t infamous, of them all, Sprenger's _Malleus
Malefikorum_.

'Here is one of my greatest treasures. It is the _Clavicula Salomonis_;
and I have much reason to believe that it is the identical copy which
belonged to the greatest adventurer of the eighteenth century, Jacques
Casanova. You will see that the owner's name had been cut out, but enough
remains to indicate the bottom of the letters; and these correspond
exactly with the signature of Casanova which I have found at the
Bibliotheque Nationale. He relates in his memoirs that a copy of this
book was seized among his effects when he was arrested in Venice for
traffic in the black arts; and it was there, on one of my journeys from
Alexandria, that I picked it up.'

He replaced the precious work, and his eye fell on a stout volume bound
in vellum.

'I had almost forgotten the most wonderful, the most mysterious, of all
the books that treat of occult science. You have heard of the Kabbalah,
but I doubt if it is more than a name to you.'

'I know nothing about it at all,' laughed Susie, 'except that it's all
very romantic and extraordinary and ridiculous.'

'This, then, is its history. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of
Egypt, was first initiated into the Kabbalah in the land of his birth;
but became most proficient in it during his wanderings in the wilderness.
Here he not only devoted the leisure hours of forty years to this
mysterious science, but received lessons in it from an obliging angel. By
aid of it he was able to solve the difficulties which arose during his
management of the Israelites, notwithstanding the pilgrimages, wars, and
miseries of that most unruly nation. He covertly laid down the principles
of the doctrine in the first four books of the Pentateuch, but withheld
them from Deuteronomy. Moses also initiated the Seventy Elders into these
secrets, and they in turn transmitted them from hand to hand. Of all who
formed the unbroken line of tradition, David and Solomon were the most
deeply learned in the Kabbalah. No one, however, dared to write it down
till Schimeon ben Jochai, who lived in the time of the destruction of
Jerusalem; and after his death the Rabbi Eleazar, his son, and the Rabbi
Abba, his secretary, collected his manuscripts and from them composed the
celebrated treatise called _Zohar_.'

'And how much do you believe of this marvellous story?' asked Arthur
Burdon.

'Not a word,' answered Dr Porhoet, with a smile. 'Criticism h