ervous 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