the seeker was dragged forward rapidly.
All at once the bandage was plucked aloof, and he stopped; he had reached the top of the Thunder Mount.
Before him rose the moldy, mossy steps of the portico of the old Castle of Donnerberg. On the first slab stood the phantom with the osseous hand which had guided him thither. From head to foot a long shroud enwrapped it; through a slit the dead eyes peered without luster. The fleshless hand pointed into the ruins where the goal seemed to be a hall too high up to be viewed, but with the collapsed ceiling flickering with a fickle light.
The traveler nodded in consent. Slowly the ghost mounted the steps one by one, till amid the ruins. The man followed with the same solemn and tranquil pace regulating his walk, and he also entered.
Behind him slammed the principal door as noisily as a ringing bronze gate.
The phantom guide had paused on the threshold of a round hall hung with black and illumined with greenish hues of three lamps.
"Open your eyes," said the ghastly guide.
"I see," replied the other, stopping ten paces from him.
Drawing a double-edged sword from his shroud with a swift and haughty gesture, the phantom smote with it a brazen column which boomed a note like a gong.
Immediately, all around, the slabs of the hall floor rose up, and countless ghosts like the guide, stole in with drawn swords and took posts on steps where they stood like statues on their pedestals, cold and motionless. They stood out against the sable drapery.
Higher than the steps was a dais for seven chairs; on these six ghosts took place, leaving one seat vacant; they were chiefs.
"What is our number, brothers?" challenged one of the six rising in the middle.
"Three hundred is the right tally," answered the spectres, with one voice thundering through the hall and dying amid the black hangings.
"Three hundred," said the presiding chief, "representing each ten thousand associates; three hundred swords worth three millions of daggers. What do you want, stranger?" he demanded, turning to the intruder.
"To see the Light," was the rejoinder.
"The paths leading to the Mountain of Fire are hard and toilsome—fear you not to tread them?"
"I fear nothing."
"You can not turn back once you start. Bear this in mind."
"I mean to stop only at the goal."
"Are you ready to take the oath?"
"Say it and I will repeat."
The president lifted his hand and slowly and solemnly uttered these words:
"In the name of the Master Carpenter, swear to break all carnal bonds tying you to whomsoever, and above all to those to whom you may have pledged faith, obedience or service."
The new-comer in a firm voice repeated what was pronounced.
"From this out," continued the president, "you are absolved from plights made to native land and rulers. Swear to reveal to your new leader what you have seen and done, heard or learned, read or guessed, and further to spy and discover all passing under your eyes."
On his ceasing the novice repeated.
"Honor and respect the Water of Death," went on the president without a change of voice, "as a prompt means in skilled hands, sure and needful, to purge the globe by the death or insanity of those who strive to stifle the Truth or snatch it from our hands."
An echo could not more faithfully repeat the vow.
"Avoid Spain, Naples, and all accursed lands; and moreover the temptation to let out what you learn and hear—for the lightning is less swift to strike than we with our unseen but inevitable blade, wheresoever you may flee. Now, live in the name of the Supernal Three!"
In spite of the final threat, no emotion could be descried on the novice's face, as he reiterated the words with as calm a tone as he used at the outset.
"Now, deck the applicant with the sacred ribbon," said the president.
Two shrouded figures placed on the bent brow of the stranger a sky-blue ribbon with silver letters and female figures; the ends of the badge were tied behind on the nape. They stepped aside, leaving him alone again.
"What do you want?" asked the chief officer.
"Three things: the iron hand to strangle tyranny; the fiery sword to drive the impure from earth; and the diamond scales to weigh the destinies of mankind."
"Are you prepared for the tests?"
"Who seeks to be accepted, should be ready for everything."
"The tests!" shouted the ghosts.
"Turn round," said the president.
The stranger faced a man, pale as death, bound and gagged.
"Behold a traitor who revealed the secrets of the Order after taking such an oath as you did. Thus guilty, what think you he deserves?"
"Death."
"Death!" cried the three hundred sword-bearers.
Instantly the unhappy culprit, despite superhuman resistance, was dragged to the back of the hall. The initiated one saw him wrestling and writhing in the torturers' hands and heard his voice hissing past the gag. A poniard flashed in the lamplight like lightning, and after it fell, with a slapping sound of the hilt, the dead body landed heavily on the stone floor.
"Justice has been executed," observed the stranger, turning round to the terrifying circle, whose greedy eyes had gazed on him out of their grave clothes.
"So you approve of the execution?"
"Yes, if the slain were truly guilty."
"And would you drink the downfall of any one who sold the secrets of this Ancient Association?"
"In any beverage."
"Bring hither the cup," said the arch-officer.
One of the two executioners drew near with a skull brimming with a warm and ruddy liquid. The stranger took the goblet by its brass stem and said, as he held it up: "I drink to the death of all false brothers." Lowering the cup to his lips, he drained it to the last drop, and calmly returned it to the giver.
A murmur of astonishment ran around the assemblage, as the phantoms glanced at one another.
"So far well. The pistol," said the chief.
A ghost stole up to the speaker holding a pistol in one hand, and powder and ball in the other, without the novice seeming to deign a glance in that direction.
"Do you promise passive obedience to the brotherhood, even though it were to recoil on yourself?"
"Whoso enters the household of the Faithful is no longer his own property."
"Hence
