FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
49 matching pages
Page 1 of 31929 · PDF PAGE 106
task set him by Douglas; his pomposity always stood in his way; a man fighting for life is exceptionally a fool if he insists on stopping every moment to admire himself. Douglas had chosen him for one of the curious back- handed reasons which so often appeal to people of perverse intelligence: it was because he was harmless that he was selected to work harm. A democracy often chooses its generals on the same principle; a capable man might overthrow the republic. It apparently prefers to be overthrown by a capable enemy. But Douglas had backed h…
1929 · PDF PAGE 170
settling himself by placing his legs upon the table. [239] "It is from the private stock of the Duke of Argyll," returned Douglas. "And you, Mr. Butcher? I knew a Count Butcher many years ago. You are a relation?" Mr. Butcher had only the vaguest notion as to his ancestry. His mother had broken down under cross-examination. "Search me!" he replied, biting the end off his cigar, and spitting it out. "We Rosicrucians are out for the Hundred Years Club Dope, and the Long Green Stone; we should worry. We're short on ancestors in Illinois." "But the…
1929 · PDF PAGE 168
…infamy, for many a year; yet there was still in her a motion of revolt against the crime. But even as she made her gesture of repulsion, Douglas leapt to his feet, with the light of hell burning in his eyes. "I have it!" he shouted, "get to your straw, you stinking slut. And you may thank your stars that as you can't be ornamental, you're going to be useful." It was dawn before Douglas turned into bed, for his great idea brought with it a flood of imagination, and a million problems of detail. The servant girl was already half dressed for the d…
1929 · PDF PAGE 191
Beth Chol, or House of Horror, as the cellar was called in the jargon of the Sorcerers. Balloch, Cremers, Abdul Bey and the wife of Douglas were already present. The first part of the procedure consisted in the formal renunciation by Mrs. Douglas of the vows taken for her in her baptism, a ceremonial apostacy from Christianity. This was done in no spirit of hostility to that religion, but to permit of her being rebaptized into it under Lisa's maiden name. The Turk was next called upon to renounce Islam, and baptized by the name of the Marchese …
1929 · PDF PAGE 222
…her mouth loose and wet, laughing with indecent and profane intoxication. "Good morning, Captain Grey; well met, well met indeed!" began Douglas, urbane in his triumph. "I trust you passed a pleasant time in Naples." "Very pleasant," returned Grey. "Dr. Balloch," continued Douglas, "crossed my path. I am glad you should have seen the end of him." "I am glad," said Cyril. "And what end do you think I have reserved for you?" said the sorcerer, with sudden foam of ferocity. "Something charming, I am sure," said Cyril, silkily. "I always admired yo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 107
…Meanwhile he, Gates, was to devote himself, on the quiet, to divining the true nature of Grey's purpose. This information was essential; Douglas knew that it must be something tremendous; that the forces which Cyril was working to evoke were cosmic in scope. He knew it not only from his own divinations, but deduced it from the fact of the intervention of Simon Iff. He knew well that the old Master would not have lifted a finger for anything less than a world-war. Douglas therefore judged that if he could defeat Grey's purpose, it would involve …
1929 · PDF PAGE 121
… a book clearing him from all suspicion, by which it naturally was fixed on him for ever. The second trouble was his little quarrel with Douglas. Vesquit was Senior in the Black Lodge, and Douglas overthrew him by "carelessly" leaving, in a hansom cab, some documents belonging to the Lodge, with Vesquit's name and address attached to them, which made some exceedingly grim revelations of the necromantic practices carried on in Hampden Road. The honest cabby had turned over the papers to Scotland Yard, as his duty was; and the police had sent the…
1929 · PDF PAGE 227
…that you are now eligible for a place in the Fourteen, the Ghaagaael, for a seat is vacant since this morning." "They executed Balloch?" Douglas nodded with a gloating smile. "But why did you not save him, master?" "Save him! It was I that destroyed him when he tried to betray me. Candidates take notice!" Abdul protested his loyalty and devotion. "The supreme test," continued Douglas, "cannot conveniently be imposed in time of war. There is too much to do just now. But — as a preliminary — ?" how do you stand with Germany?" Abdul shrank back, s…
1929 · PDF PAGE 167
the shadow logomachoepy's — (my) story's of death nodal puncts — limits With these striking words the official Report of Douglas' chief commissioner began. It would be tedious to quote the 488 folio pages in full. Douglas himself did not read it; the transcript made by Vesquit of Abdul Bey's "inspiration," with a few [235] practical questions to the latter, told him all that he needed. Audience over, he dismissed Arthwait and his companion with orders to hold themselves in readiness for a renewal of the campaign. Douglas had many a moment of bi…
1929 · PDF PAGE 108
…hist would succeed in destroying society if he amounted to, say, a third of the population. Now Simple Simon, at this time, did not know Douglas for the enemy General; but he was in the closest possible magical touch with him. For he had absorbed the Thing in the garden into himself and that Thing had been a part of Douglas. So he set himself to the complete assimilation of that Thing; he made certain that it should be part of himself for ever. His method of doing this was as simple as usual. He went over the Universe in his mind, and set himse…
