Page:Konx Om Pax.pdf/87

There was a problem when proofreading this page.

THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

73

It was only when the Man and the Socialist, invisibly seeking some pinnacle in the plains of Holbein House, as Sigiri springs from the flat table of the central province of Ceylon, came upon them, that their influence woke them into life.

I will cause them to converse, said the Man (who was the Devil), as it were to take you upon an high mountain and show you all the kingdoms of the earth. I have seen them, said the Socialist. But, said the Man, things look very different from that height.

Poverty and vice are the same from any point of view, began the Socialist.

Listen! said the other.

Arthur Gray stretched his legs as well as the room would allow. Master, your pipe is out. Read us that yarn of your turn-to with Asmodee in Scotland. If ever a place seemed to defy God, "it is this, it is this, it is this." Tune our instruments, master!

The big man put away his pipe. Your brother, he said, will recognize the title.

And clearing his throat, he began:

هو الله الذلى لا الله الا هو

OR THE DEVIL'S CONVERSION

I see o' nights among the whins
The Devil walking widdershins.
As stony silent as the Sphinx
I sit upon the sandy links,
And listen to the glittering spell
Of Asmodee the Goat of Hell.

He conjures up the nights of gray
And cardinal in Dahomey,
Where before kings and caboceers
The flaming cat of Hell careers;