Page:Devil-Worship in France 1896.djvu/190

 fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her garments, her entire person. At this point the inevitable thunder began to roll; three and one and two great thunders, after which came five breathings upon her face, and after those breathings five radiant spirits appeared, the first act closing impressively with a final salvo of artillery.

The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, les renseignements do not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan’s first impulse was to fall in worship at his feet? But the sordid apparition, instead of accepting the homage with the grace which is native to empire, had recourse to the method of the novelist, and stayed her intention by a gesture. Even at this late date, and with the millstone of her conversion