"Take heart, my brave fellows," said the Master. "This great primate, you see, is no other than the prince of the power of the air, the great controller of the mighty elements, who has honoured us with his company. You are now in his power, and lie at his mercy; but he is more of a gentleman than he is generally represented to be, and will scorn to take advantage of a few poor insignificant creatures, who call themselves Christians, of whose company he is sure before he wants it. He knows you will fume, and bully, and fight for a few short years, sending one another home to his ample mansions in myriads before your time. Both he and I would scorn to take farther advantage of beings so blind ignorant, and inconsistent, than suits our own amusement. We only love to mock you, show you your own littleness, and how easy a prey you would be, were there a being in the universe that watched for ever over your destruction. Cheer up, gallant soldiers! and now for the long-waited developement of mighty moment. I will show you the manner, and very mode, by which your captain must only hope to succeed in his great enterprise." He then touched every one of them with the divining-rod that was in his hand, pronouncing at the same time some mystic words, which none of them comprehended. While he was thus occupied, the witches rushed from the hall, and as soon as he had touched the hindmost, he himself also made his escape, and looked from a crevice of an inner wall. The enchantment began immediately to take effect; the warriors rolled about on the floor in strong convulsions, bellowing and flouncing, trying always to run on all-four, and then tumbling over again. At length their noses and chins began to grow forward in hideous disproportion, till their heads began to assume something of the forms of the heads of beasts, and liker to those of calves than any things else. The laughter that pealed from loop-hole, crevice, and barbican, was, at this eventual period, excessive. The devil, the three wicked spirits, the great enchanter, and his conventicle of witches, seemed all to be in convulsions at witnessing how the metamorphosed champions shook their long heads, looked at one another, and tried to speak. How their language changed from long-drawn words, half pronounced, to downright confused bellowings; and how their forms, in the space of a few minutes, gradually assumed those of as many mighty and ferocious bulls. "I have now given you your own proper shapes, and showed you in frames suited to your natures," cried the Master, from a crevice. "Pass forth, and be gone; and carry my respects to your captain."