Not to earth was vouchsafed the honour of commencing the great battle of
that night. By an expiring blue-shot beam of moonlight, Farina beheld a
vast realm of gloom filling the hollow of the West, and the moon was soon
extinguished behind sluggish scraps of iron scud detached from the
swinging bulk of ruin, as heavily it ground on the atmosphere in the
first thunder-launch of motion.
The heart of the youth was strong, but he could not view without quicker
fawning throbs this manifestation of immeasurable power, which seemed as
if with a stroke it was capable of destroying creation and the works of
man. The bare aspect of the tempest lent terrors to the adventure he was
engaged in, and of which he knew not the aim, nor might forecast the
issue. Now there was nothing to illumine their path but such forked
flashes as lightning threw them at intervals, touching here a hill with
clustered cottages, striking into day there a May-blossom, a patch of
weed, a single tree by the wayside. Suddenly a more vivid and continuous
quiver of violet fire met its reflection on the landscape, and Farina saw
the Rhine-stream beneath him.
'On such a night,' thought he, 'Siegfried fought and slew the dragon!'
A blast of light, as from the jaws of the defeated dragon in his throes,
made known to him the country he traversed. Crimsoned above the water
glimmered the monster-haunted rock itself, and mid-channel beyond, flat
and black to the stream, stretched the Nuns' Isle in cloistral peace.
'Halt!' cried the Monk, and signalled with a peculiar whistle, to which
he seemed breathlessly awaiting an answer. They were immediately
surrounded by longrobed veiled figures.
'Not too late?' the Monk hoarsely asked of them.
'Yet an hour!' was the reply, in soft clear tones of a woman's voice.
'Great strength and valour more than human be mine,' exclaimed the Monk,
dismounting.
He passed apart from them; and they drew in a circle, while he prayed,
kneeling.
Presently he returned, and led Farina to a bank, drawing from some
hiding-place a book and a bell, which he gave into the hands of the
youth.
'For thy soul, no word!' said the Monk, speaking down his throat as he
took in breath. 'Nay! not in answer to me! Be faithful, and more than
earthly fortune is thine; for I say unto thee, I shall not fail, having
grace to sustain this combat.'
Thereupon he commenced the ascent of Drachenfels.
Farina followed. He had no hint of the Monk's mission, nor of the part
himself was to play in it. Such a load of silence gathered on his
questioning spirit, that the outcry of the rageing elements alone
prevented him from arresting the Monk and demanding the end of his
service there. That outcry was enough to freeze speech on the very lips
of a mortal. For scarce had they got footing on the winding path of the
crags, when the whole vengeance of the storm was hurled against the
mountain. Huge boulders were loosened and came bowling from above: trees
torn by their roots from the fissures whizzed on the eddies of the wind:
torrents of rain foamed down the iron flanks of rock, and flew off in
hoar feathers against the short pauses of darkness: the mountain heaved,
and quaked, and yawned a succession of hideous chasms.
'There's a devil in this,' thought Farina. He looked back and marked the
river imaging lurid abysses of cloud above the mountain-summit--yea! and
on the summit a flaming shape was mirrored.
Two nervous hands stayed the cry on his mouth.
'Have I not warned thee?' said the husky voice of the Monk. 'I may well
watch, and think for thee as for a dog. Be thou as faithful!'
He handed a flask to the youth, and bade him drink. Farina drank and
felt richly invigorated. The Monk then took bell and book.
'But half an hour,' he muttered, 'for this combat that is to ring through
centuries.'
Crossing himself, he strode wildly upward. Farina saw him beckon back
once, and the next instant he was lost round an incline of the highest
peak.
The wind that had just screamed a thousand death-screams, was now awfully
dumb, albeit Farina could feel it lifting hood and hair. In the
unnatural stillness his ear received tones of a hymn chanted below; now
sinking, now swelling; as though the voices faltered between prayer and
inspiration. Farina caught on a projection of crag, and fixed his eyes
on what was passing on the height.
There was the Monk in his brown hood and wrapper, confronting--if he
might trust his balls of sight--the red-hot figure of the Prince of
Darkness.
As yet no mortal tussle had taken place between them. They were arguing:
angrily, it was true: yet with the first mutual deference of practised
logicians. Latin and German was alternately employed by both. It
thrilled Farina's fervid love of fatherland to hear the German Satan
spoke: but his Latin was good, and his command over that tongue
remarkable; for, getting the worst of the argument, as usual, he revenged
himself by parodying one of the Church canticles with a point that
discomposed his adversary, and caused him to retreat a step, claiming
support against such shrewd assault.
'The use of an unexpected weapon in warfare is in itself half a victory.
