THE EQUINOX
“ «Speak; I am rich,’
“* Every Good Friday,’ said the adept, ‘take thirty silver
crowns and offer them to the Hospital for the Insane.’
“Tt shall be done,’ I said.
“« Swear, then,’ he went on, ‘swear, then, here to me’—he
rose, terrible and menacing—‘ by Him that sitteth upon the
Holy Throne and liveth and reigneth for ever and ever, that
never again, neither to save life, nor to retain honour, wilt
thou set foot in the Street of the Four Winds ; so long as life
shall last.’
“Even as he bade me, I rose with lifted hand and
swore.
“As I did so there resounded in the room ten sharp
knocks, as of ivory on wood, in a certain peculiar cadence.
“This was but the first of a very large number of inter-
views. I sought, indeed, steadfastly to learn from him the
occult wisdom of which he was a master; but, though he
supplied me with all conceivable channels of knowledge—
books, manuscripts, papyri—yet all these were lifeless; the
currents of living water flowed not through them. Should
one say that the master withheld initiation, or that the pupil
failed to obtain it?
“But at least time abated the monomania—for I know
now that my whole adventure was but a very vivid dream, an
insanity of adolescence. At this moment I would not like to
say at what point exactly in the story fact and dream touch ;
I have still the sword and dagger. Is it possible that in a
trance I actually went through some other series of adventures
than that I am conscious of? May not Jean have been a
thief, whom I dispossessed of his booty? Had I done this
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