Force may accomplish my wishes without thy
compliance."
The hermit's eyes glistened like twin fires in their hollow recesses. He
stood erect, confronting his visitor, who, bold in audacity and guilt,
repeated his demand.
"Never!" said the hermit.
"Then die, fond dotard!" cried De Whalley; and, sudden as the
lightning-stroke, he drew a dagger from his vest, aiming a blow at the
hermit's bosom; but, marvellous to relate, the steel hardly penetrated
the folds of his drapery, glancing back with a dull sound, his person
remaining uninjured. A look of unutterable scorn curled the features of
the charmed, and apparently invulnerable, being before him.
"Cowardly assassin!" he cried, "I hold thy threats at less worth than a
handful of this base dust beneath my feet, and utterly defy thy power. I
am free as the untrammelled air, and thou mayest as well attempt to
grasp the shadow or the sunbeam!"
Swift as the words he uttered the hermit disappeared! The effect was so
sudden, aided, in all likelihood, by the dimness and obscurity of the
cell, that, to the astonished apprehension of De Whalley, Ulphilas had
made himself more impalpable than the air he breathed, sinking like a
shadow through the rocky floor.
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