The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

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.