De Richleau smiled. ‘I had other ideas. But I shall not be the least surprised if you veto them. It occurred to me that we might hire a private aircraft, if you are willing to fly us up.’
Richard smiled back. ‘I wonder if you realise what you would be letting yourself in for? The air currents among those mountains must be about as bad as one could encounter anywhere short of the Himalayas. But if you are both willing to risk your necks, I’ll risk mine.’
Simon’s eyes flickered wildly. ‘Sounds stark crazy. No aspersions on you as a pilot, old chap, but to fly an aircraft between those scores of mountains sounds like juggling with death to me. Crossing the Andes by car, bad enough. On primitive roads subject to frequent blockages by landslides, good chance of ending up over a precipice. Train would be safer. Between Arica and La Paz we’d be reduced to grease spots, but at least we’d arrive.’
‘You are right, my son,’ the Duke agreed. ‘My own enquiries before dinner lead me to suppose that both roads and trains in Central South America are little better than they were when I was in those parts in 1908. But it is not really a question of whether we spend many hours slowly roasting in a stinking, insanitary train, or take the very risky flight. The nub of the matter is how to penetrate the Sala de Uyuni when we arrive in the neighbourhood.’
He took a long pull on his cigar, then went on, The Sala is approximately one hundred and fifty miles in length and one hundred miles in breadth–roughly the area of Wales. Whether we make the greater part of the journey by road or rail, we can assume that we shall arrive on the edge of this vast, roadless plateau of salt marshes and near-impenetrable low jungle, in a car. What do we do then?’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Richard nodded. ‘Even if there were tracks along which we could drive a car—and it’s very doubtful if there are—we wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of finding the newly-built town in which Nella worked. The only possibility of doing that would be to fly to and for across the area until we spot it.’
‘Hadn’t thought of that,’ Simon conceded. ‘But I get Grey-eyes’ point now. Got to have an aircraft to locate the place, and one might as well expect to find a Dodo bird up there. As one’s got to be flown up, might as well go in it. O.K. then. I’ll swallow a handful of sleepers and you can take me along as baggage.’
‘Splendid.’ the Duke smiled. ‘Then, when we arrive, having had your sleep Richard and I can take a nap, while you prepare and cook a meal for us.’
‘Ummm. We’ll be landing in a wilderness; so we’ll need supplies. Looks as though this is going to be a bit like going on safari.’
‘Except that once we leave the aircraft we’ll have to be our own porters,’ Richard added, making a grimace.
De Richleau shrugged. ‘We should be able to find somewhere to land far enough from the town for the people in it not to realise that we have come down, yet not so far off for it to be an easy trek to the place. We shall have to take precautions against being spotted when we enter it, though. Dressed in our usual clothes, we would stand out like sore thumbs, and immediately draw attention to ourselves as strangers. But the Nathan woman told you there are people of all races there, so we should be able to pass unnoticed in that sort of crowd if we wore sombreros and the kind of clothes most commonly seen in Andean towns.’
In consequence, it was decided that on the Monday Richard should go out to the airport and make enquiries for a suitable aircraft that could be hired, and that Simon should purchase both a good stock of supplies and the sort of garments that would make them inconspicuous.
They were well content to spend Sunday in its traditional role as a day of rest. Richard and Simon were still recovering from the awful anxiety to which they had been subjected during their nine days in prison. Miranda, too, had been under a great strain, and had lost both weight and sleep. When they all met for lunch and later in the day by mutual consent they avoided speaking of Rex and Satanism. Nevertheless, the now double mystery of why Rex should have absconded with a million dollars and fallen into the hands of the followers of the Left-Hand Path was never far from their minds.
Pinney alone was not gravely troubled by those unsolved problems, nor greatly concerned about the dangers the three men would soon have to face. De Richleau amused himself by drawing her out, and she fell completely under the spell of his charm; for once, in her somewhat acid way, enlivening the subdued atmosphere by becoming quite amusing.
On the Monday morning, Simon and Richard set off on their respective ploys. De Richleau, as befitted his age, was taking things easy and did not intend to get up until it was time to dress for lunch. At half past ten his bedside telephone rang. It was Miranda. She said she wanted to talk to him privately, and asked if she could come down to his suite.
‘By all means,’ he told her. ‘But I’m still in bed. Give me half an hour to have my bath.’
Normally he always travelled with his manservant, Max; but, on their arrival in Rome, there had been only one seat available on the aircraft, and he had felt it to be of such urgency to join his friends that he had left Max behind. While washing and shaving himself, he ran a bath, poured a generous ration of scent into it and luxuriated there for ten minutes. Another ten went in doing his exercises, then he put the final touch to his toilette by brushing up his white ‘devil’s’ eyebrows. A few minutes before eleven, clad in one of his beautiful silk dressing gowns—of which at home he had a large collection—he was in his sitting room ready to receive Miranda.
