Somerset maughan

The other half of this 
card will be given you at three o'clock tomorrow in front of Westminster 
Abbey
. Next day, going to the appointed spot, with his portion of the 
card in his hand, he found a baronial equipage waiting for him. A 
footman approached, and, making a sign to him, opened the 
carriage door. Within was a lady in black satin, whose face was 
concealed by a thick veil. She motioned him to a seat beside her, and 
at the same time displayed the other part of the card he had 
received. The door was shut, and the carriage rolled away. When 
the lady raised her veil, Eliphas Levi saw that she was of mature 
age; and beneath her grey eyebrows were bright black eyes of 
preternatural fixity.' 
Susie Boyd clapped her hands with delight. 
'I think it's delicious, and I'm sure every word of it is true,' she cried. 
'I'm enchanted with the mysterious meeting at Westminster Abbey 
in the Mid-Victorian era. Can't you see the elderly lady in a huge 
crinoline and a black poke bonnet, and the wizard in a ridiculous 
hat, a bottle-green frock-coat, and a flowing tie of black silk?' 
'Eliphas remarks that the lady spoke French with a marked English 
accent,' pursued Haddo imperturbably. 'She addressed him as 
follows: "Sir, I am aware that the law of secrecy is rigorous among 

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adepts; and I know that you have been asked for phenomena, but 
have declined to gratify a frivolous curiosity. It is possible that you 
do not possess the necessary materials. I can show you a complete 
magical cabinet, but I must require of you first the most inviolable 
silence. If you do not guarantee this on your honour, I will give the 
order for you to be driven home."' 
Oliver Haddo told his story not ineffectively, but with a comic 
gravity that prevented one from knowing exactly how to take it. 
'Having given the required promise Eliphas Levi was shown a 
collection of vestments and of magical instruments. The lady lent 
him certain books of which he was in need; and at last, as a result of 
many conversations, determined him to attempt at her house the 
experience of a complete evocation. He prepared himself for twenty-
one days, scrupulously observing the rules laid down by the Ritual. 
At length everything was ready. It was proposed to call forth the 
phantom of the divine Apollonius, and to question it upon two 
matters, one of which concerned Eliphas Levi and the other, the lady 
of the crinoline. She had at first counted on assisting at the evocation 
with a trustworthy person, but at the last moment her friend drew 
back; and as the triad or unity is rigorously prescribed in magical 
rites, Eliphas was left alone. The cabinet prepared for the 
experiment was situated in a turret. Four concave mirrors were 
hung within it, and there was an altar of white marble, surrounded 
by a chain of magnetic iron. On it was engraved the sign of the 
Pentagram, and this symbol was drawn on the new, white 
sheepskin which was stretched beneath. A copper brazier stood on 
the altar, with charcoal of alder and of laurel wood, and in front a 
second brazier was placed upon a tripod. Eliphas Levi was clothed 
in a white robe, longer and more ample than the surplice of a priest, 
and he wore upon his head a chaplet of vervain leaves entwined 
about a golden chain. In one hand he held a new sword and in the 
other the Ritual.' 
Susie's passion for caricature at once asserted itself, and she laughed 
as she saw in fancy the portly little Frenchman, with his round, red 
face, thus wonderfully attired. 
'He set alight the two fires with the prepared materials, and began, 
at first in a low voice, but rising by degrees, the invocations of the 

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Ritual. The flames invested every object with a wavering light. 
Presently they went out. He set more twigs and perfumes on the 
brazier, and when the flame started up once more, he saw distinctly 
before the altar a human figure larger than life, which dissolved and 
disappeared. He began the invocations again and placed himself in 
a circle, which he had already traced between the altar and the 
tripod. Then the depth of the mirror which was in front of him grew 
brighter by degrees, and a pale form arose, and it seemed gradually 
to approach. He closed his eyes, and called three times upon 
Apollonius. When he opened them, a man stood before him, wholly 
enveloped in a winding sheet, which seemed more grey than black. 
His form was lean, melancholy, and beardless. Eliphas felt an 
intense cold, and when he sought to ask his questions found it 
impossible to speak. Thereupon, he placed his hand on the 
Pentagram, and directed the point of his sword toward the figure, 
adjuring it mentally by that sign not to terrify, but to obey him. The 
form suddenly grew indistinct and soon it strangely vanished. He 
commanded it to return, and then felt, as it were, an air pass by him; 
and, something having touched the hand which held the sword, his 
arm was immediately benumbed as far as the shoulder. He 
supposed that the weapon displeased the spirit, and set it down 
within the circle. The human figure at once reappeared, but Eliphas 
experienced such a sudden exhaustion in all his limbs that he was 
obliged to sit down. He fell into a deep coma, and dreamed strange 
dreams. But of these, when he recovered, only a vague memory 
remained to him. His arm continued for several days to be numb 
and painful. The figure had not spoken, but it seemed to Eliphas 
Levi that the questions were answered in his own mind. For to each 
an inner voice replied with one grim word: dead.' 
'Your friend seems to have had as little fear of spooks as you have of 
lions,' said Burdon. 'To my thinking it is plain that all these 
preparations, and the perfumes, the mirrors, the pentagrams, must 
have the greatest effect on the imagination. My only surprise is that 
your magician saw no more.' 
'Eliphas Levi talked to me himself of this evocation,' said Dr 
Porhoët. 'He told me that its influence on him was very great. He 
was no longer the same man, for it seemed to him that something 
from the world beyond had passed into his soul.' 

---

'I am astonished that you should never have tried such an 
interesting experiment yourself,' said Arthur to Oliver Haddo. 
'I have,' answered the other calmly. 'My father lost his power of 
speech shortly before he died, and it was plain that he sought with 
all his might to tell me something. A year after his death, I called up 
his phantom from the grave so that I might learn what I took to be a 
dying wish. The circumstances of the apparition are so similar to 
those I have just told you that it would only bore you if I repeated 
them. The only difference was that my father actually spoke.' 
'What did he say?' asked Susie. 
'He said solemnly: "