Two nervous 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.
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