Pinney was with her, but had evidently been told that her presence would not be required; as, having said a polite good morning to the Duke, she at once withdrew. As soon as Miranda was comfortably settled in an armchair, the Duke said lightly:
‘Now, tell me, dear, what is it you wanted to talk to me about? If it was to ask my opinion of Simon’s suitability as a husband, I can assure you at once that I have never known a kinder and more sweet-natured man.’
‘Oh, how right you are about him,’ she agreed quickly. ‘And you can have no idea what his coming into my life has meant to me. I was virtually a prisoner of my disability. For over two years, after the fire in which I so narrowly escaped death, a long series of operations to patch me up rendered me incapable of doing anything. By the time I was able to get about, doing next to nothing had become a habit and everyone treated me as a permanent invalid. Then Simon came and, like a knight in an old romance, rescued me from my prison. He has made me the happiest woman in the world.’
De Richleau smiled. ‘I am delighted for you, truly delighted. And for him, too. I’m sure you will both be very, very happy. I suppose, though, it is about him that you wanted to talk?’
‘Yes. Greatly as I love him, I wouldn’t seek to dissuade him from continuing to take his part in the search for Uncle Rex. But I’m sure you’ll understand how worried I am about him—and Richard and you—going up to the Sala. I don’t think I’d be quite so scared if you were about to pit yourselves against a gang of ordinary bad men. It’s the unknown that frightens me. You see, until a few days ago, I had no idea that there were still people who worshipped the Devil. Can he really give them powers to do serious harm to their enemies?’
‘He can. Naturally, I should like to allay your fears; but I would not be honest if I told you the contrary. I’m speaking now of the real thing. Since the war there have been increasingly frequent reports in our newspapers of people desecrating churches, black magic circles and that sort of thing. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I believe that the occult plays no part in them. They are either attributable to unscrupulous men interesting girls in this fascinating subject, with the object of getting them to participate in pseudo rituals at which they can easily be seduced; or run by clever crooks who promise their credulous victims communication with a departed loved one, or foreknowledge by which big money can be made, then photograph them committing some obscene act, and afterwards blackmail them. But there are men and women who have acquired genuine Satanic powers, and they can be very danger
ous indeed.’
‘Are there many of them?’
‘Throughout the world there must be a considerable number, particularly in South America, Africa and the West Indies. Voodoo, of course, developed from the witch-craft practised by primitive African tribes. Haiti is its greatest stronghold, but Brazil bids fair to rival it. The lives of a good eighty per cent of the people in those countries are dominated by witch-doctors, male and female, and several times each year they make sacrifices to the Powers of Darkness. In Europe and the English-speaking world such activities are, naturally, conducted under cover, and comparatively rare. As I have said, most mentions of them in the newspapers refer to the vicious and the criminal cashing in by exploiting people who are superstitious. Nevertheless, in every great city in the States, Europe and Australia there are a limited number of Satan worshippers, vowed to use every means in their power to incite violence against law and order, sow discord between nations and bring about the disruption of civilisation.’
‘How do you come to know so much about these things?’ Miranda asked.
‘As a young officer, I became a thorn in the flesh of the French Government; so my superiors virtually exiled me to garrison duty in Madagascar. I found the boredom of living in that great island unbearable so, after a few months, I made friends with a powerful witch-doctor and, under his guidance, trained to fit myself to acquire occult power. One is initiated into the Mysteries by degrees, of which there are eleven. Having reached the fifth degree and become a Philosopher, one must then decide whether to follow the Right- or Left-Hand Path.’
‘Does that mean to use your power for Good or Evil?’
‘Yes. Those who follow the Right-Hand Path practise only white magic. That is the use of occult power for unselfish ends, such as curing warts, taking pain from others and so on. It may interest you to know that recently the British Medical Council carried out an investigation, which disclosed that white magic is still practised in every county in the British Isles. The majority of people who practise white magic are, I think, simple souls who do not realise that such powers are given from beyond. But many of the Saints must obviously have believed that their ability to perform miracles was due to a force which they regarded as being bestowed upon them by their god. The followers of the Left-Hand Path are black magicians. Their object is to gratify their own desires with regard to women, money and influence over the lives of others. For this they must pay by worshipping Satan, and carrying on the evil work of the Power of Darkness.
‘In every community, whether primitive or civilised, both black and white magic are practised; but, unfortunately, there is far more black than white in the world today. Both in the East and the West the great Faiths have decayed. Few priests, whether Buddhist, Mohammedan or Christian, are any longer aware of the Great Truths and have knowledge of the Logos. They still perform their rituals and pay lip-service to their respective Gods, but during the past half-century more and more people have come to see through them as the empty vessels that they are.
‘Even though their Faiths have long become distortions of the Eternal Verities from which all of them originally sprang, they were still forces for good, and those who subscribed to their doctrines were armoured against evil by the discipline they imposed. But we have now entered the age of doubt and rebellion against all controls. All over the world the new generations are rejecting the old Faiths, and have come to despise adherence to convention. It is termed “The New Freedom”, but it leaves them rudderless. When in trouble they have nothing to turn to. And, with the taboos abolished, there is no restraint upon them from taking refuge in drugs, drink and promiscuity. Under the influence of these, they become the unconscious pawns of Satan, and an easy prey for recruitment as active participants in a Satanic Circle.’
