The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

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СКАЧАТЬ his dignity. He pleaded for just one sniff. We weren't really very bad, but the description of the thirst in that horrible poem had made us feel thirsty.

      " My dear man," said Lamus very brutally. " I'm not a dope peddler. You've come to the wrong shop."

      Cockie's head was drooping, and his eyes were glassy. But the need of dope drove him desperately to try every dodge.

      " Hang it all," he said with a little flash of spirit. You encouraged us to go on,"

      " Certainly," admitted Lamus, " and now, I'm encouraging you to stop."

      " I thought you believed in do what you like; you're always saying it."

      " I beg your pardon," came the sharp retort. - " I never said anything of the kind. I said, 'Do what thou wilt,' and I say it again. But that's a horse of quite a different colour."

      " But we need the stuff," pleaded Peter. " We've got to have it. Why did you induce us to take it ?"

      "Why," he laughed subtly, "it's my will to want you to do your will."

      " Yes, and I want the stuff."

      " Acute psychologist as you are, Sir Peter, you have failed to grasp my meaning. I fear I express myself badly. "

      Cockie was boiling inwardly, yet he was so weak and faint that he was like a lamb. I myself would have killed Lamus if I had had the means. I felt that he was deliberately torturing us for his own enjoyment.

      "Oh, I see," said Cockie, " I forgot what you were. What's your figure ? "

      The point blank insult did not even make him smile. He turned to the tall girl who was at the desk, correcting proofs.

      " Note the characteristic reaction," he said to her, as if we had been a couple of rabbits that he was vivisecting. " They don't understand my point of view. They misquote my words, after hearing them every time we have met. They misinterpret four words of one syllable, 'Do what thou wilt.' Finally realising their lack of comprehension, they assume at once that I must be one of the filthiest scoundrels unhanged."

      He turned back to Cockie with a little bow of apology.

      " Do try to get some idea of what I'm saying," he said very earnestly.

      I was bursting with hatred, brimming with suspicion, aghast with contempt. Yet he forced me to feel his sincerity. I crushed down the realisation with furious anger.

      "I encourage you to take drugs," he went on, " exactly as I encourage you to fly. Drugs claim to be every man's master. "

      'Is it such terrible odds

       The heir of ages of wonder, The crown of earth for an hour, The master of tide and thunder Against the juice of a flower ? Ay I in the roar and the rattle Of all the armies of sin,

       This is the only battle

       He never was known to win.'

      You children are the flower of the new generation. You have got to fear nothing. You have got to conquer everything. You have got to learn to make use of drugs as your ancestors learnt to make use of lightning. You have got to stop at the word of command, and go on at the word of command according to circumstances."

      He paused. The dire need of the drug kept Peter alert. He followed the argument with intense activity.

      " Quite," he agreed, " and just at the moment, the word of command is 'go on.'"

      The face of King Lamus flowered into a smile of intense amusement; and the girl at the desk shook her thin body as if she were being deliciously tickled.

      Intuition told me why. They had heard the argument before.

      " Very cleverly put, Sir Peter. It would look well in a broad frame, very plain, of dark mahogany, over the mantelpiece, perhaps."

      For some reason or other, the conversation was pulling us together. Though we had had no dope, we both felt very much better. Cockie fired his big gun.

      " It's the essence of your teaching, surely, Air. Lamus, that every man should be absolute master of his own destiny."

      " Well, well," admitted the Teacher with an exaggerated sigh, " I expected to be beaten in argument.

       I always am. But I, too, am the master of mine. 'If Power asks Why, then is Power weakness,' as we read in the Book of the Law; and it's not my destiny to give you any drugs this morning."

      " But you're interfering with my Will," protested Cockie, almost vivaciously.

      " It would take too long to explain," returned Lamus, " why I think that remark unfair. But to quote the Book of the Law once more, 'Enough of Because, be he damned for a dog.' Instead, let me tell you a story. "

      We tactfully expressed eagerness to hear it.

      " The greatest mountaineer of his generation, as you know, was the late Oscar Eckenstein."

      He went through a rather complicated gesture quite incomprehensible; but it vaguely suggested to me some ceremonial reverence connected with death.

      " I had the great good fortune to be adopted by this man; he taught me how to climb; in particular, how to glissade. He made me start down the slope from all kinds of complicated positions ; head first and so on; and I had to let myself slide without attempting to save myself until he gave the word, and then I had to recover myself and finish, either sitting or standing, as he chose, to swerve or to stop ; while he counted five. And he gave me progressively dangerous exercises. Of course, this sounds all rather obvious, but as a matter of fact, he was the only man who had learnt and who taught to glissade in this thorough way."

      " The acquired power, however, stood me in very good stead on many occasions. To save an hour may sometimes mean to save one's life, and we could plunge down dangerous slopes where (for example) one might find oneself on a patch of ice when going at high speed if one were not certain of being able to stop in an instant when the peril were perceived. We could descend perhaps three thousand feet in ten minutes where people without that training would have had to go down step by step on the rope, and perhaps found themselves benighted in a hurricane in consequence. "

      " But the best of it was this: I was in command of a Himalayan expedition some years ago ; and the coolies were afraid to traverse a snow slope which overhung a terrific cliff. I called on them to watch me, flung myself on the snow head first, swept down like a sack of oats, and sprang to my feet on the very edge of the precipice. "

      " There was a great gasp of awed amazement while I walked up to the men. They followed me across the mauvis Pas without a moment's hesitation. They probably thought it was magic or something. No matter what. But at least they felt sure that they could come to no harm by following a man so obviously under the protection of the mountain gods."

      Cockie had gone deathly white. He understood with absolute clarity the point of the anecdote. He felt his manhood shamed that he was in the power of this blind black craving. He didn't really believe that Lamus was telling the truth. He thought the man had risked his life to get those coolies across. It seemed impossible that a man could possess such absolute power and confidence. In other words, he judged King Larnus by himself. He knew himself not to be a first-rate air-man. He had flattered himself that he had dared so many dangers. It cut him like a whip that Lamus СКАЧАТЬ