Induce your antagonist to employ it as a match for you, and reckon on
completely routing him . . .' says the old military chronicle.
'Come!' said the Demon with easy raillery. 'You know your game--I mine!
I really want the good people to be happy; dancing, kissing, propagating,
what you will. We quite agree. You can have no objection to me, but a
foolish old prejudice--not personal, but class; an antipathy of the cowl,
for which I pardon you! What I should find in you to complain of--I have
only to mention it, I am sure--is, that perhaps you do speak a little too
much through your nose.'
The Monk did not fall into the jocular trap by retorting in the same
strain.
'Laugh with the Devil, and you won't laugh longest,' says the proverb.
Keeping to his own arms, the holy man frowned.
'Avaunt, Fiend!' he cried. 'To thy kingdom below! Thou halt raged over
earth a month, causing blights, hurricanes, and epidemics of the deadly
sins. Parley no more! Begone!'
The Demon smiled: the corners of his mouth ran up to his ears, and his
eyes slid down almost into one.
'Still through the nose!' said he reproachfully.
'I give thee Five Minutes!' cried the Monk.
'I had hoped for a longer colloquy,' sighed the Demon, jogging his left
leg and trifling with his tail.
'One Minute !' exclaimed the Monk.
'Truly so!' said the Demon. 'I know old Time and his habits better than
you really can. We meet every Saturday night, and communicate our best
jokes. I keep a book of them Down There!'
And as if he had reason to remember the pavement of his Halls, he stood
tiptoe and whipped up his legs.
'Two Minutes!'
The Demon waved perfect acquiescence, and continued:
'We understand each other, he and I. All Old Ones do. As long as he
lasts, I shall. The thing that surprises me is, that you and I cannot
agree, similar as we are in temperament, and playing for the long odds,
both of us. My failure is, perhaps, too great a passion for sport, aha!
Well, 'tis a pity you won't try and live on the benevolent principle.
I am indeed kind to them who commiserate my condition. I give them all
they want, aha! Hem! Try and not believe in me now, aha! Ho! . . .
Can't you? What are eyes? Persuade yourself you're dreaming. You can
do anything with a mind like yours, Father Gregory! And consider the
luxury of getting me out of the way so easily, as many do. It is my
finest suggestion, aha! Generally I myself nudge their ribs with the
capital idea--You're above bribes? I was going to observe--'
'Three!'
'Observe, that if you care for worldly honours, I can smother you with
that kind of thing. Several of your first-rate people made a bargain
with me when they were in the fog, and owe me a trifle. Patronage they
call it. I hook the high and the low. Too-little and too-much serve me
better than Beelzebub. A weak stomach is certainly more carnally
virtuous than a full one. Consequently my kingdom is becoming too
respectable. They've all got titles, and object to being asked to poke
the fire without--Honourable-and-with-Exceeding-Brightness-Beaming
Baroness This! Admirably-Benignant-Down-looking Highness That!
Interrupts business, especially when you have to ask them to fry
themselves, according to the rules . . . Would you like Mainz and the
Rheingau? . . . You don't care for Beauty--Puella, Puellae? I have
plenty of them, too, below. The Historical Beauties warmed up at a
moment's notice. Modern ones made famous between morning and night--
Fame is the sauce of Beauty. Or, no--eh?'
'Four!'
'Not quite so fast, if you please. You want me gone. Now, where's
your charity? Do you ask me to be always raking up those poor devils
underneath? While I'm here, they've a respite. They cannot think you
kind, Father Gregory! As for the harm, you see, I'm not the more
agreeable by being face to face with you--though some fair dames do take
to my person monstrously. The secret is, the quantity of small talk I
can command: that makes them forget my smell, which is, I confess,
abominable, displeasing to myself, and my worst curse. Your sort, Father
Gregory, are somewhat unpleasant in that particular--if I may judge by
their Legate here. Well, try small talk. They would fall desperately in
love with polecats and skunks if endowed with small talk. Why, they have
become enamoured of monks before now! If skunks, why not monks? And
again--'
'Five!'
Having solemnly bellowed this tremendous number, the holy man lifted his
arms to begin the combat.
Farina felt his nerves prick with admiration of the ghostly warrior
daring the Second Power of Creation on that lonely mountain-top. He
expected, and shuddered at thought of the most awful fight ever yet
chronicled of those that have taken place between heroes and the hounds
of evil: but his astonishment was great to hear the Demon, while Bell was
in air and Book aloft, retreat, shouting, 'Hold!'
'I surrender,' said he sullenly. 'What terms?'
'Instantaneous riddance of thee from face of earth.'
'Good!--Now,' said the Demon, 'did you suppose I was to be trapped into a
fight? No doubt you wish to become a saint, and have everybody talking
of my last defeat . . . . Pictures, poems, processions, with the
Devil downmost! No. You're more than a match for me.'
