Complete Short Works of George Meredith — John Shaqi
Complete Short Works of George MeredithMeredith, George
General
Complete Short Works of George Meredith
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
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.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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