THE EQUINOX
knights and join the Saracen army?
That were only to change
the balance, to change the cross, soaked in the blood of
humanity, for the crescent, pale flame of madness.
Oh could
I destroy both!
.
.
. Forty years ago I strove to reconcile
them by love, by sympathy.
What came of it?
A frolic
crime, sterile as all my thoughts are.
Nothing, nothing has
ever come of anything that I have ever done.
Yet that came
nearest to success; for it was my one touch of love. I have never
loved since, as most surely I had never loved before.
She is
dead long ago.
.
.
. Oh, these years of carnage!
The Holy
Sepulchre that hid the body of Him whose innocent blood was
shed is not worth one drop of innocent blood—like this.
[He
bou/5, takes Με blood rm hisfinger andcrosses 07848014/?”ן'צwith
it.]
The brand of Cain!
Would it have saved her if I had
thrust my poniard into that hypocrite‘s throat?
I can do
nothing but wait, binding chosen knights with an oath—the
oath of the Knights of the Royal Mystery
.
.
. that God is
one; that tolove God and man is enough.
.
.
. Peace, Toler-
ance, Truth.
Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but
God giveth the increase.
If I cry out “Down with tyranny!
Down with superstition and imposturel” the first knight
thinks me mad; the second that I have some politic baseness
toward; the third that I mean Saracens; the fourth suspects
the truth, and destroys me.
Anon
.
.
. Anon
.
.
.
[He goes 131!”/?:טשפשout.
CURTAIN.
104.