Charles's mind flashed to Susan. It was she who had been the cause of the ugly scene that had ruined the tribute to the dark gods. He was now powerless to get her away from this company of rakes and licentious women into which, all too late, he now realised he had allowed himself to be drawn by fascination with the occult and his urge to satisfy his lust in exciting surroundings.
Had he been brought up to be religious, he would never have done so, but neither his mother nor 'Uncle' Roger, for whom he had an unbounded admiration, ever went to church. Both of them had told him that they believed every person to have many lives, and that the original teaching of Jesus Christ had been perverted almost from the beginning by the fanatical St. Paul, followed in the early centuries by ignorant and often evil priests.
Susan, he knew, had absorbed the same ideas: a belief that no man could absolve another from his sins, and that the only sin one could commit was deliberately to cause others to be unhappy. Such a belief could explain why she had allowed herself to be brought here, but she could have had no idea of the rituals performed at Satanic ceremonies, otherwise she would not have attempted to leave the temple.
Yet the fact remained that it was her attempt to do so which had led to this abrupt disruption of the night's proceedings; so Charles was filled with fear that the Abbess would regard Susan as the principal offender and vent her wrath even more severely on her than on himself.
He was now powerless to protect her, and it was certain that no-one else there would. She was helpless in their hands, and was incapable of resisting anything they decided to do to her. They were gathered there to slake their lusts on one another. The Abbess's ritual was to have been followed by an orgy. They would not be content to go home without it taking place. The Abbess might decree that Susan was to be stripped, and that any number of men who liked should possess her forcibly. At the awful picture this possibility conjured up, sweat broke out on Charles's forehead.
Suddenly a tall man near the altar cried in a loud voice, 'Unhand that young fellow and let him take the novice hence. 'Tis not fitting that anyone should be brought here who is not a willing participant in our revels.'
'Aye, aye!' several other voices supported him, and a woman's treble called out, 'We want no squeamish young prudes in our joyous company.'
But the majority of those present howled down the protestors, and one man shouted above the rest, 'She'd not be out with our Brother who brought her at this hour of night if she were all that innocent. She'll make good sport for us. Strip her and let's see if she is a virgin.'
'Well said,' yelled another. 'And if she is, let Aboe make a woman of her on the altar.'
Charles's heart lurched in horror. Aboe was the giant negro.
During this altercation the two men holding Charles had released their grip on him. With a sudden plunge forward he broke free. For him to reach Susan and get her away was impossible, but he swiftly backed against a pillar, his fists clenched, ready to fight again.
The Abbess had halted, undecided, half-way up the aisle. A lull in the clamour enabled Charles to make his. voice heard, and he appealed to her:
'Reverend Mother, I pray you let me take her away.
On her account as well as my own, I swear that neither of us will say aught to anyone about what takes place here.'
'No! No!' came an angry chorus, and someone called, 'She should pay for having interfered with our lady Abbess's receiving the libation to Lucifer. Give her to the negro.'
The tall man who had first intervened shouted, ‘I’ll not have it! And you know who I am, Katie O'Brien. 'Twill pay you ill to cross me.'
The Abbess did know. He was a Duke and one of the wealthiest men in England. She was greatly averse to offending him, but loath to disappoint the many opposed to him, so she sought refuge in a subterfuge and cried:
'Brothers and Sisters, we are all equal here. We will put it to the vote. All those in favour of letting them go, put up their hands.'
A dozen hands were raised. Then she called, 'Now those who would have her pay a forfeit.'
Over twenty hands went up, a clear majority. 'So be it!' she cried, then beckoned to the negro. 'Gome, Aboe, take her.'
Susan was being held, so could not get away. As the negro took a step forward, she screamed. At that moment the masked Duke sprang out of the crowd and dashed at him. To avoid the attack, Aboe stepped back and cannoned into the pedestal just behind him.
It went over with a crash. The oil that fed the flame in the centre of the chafing dish gushed out across the carpet. An instant later the flames caught the curtain with the Yin upon it. As it flared up the nearest cushion caught, then the flames seemed to leap from it to others.
Pandemonium ensued. Everyone was shouting, 'Fire!' and scrambling through billowing smoke toward the entrance to the temple. Charles did not lose a second. No sooner were the curtains ablaze than he swivelled about, sprang towards Susan, grasped her by the arm and ran with her toward the stairs. Rushing up them, they reached the hall breathless. The footman there stared at them in astonishment. Brushing past him, Charles wrenched open the front door. Within two minutes of the fire having started, he and Susan were out in the street.
Side by side they hurried to Charles's coach. He roused the dozing coachman and told him to drive back to Berkeley Square. Susan was weeping and, getting into the coach, huddled back into a dark corner. But Charles was in no mood to be sympathetic, and demanded angrily:
'Since when have you become fascinated by the mysteries of the occult?'
'I am not,' she sobbed, 'and know nothing of them.'
'How then could you be so great a fool as to let Hawksbury take you to the Hell Fire Club ?'
'I ... I had no notion that is what it was. He simply told me that... that he would like to take me to an amusing party for . . . for an hour or two. He said that it was being given by one of his friends and... and that he would bring me home well before the ball was over.'
'He deceived you, then. But that is no excuse for having gone off alone with a man in the middle of the night. He might well have taken you to his own apartment, or some other place, and there seduced you.'
At that she, too, flared into anger. 'You are right! As I found him attractive, he might have. But had he attempted me, the odds are that I should have prevented him by saying that I had my affairs, and consoled him by half-promises about the future.'
'You were then seriously considering taking him as your lover?'
'Yes; and why not? I told you this morning that, while you sowed your wild oats, I should consider myself free to sow mine if I had a mind to it. But when you said that tonight you intended to disport yourself at a club that provided special diversions, I never dreamt that it would be in such company. Oh, Charles! How could you become a Satanist ? The thought appals me.'
'I am not a Satanist, any more than were those distinguished men who belonged to the original Hell Fire Club. The ceremonies are only a means to render amorous encounters more exciting.'
'So you say. But you cannot deny that the occult enters into it, and that evil powers are invoked to better the prospects of those who attend these meetings.'