THE SORCERY CLUB

BY

ELLIOTT O'DONNELL

AUTHOR OF BYWAYS OF GHOSTLAND, WERWOLVES,
DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS, SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND
AND WALES, SCOTTISH GHOST TALES, HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON, ETC., ETC.

London
William Rider & Son, Limited
8 Paternoster Row, E.C.

1912

CONTENTS

1. HOW THEY FIRST HEARD OF ATLANTIS
   
   
2. THE BLACK ART OF ATLANTIS
   
   
3. LEARNING TO SIN
   
   
4. THE TESTS
   
   
5. THE INITIATION
   
   
6. THE FIRST POWER
   
   
7. SAN FRANCISCO LADIES AND DIVINATION
   
   
8. TWO DREAMS
   
   
9. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
   
   
10. HOW THE DREAMS WERE INTERPRETED
    
    
11. LEON HAMAR CALLS ON THE MARTINS
    
    
12. THE GREAT CHALLENGE
    
    
13. THE MODERN SORCERY CO. LTD. GIVE A GRATIS PERFORMANCE
    
    
14. SHIEL TO THE RESCUE
    
    
15. HOW HAMAR, CURTIS AND KELSON ENTERED THE ASTRAL PLANE
    
    
16. HAMAR MAKES ADVANCES
    
    
17. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
    
    
18. STAGE THREE
    
    
19. A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES
    
    
20. THE STAGE OF HAUNTINGS
    
    
21. THE SELLING OF SPELLS
    
    
22. THE PERSECUTION OF THE MARTINS
    
    
23. LOVE
    
    
24. THE SUBPŒNA
    
    
25. CURTIS IN A NEW RÔLE
    
    
26. IN HYDE PARK AT NIGHT
    
    
27. THE RIGHT GIRL TO MARRY
    
    
28. WHOM WILL HE MARRY?
    
    
29. THE END AND 'THE BEYOND'
    

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE KEEP OFF," KELSON SHRIEKED
Frontispiece

THE INITIATION

THEY GAZED FASCINATED

THE ROOM FILLED WITH LUMINOUS, STRIPED FIGURES

THE SORCERY CLUB

CHAPTER I

HOW THEY FIRST HEARD OF ATLANTIS

Rain is responsible for a great deal more than the mere growth of vegetables—it is a controller, if a somewhat capricious controller, of man's destiny. It was mainly, if not entirely, owing to rain that the French lost the Battle of Agincourt; whilst, if I mistake not, Confucius alone knows how many victories have been snatched from the Chinese by the same factor.

It was most certainly rain that drove Leon Hamar to take refuge in a second-hand bookshop; for so deep-rooted was his aversion to any literature saving a financial gazette or the stock and shares column of a daily, that nothing would have induced him to get within touching distance of a book save the risk of a severe wetting. Now, to his unutterable disgust, he found himself