I raised the bowl to my lips, and drank its contents. It was like nothing I had ever tasted before. It was sickening, yet I could not tell what it was! Instantly the band closed around us, standing two or three deep, and the Captain struck a match. Holding the little blazing stick to the hand I had dipped in the bowl, he bid me look. THE FINGER WAS STAINED AS WITH BLOOD! He then bid me look at the bowl. IT WAS A HUMAN SKULL! [Illustration: THE CONSECRATING BOWL.] MAKING A NEW COMPANY. Some weeks after my initiation, I was detailed with an older Brother, to attend to the formation of a new company in a neighboring county. As usual, the source of the order was unknown, except that it came from the captain of our band. The order and detail were announced by our captain, no comment made, and myself and comrade in the duty started next night, in obedience to the order, for the location of the new company, in the adjoining county. He knew the mode of procedure in these cases, and I left the direction of all to him. We reached the place in the morning, and did nothing during the day. At night, by his direction, I notified a well known citizen, in much the same manner I had been notified myself before initiation, and we started after dark, out of the town. My comrade, with another citizen, was with me. Reaching a lonely spot in the country, we turned our horses off the road into a wild tract, and being far from all habitations, at length stopped in the woods. Here we separated, I taking my man, and my comrade his, and going perhaps a quarter of a mile apart. We were both armed with Enfield rifles. The two men to be initiated on this occasion brought no arms with them. Had they done so they would have been required to lay them aside before the initiation commenced. The mode of initiation of these men, who were to form the nucleus of a new company, was substantially that already narrated, as experienced by myself, except, of course, that there was no attendant band, and the final ceremony of the Consecrating Drink was deferred till half a dozen others had been initiated, when it was administered to all at the same time.