My Library

Beverly regarded as his doom. Those who have read carefully what has here been written, will remember that Beverly had convinced me that there was more in the strange legend, regarding the king, the princess, the riddle, the murder, and the curse and its fulfillment, than the majority of people would be willing to concede. In short, I was decidedly inclined to believe in Dhoula Bel and the other doomed one, but I had no faith whatever in either Miakus, Ravalette, the Italian Count, or Vatterale. I did not believe all these names belonged to one person, and I finally settled down on the following theory, point by point:—1st, That there was in existence a society, having its head-quarters in Paris, the members of which were practisers of Oriental magic and necromancy, in which they were most astonishingly expert. 2d, That the organization had for its object, not the attainment of wealth or political position, but abstract knowledge, and the absolute rule of the world through the action and influence of the brotherhood upon the crowned heads and officials of the world. 3d, That this association was governed by a master-mind, and that mind was Ravalette’s. 4th, That this society had cultivated mesmerism to a degree unapproachable by all the world besides. That they had exhausted ordinary clairvoyance, and eagerly sought a brain which would admit of the most thorough magnetization, and whose