’But if he sought for gold it was for the power it gave him, and it was power he aimed at when he brooded night and day over dim secrets.  Power was the subject of all his dreams, but not a paltry, limited dominion over this or that; power over the whole world, power over all created things, power over the very elements, power over God Himself.  His lust was so vast that he could not rest till the stars in their courses were obedient to his will.’

For once Haddo lost his enigmatic manner.  It was plain now that his words intoxicated him, and his face assumed a new, a strange, expression.  A peculiar arrogance flashed in his shining eyes.

’And what else is it that men seek in life but power?  If they want money, it is but for the power that attends it, and it is power again that they strive for in all the knowledge they acquire.  Fools and sots aim at happiness, but men aim only at power.  The magus, the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind.  They think by the science they study so patiently, but endurance and strength, by force of will and by imagination, for these are the great weapons of the magician, they may achieve at last a power with which they can face the God of Heaven Himself.’

Oliver Haddo lifted his huge bulk from the low chair in which he had been sitting.  He began to walk up and down the studio.  It was curious to see this heavy man, whose seriousness was always problematical, caught up by a curious excitement.

‘You’ve been talking of Paracelsus,’ he said.  ’There is one of his experiments which the doctor has withheld from you.  You will find it neither mean nor mercenary, but it is very terrible.  I do not know whether the account of it is true, but it would be of extraordinary interest to test it for oneself.’

He looked round at the four persons who watched him intently.  There was a singular agitation in his manner, as though the thing of which he spoke was very near his heart.

’The old alchemists believed in the possibility of spontaneous generation.  By the combination of psychical powers and of strange essences, they claim to have created forms in which life became manifest.  Of these, the most marvellous were those strange beings, male and female, which were called homunculi.  The old philosophers doubted the possibility of this operation, but Paracelsus asserts positively that it can be done.  I picked up once for a song on a barrow at London Bridge a little book in German.  It was dirty and thumbed, many of the pages were torn, and the binding scarcely held the leaves together.  It was called Die Sphinx and was edited by a certain Dr Emil Besetzny.  It contained the most extraordinary account I have ever read of certain spirits generated by Johann-Ferdinand, Count von Kueffstein, in the Tyrol, in 1775.  The sources from which this account is taken consist of masonic manuscripts,