Truly our gaze encountered a scene of the most bewildering and terrible description. Within, was a spacious cellar-like chamber, the walls of which were hung with black whereon were curious devices in white, and around in sconces were burning candles of black wax. At the end, opposite where we stood, was a church Communion-table whereon burnt long, black candles, and before it stood a kind of low stool with a large cushion of black velvet upon it. All was black save the strange designs upon the walls, while the candles shed a curious mystic light upon the whole apartment, illuminating the central object so weirdly that our startled eyes were riveted upon it. This object, placed immediately over the altar, was nothing less than a great effigy of Satan, with a leering grin upon his ghastly features, holding in one hand an apple, and in the other a wine-bottle. In the eyes there burned a blood-red light, and the protruding tongue, as he laughed, seemed pointed as that of a serpent. It was hideous; and I heartily wished myself out of that noisome place. Suddenly I saw something which paralysed me with terror. The effigy moved. What I had believed to be but a statue, bent down and uttered some words to a thin, pale-faced man who had at that instant entered by the door on the opposite side of the chamber. "Look!" gasped Yelverton. "Look! It is living!" But Muriel placed her hand upon his mouth, demanding that he should preserve silence and not risk our lives. The newcomer spat into a marble bowl of water like that placed at the door of the Roman Catholic churches, whereupon Satan gave vent to a laugh so hideous that it sent a chill through me. Next second, some eight or ten others, men and women, entered, each expectorating into the holy water as sign of contempt for all things sacred. With bated breath we watched. For several years there had been hints in the press of the establishment in London of a cult of Satan, but very few believed it. Yet here we were actual witnesses that Diabolism did exist among us. This age is indeed a decadent one, for according to the facts which had already leaked out the terribly profane doctrine of Satan consisted of a kind of reversed Christianity, it being inferred, from the condition of the world at the present time, that the mastery of the moment rests with the evil principle, and that the beneficent Deity is at a disadvantage. The Diabolists, therefore, while believing that the Deity reigns, declare that he is the author of human misery, and they therefore take sides with Satan in the cause of humanity. According to those who have come out of this cultus, the worshippers co-operate with Satan to insure his triumph, and they believe that he communicates with them to encourage and strengthen them. Such, briefly, is the belief of the modern Diabolists, and such is the latest acme of profanity established among the greatest and most civilised nation on the earth.