draw up a careful analogy between the languages of those
countries.

"The word Banchicheisi[2] I found to contain the Celtic ban, a barrow;
and Coptic isi, plenty; whilst I recognized in the words Coulmenes,[3]
the Celtic Coul, a man's name, _i.e._ Finn, son of Coul; in
Thottirnanoge, the Coptic Thoth, _i.e._ name of ancient Egyptian
deity, and Erse Tirnanoge, the name of the wife of Oisin, the last of
the Feni; in Chaac-molree[4] the Coptic deity, re; in Ozilmeave,[5]
the Celtic Meave, a girl's name; in Taramoo,[6] the Celtic Tara, a
girl's name; and in Niketoth,[7] toth, the Erse technical form of
feminine gender; and comparing the alphabets I traced a very striking
likeness between the Atlantean--

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