‘You think, then, that comparatively few people in our world have occult power? How does one acquire it?’
‘By long periods of contemplation, fasting and undergoing a series of increasingly severe ordeals. After a while, one’s spirit is able to leave one’s body at will, and travel first on the lower Astral planes when we sleep. Our dreams are memories of our experiences on them; but the untrained mind brings back only fragments of dreams, so that these telescoped events are meaningless. The Adept can recall, whether awake or sleeping, everything his ego has seen or done during its absence from his body. While on an Astral plane he will meet and talk with other spirits, some whose bodies are thousands of miles away, and others whom you would term dead, but in fact are for the time being out of incarnation.’
‘You are a believer in reincarnation, then?’
‘I am indeed. It is the original belief held universally when the world was young, and the only logical one. If you believe in survival, it is the only possible explanation for our being here and undergoing the trials we have to face in life. Otherwise that would be pointless. We are sent here to travel the long road from being entirely self-centred, lustful, gluttonous savages, to wise, controlled, benign personalities, ever thinking of the happiness of others, until we are fitted to become one ourselves with the Lords of Light. How could one possibly achieve that tremendous transition in one life on earth? What chance would you have if you were born seriously deformed, or the child of criminal parents? It is that which makes so absurd the Christian heresy of a Last Judgement. To reward one person with unending bliss in Heaven and condemn another to eternal torment in Hell solely on the evidence of a single life on earth would be the greatest conceivable travesty of justice. It makes the present conception of the Christian God a mockery.
‘But, of course, that was not the original Christian teaching. The doctrine preached by Jesus Christ was sadly perverted by that ignorant fool, Paul, and others, in the early centuries of our era. Christ knew the truth. There can be no doubt of that. You will recall His words, “The sins of the Fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation.” Is it conceivable that so enlightened and gentle a man, who showed His love for children, should have threatened infants not yet born with dire punishment because their grandfather had been a murderer or sodomite? To initiates, His meaning has always been transparently clear. He was saying that every man is the father of the person he becomes in his next incarnation, and if he does evil in his present life, he will suffer for it in his future lives, until he has made good the evil that he did.’
Before Miranda had entered the room, de Richleau had pulled down the blinds, so that she would not need to wear her mask. While he was speaking, her big, blue eyes had remained fixed upon him in fascinated wonder at this, to her, new presentation of the meaning of life. As he paused, she said:
‘What a tragedy that the Christian Church should for so many centuries have misled Christ’s followers. Is there no way in which a new Reformation could be brought about, so that in future people would be taught the truth?’
De Richleau shook his head. ‘I fear not. It is decreed by the Lords of Light that the way to enlightenment is for ever open. Those who seek shall find, and to those who are ready to receive it, it shall be given. You, my dear, I now know to be such a one, and I am overjoyed that I should have been chosen to unveil your spiritual eyes, so that henceforth you will never have any fear of death, and realise that leaving your present body is only the casting away of an outworn garment. Each life down here is like a term at school. During it we must learn some new lesson. Each time we leave an earthly body, we go on holiday. Free of the flesh, we are no longer subject to pain, and are infinitely more perceptive. Waiting to make us welcome we find beloved friends who have left their bodies before us and others whom we have loved in previous incarnations. The state of those who are out of incarnation is beautifully expressed in the Koran, by the words, “For them there are gardens beneath which rivers flow.”
‘But it is useless to endeavour to win converts to these beliefs. Fear and ignorance are the two states by which the Devil befuddles the wits of mankind. The Mau-Mau initiate their young warriors by hideous c
eremonies in which the youth couples with a sow. The act has the effect of causing the initiate to commit himself absolutely. He feels that, after that, should he waver in his fanatic devotion to Mau-Mau, the dark gods will seize upon and destroy him utterly.
‘At the other end of the scale you have the Christian clergy. They are civilised and kindly men; and they do much good among the poor and afflicted. But spiritually they are empty vessels, bound by centuries of tradition to their way of life. The great majority of them continue to gabble their rituals, although they no longer believe in them. Ask them how the eternal war between Light and Darkness is going, and they would think you a little mad. For them the Devil is a myth of the Middle Ages, and to suggest that he is still active would greatly embarrass them.’
Sadly, Miranda shook her head. Then, after a moment, she asked:
‘This expedition on … on which you are going. Do you think you will be able to protect yourself and the others?’
‘I can only pray that it will be so,’ the Duke replied seriously. ‘It depends upon the degree of power that can be called down by the Satanist who heads this Black Power movement. I have achieved the ninth degree, and am a Magister Templar, represented in occultism by eight circles and three squares. If my opponent is a Magus or an Ipsissimus, he could prove too much for me. But I beg you not to worry. Instead, every time you tend to do so, pray for us Prayers often appear to be ignored, but they never go unheeded. At times they conflict with the fate decreed for the person on whose behalf they are offered up; but at others they can be of great help to those we love.’
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