The floor of the amphitheatre is, for the most
part, grass--soft, thick, velvety and miraculously green. The silence
is such as makes it wholly inconceivable, that so vast a city as San
Francisco can be little over six miles distant. Though one may strain
one's ears to the utmost, nothing is to be heard but the occasional
tinkling of a cow-bell, the lowing of cattle and the desultory note of
birds. It is the perfect quiet which Nature alone can give; and it so
impressed Hamar that he at once decided that this was the very spot
essential for the ceremony of initiation into the Black Art.
The locality selected, the night had next to be chosen--and the
conditions demanding that on the night of the initiation there must be
a new moon, cusp of seventh house, and conjoined with Saturn, in
opposition to Jupiter,[16] Hamar and his confederates had to wait
exactly three weeks, from the date of the conclusion of the tests,
before they could proceed.
Shortly before midnight, on the spot already described, Hamar, Curtis
and Kelson met; and, after searching thoroughly amongst the trees and
bushes in the vicinity of the amphitheatre to make sure no one was in
hiding, they commenced operations.
On a perfectly level piece of ground a circle of seven feet radius was
clearly defined. This circle was cut into seven sectors; and an inner
circle from the same centre and with a radius of six feet was next
drawn. In each part of the sectors, between the circumferences of the
first and second circle, were inscribed, in chalk, the names of the
seven principal vices (according to Atlantean ideas), and the seven
most malignant diseases.
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