1929 · PDF PAGE 190
…tural impulse was a preliminary of the system of the Black Lodge; in higher grades the pupil took on the manipulation of subtler forces. Douglas' own use of his wife's love to vitriolize her heart was considered by the best judges as likely to become a classic. The inner circle, the fourteen men about Douglas himself and that still more mysterious person to whom even he was responsible, a woman known only as "Annie" or as "A.B.", were sealed to him by the direst of all bonds. Needless are oaths in the Black Lodge; honour being the first thing d…
1929 · PDF PAGE 194
…spirit; for he realized that its mistress had been sterility and death. And it was of death that he was most afraid. The cynical calm of Douglas appalled him; he recognized the superiority of that great sorcerer; and his hope to supplant him died within his breast. At that moment Hecate herself passed into him, and twined herself inextricably about his brain. He accepted his destiny as her high-priest; in future he would do murder for the joy of pleasing her! All other mistresses were tame to this one! The thrill of Thuggee caught him — and in …
1929 · PDF PAGE 195
… it bad?" "It's damned ugly. Curse it; not a thing here that I need!" But he needed nothing; he had done more even than he guessed. Mrs. Douglas, her face suddenly drawn and white, lifted her head with infinite effort towards her husband. "I've always loved you," she whispered, "and I love you now, as — I — die." Her head dropped with a dull crack upon the slab. No one can say if she heard the reply of Douglas: "You sow! you've bitched the whole show!" For she had uttered the supreme name of Love, in love; and the spell dissolved more swiftly t…
1929 · PDF PAGE 228
…say how proud I am to find that we are on the same side. I was very frightened of that uniform!" "L'habit ne fait pas le moine," replied Douglas gaily. "And now, sir, let us spend the night discussing our plans in detail — and some very excellent whisky which I happen to have by me." The spies pursued their double task, with pitiless energy, till morning was well broken. Later in the day Douglas left for Soissons. He was attached to the French army as chief of a corps of signallers — thanks, once again, to the good offices of Becasseux. His pla…
1929 · PDF PAGE 171
a favour, but I see a dollar at the end of it, and old Doc. Butcher buys a one- way ticket." Douglas grew portentous. "Are you aware of what you ask?" he thundered. "Do you understand that the ineffable and Sacrosanct Arcanum is not to be touched by profane hands? Must I inform you that Those who may not be named are even now at the Gate of the Abyss, whetting their fangs upon the Cubical Stone of the Unutterable? Oh ye magistral ministrants of the Shrine of the Unspeakable Abomination! Hear ye the Word of Blasphemy!" He spoke rapidly and thick…
1929 · PDF PAGE 85
…elves might have taken lessons from this exponent; and the result of Cyril's intervention had been to disintegrate the entire structure. Douglas found his prestige gone, and his income with it. Addiction to drink, which had accompanied his magical fall, now became an all-absorbing vice. He was never able to rebuild his Lodge on its former lines; but those who thirsted for knowledge and power and these he still possessed in ever increasing abundance as he himself decayed — clung to him, hating and envying him, as a young ruffian of the [122] str…
1929 · PDF PAGE 140
…inode upon the "resurrection unto damnation" left in each mind due impression of the ghastliness of their projected rite. And, in Paris, Douglas, smashing the neck of a bottle of whisky on the edge of the table, was drinking the good health of his visitor, an American woman of the name of Cremers. Her squat stubborn figure was clad in rusty-black clothes, a man's except for the skirt; it was [198] surmounted by a head of unusual size, and still more unusual shape, for the back of the skull was entirely flat, and the left frontal lobe much more …
1929 · PDF PAGE 188
…y to fashion gold from the dust-heap. But most sorcerers do not go so deeply into things; they are set upon the advantage of the moment. Douglas probably did not care a snap of the fingers for his ultimate destiny; it may be that he deliberately avoided thinking of it; but however that may be, there is no doubt that at this moment he was ruthlessly pursuing his hate of Cyril Grey. For great operations — the "set pieces" of his diabolical pyrotechnics — the sorcerer had a place set apart and prepared. This was an old wine-cellar in a street betw…
1929 · PDF PAGE 172
"And now, Mr. Butcher," said Douglas, "I will ask you in your turn to render me a small service." "Bat it up!" said Mr. Butcher. "I would buy an Illustrated Edition of O. Henry in nineteen parts." Douglas did not know that Americans dread book agents more than rattlesnakes; but he gathered [242] that his guest would acquiesce in any reasonable suggestion. "I am informed that you are — or were — a Priest of the Roman Church. "Peter is my middle name," admitted the 'Rosicrucian,' "and that's no jolly." "But — apart from questions of nomenclature …
1929 · PDF PAGE 208
21 Chapter OF THE RENEWAL OF THE GREAT ATTACK; AND HOW IT FARED DOUGLAS had been decidedly put out by the death of his wife. After all, she had been a sort of habit; a useful drudge, when all was said. Besides, he missed, acutely, the pleasures of torturing her. His suspicions of the bona fides of Balloch were conjoined with actual annoyance. It was at this painful moment in his career that Cremers came to the rescue. A widowed friend of hers had left a daughter in her charge: for Cremers had the great gift of inspiring confidence. This daughte…