The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

II THE GREY HOUR "To resume," observed Rolles as he removed the tea-tray, ”since you have done no prescribed practices (wicked little sister !) you cannot banish the body by bidding it keep silence. So it must be banished by exhaustion, and the spirit awakened by a sevenfold dose of the Elixir.” “ Have you the Elixir?" she asked, rather awed. “It is entrusted to me,“ he answered simply. ”To this laudable end I have appointed a sufficiency of Bisque Kadosh at the Cafe Riche, followed by Homard Cardinal and Truffes au champagne With a savoury of my own invention. The truffes au champagne of the Cafe Riche are more to be desired than all the hashish dreams of all the wicked, and than all the divine dreams 01 all the good. We shall walk there, and drive back. This incense shall be kindled, and this lamp left burning.” He took a strange object from a locked cabinet. It had flowered chased pipes of gold, copper and platinum, coiling about an egg of crystal. The three snakes met just above the egg, as if to bite or to kiss. Rolles filled the egg with a pale blue liquid from a Venetian flask, then pressed the heads of the serpents just a little closer together. Instantly a coruscat- ing flame leapt between them, minute, dazzling, radiant. It 126