'Silence, Darkness!' thundered the Monk, 'and think not to vanquish thy
victor by flatteries. Begone!'
And again he towered in his wrath.
The Demon drew his tail between his legs, and threw the forked, fleshy,
quivering end over his shoulder. He then nodded cheerfully, pointed his
feet, and finicked a few steps away, saying: 'I hope we shall meet
again.'
Upon that he shot out his wings, that were like the fins of the wyver-
fish, sharpened in venomous points.
'Commands for your people below?' he inquired, leering with chin awry.
'Desperate ruffians some of those cowls. You are right not to
acknowledge them.'
Farina beheld the holy man in no mood to let the Enemy tamper with him
longer.
The Demon was influenced by a like reflection; for, saying, 'Cologne is
the city your Holiness inhabits, I think?' he shot up rocket-like over
Rhineland, striking the entire length of the stream, and its rough-
bearded castle-crests, slate-ledges, bramble-clefts, vine-slopes, and
haunted valleys, with one brimstone flash. Frankfort and the far Main
saw him and reddened. Ancient Trier and Mosel; Heidelberg and Neckar;
Limberg and Lahn, ran guilty of him. And the swift artery of these
shining veins, Rhine, from his snow cradle to his salt decease, glimmered
Stygian horrors as the Infernal Comet, sprung over Bonn, sparkled a fiery
minute along the face of the stream, and vanished, leaving a seam of
ragged flame trailed on the midnight heavens.
Farina breathed hard through his teeth.
'The last of him was awful,' said he, coming forward to where the Monk
knelt and grasped his breviary, 'but he was vanquished easily.'
'Easily?' exclaimed the holy man, gasping satisfaction: 'thou weakling!
is it for thee to measure difficulties, or estimate powers? Easily?
thou worldling! and so are great deeds judged when the danger's past!
And what am I but the humble instrument that brought about this wondrous
conquest! the poor tool of this astounding triumph! Shall the sword say,
This is the battle I won! Yonder the enemy I overthrow! Bow to me, ye
lords of earth, and worshippers of mighty acts? Not so! Nay, but the
sword is honoured in the hero's grasp, and if it break not, it is
accounted trusty. This, then, this little I may claim, that I was
trusty! Trusty in a heroic encounter! Trusty in a battle with earth's
terror! Oh! but this must not be said. This is to think too much!
This is to be more than aught yet achieved by man!'
The holy warrior crossed his arms, and gently bowed his head.
'Take me to the Sisters,' he said. 'The spirit has gone out of me! I am
faint, and as a child!'
Farina asked, and had, his blessing.
'And with it my thanks!' said the Monk. 'Thou hast witnessed how he can
be overcome! Thou hast looked upon a scene that will be the glory of
Christendom! Thou hast beheld the discomfiture of Darkness before the
voice of Light! Yet think not much of me: account me little in this
matter! I am but an instrument! but an instrument!--and again, but an
instrument!'
Farina drew the arms of the holy combatant across his shoulders and
descended Drachenfels.
The tempest was as a forgotten anguish. Bright with maiden splendour
shone the moon; and the old rocks, cherished in her beams, put up their
horns to blue heaven once more. All the leafage of the land shook as to
shake off a wicked dream, and shuddered from time to time, whispering of
old fears quieted, and present peace. The heart of the river fondled
with the image of the moon in its depths.
'This is much to have won for earth,' murmured the Monk. 'And what is
life, or who would not risk all, to snatch such loveliness from the
talons of the Fiend, the Arch-foe? Yet, not I! not I! say not, 'twas I
did this!'
Soft praises of melody ascended to them on the moist fragrance of air.
It was the hymn of the Sisters.
'How sweet!' murmured the Monk. 'Put it from me! away with it!'
Rising on Farina's back, and stirruping his feet on the thighs of the
youth, he cried aloud: 'I charge ye, whoso ye be, sing not this deed
before the emperor! By the breath of your nostrils; pause! ere ye
whisper aught of the combat of Saint Gregory with Satan, and his victory,
and the marvel of it, while he liveth; for he would die the humble monk
he is.'
He resumed his seat, and Farina brought him into the circle of the
Sisters. Those pure women took him, and smoothed him, lamenting, and
filling the night with triumphing tones.
Farina stood apart.
'The breeze tells of dawn,' said the Monk; 'we must be in Cologne before
broad day.'
They mounted horse, and the Sisters grouped and reverenced under the
blessings of the Monk.
'No word of it!' said the Monk warningly. 'We are silent, Father!' they
answered. 'Cologne-ward!' was then his cry, and away he and Farina,
flew.