the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING
No longer was she the middle aged woman, worn with
strange lusts; but a young woman of bewitching beauty.
At once recognizing the power of her sorcery, and knowing
that if he even so much as contemplated her Gorgon head all
the power of his magic would be petrified, and that he would
become but a puppet in her hands, but a toy to be played with
and when broken cast aside, he quietly rose as if nothing
unusual had occurred; and replacing the bust on the mantelpiece
turned towards her and commenced with her a magical
conversation; that is to say a conversation which outwardly
had but the appearance of the politest small talk but which
inwardly lacerated her evil heart, and burnt into her black
bowels as if each word had been a drop of some corrosive
acid.
She writhed back from him; and then again approached
him even more beautiful than she had been before. She was
battling for her life now, and nno longer for the blood of
another victim. If she lost, hell yawned before her, the hell
that every once beautiful woman who is approaching middle
age, sees before her the hell of lost beauty, of decrepitude, of
wrinkles and fat. The odour of man seemed to fill her whole
subtle form with a feline agility, with a beauty irresistable.
One step nearer and then she sprang at Frater P. and with an
obscene word sought to press her scarlet lips to his.
As she did so Frater P. caught her and holding her at
arm’s length smote the sorceress with her own current of evil,
just as a would-be murdered is sometimes killed with the very
weapon with which he has attacked his vicitm.
A blue-greenish light seemed to play round the head of the
vampire, and then the flaxen hair turned the colour of muddy
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