For a moment Trevennack was stunned--the sharpness of the pain and the suddenness of the attack took both breath and sense away from him. He stood there one instant, irresolute, before he knew how to comport himself. But before he could make up his mind--cr'r'k, a second time--the Presence had assailed him again, fighting with deadly force, and in a white heat of frenzy. Trevennack had no leisure to think what this portent might mean. Man or fiend, it was a life-and-death struggle now between them. He stood face to face at last in mortal conflict with his materialized enemy. What form the Evil Thing had assumed to suit his present purpose Trevennack knew not, nor did he even care. Stung with pain and terror he rushed forward blindly upon his enraged assailant, and closed with him at once, tooth and nail, in a deadly grapple. A more terrible battle man and brute never fought. Trevennack had no sword, no celestial panoply. But he could wrestle like a Cornishman. He must trample his foe under foot, then, in this final struggle, by sheer force of strong thews and strained muscles alone. He fought the Creature as it stood, flinging his arms round it wildly. The Thing seemed to rear itself as if on cloven hoofs. Trevennack seized it round the waist, and grasping it hard in an iron grip, clung to it with all the wild energy of madness. Yield, Satan, yield! But still the Creature eluded him. Once more it drew back a pace--he felt its hot breath, he smelt its hateful smell--and prepared to rush again at him. Trevennack bent down to receive its attack, crouching. The Creature burst full tilt on him--it almost threw him over. Trevennack caught it in his horror and awe--caught it bodily by the horns--for horned it seemed to be, as well as cloven-footed--and by sheer force of arm held it off from him an elbow's length one minute. The Thing struggled and reared again. Yes, yes, it was Satan--he felt him all over now--a devil undisguised--but Satan rather in medieval than in Miltonic fashion. His skin was rough and hairy as a satyr's; his odor was foul; his feet were cleft; his horns sharp and terrible. He flung him from him horrified. Quick as lightning the demon rose again, and tilted fiercely at him once more. It was a death fight between those two for that rocky platform. Should Satan thus usurp St. Michael's Tor? Ten thousand times, no! Yield, yield! No surrender! Each knew the ground well, and even in the dark and in the mad heat of the conflict, each carefully avoided the steep edge of the precipice. But the fiend knew it best, apparently. He had been lying in a snug nook, under lee of a big rock, sharpening his sword on its side, before Trevennack came up there. Against this rock he took his stand, firm as a rock himself, and seemed to defy his enemy's arms to dislodge him from his position.