The mere sound of human speech put new heart into me, yet I found it difficult to avert my eyes from that fantastic figure.

“If that is the Devil,” I said more composedly, still enthralled by the baleful presence, “surely we have neither of us done so much evil as to make us especially his victims.”

As I concluded these words, my courage creeping back, a sudden rustling among the pines at our back startled us to glance around.  Out of the gloom of the rock shelter a figure uplifted itself on all fours, and the faint light of a star glimmered directly down upon an upraised, terror-stricken face.  Before either De Noyan or myself could mutter a hasty warning, the half-awakened preacher sent his great, gruff voice booming out into the air: 

“O Lord God of Israel deliver Thy servant from destruction and the clutch of the Evil One.  O Lord God of——­”

I flung myself on him, clutching his brawny throat, throttling his speech into a vain gurgle.  The fellow made so fierce a struggle, mistaking me for an assistant of the fiend, my fierce hold was jerked loose, and I was hurled heavily backward at full length upon the stones, striking with no pleasant force upon my shoulder.

“Verily have I overcome the Devil by Thy strength, O Lord!” he began fervently.

“Be still, you red-headed Connecticut fool,” I commanded sharply, now thoroughly aroused.  “Stop, or I ’ll drive into you a leaden slug to silence that blundering tongue of yours for good and all.  Get up from your knees there, and play the man.  If needs be you must pray, keep grip on that bull voice of yours.”

“It makes small odds now,” chimed in De Noyan with easier tone.  “The Devil, or what, has disappeared from the rock.”

I glanced up at his words, to find them true.  The sky was assuming a faint grayish tinge, as if the dawn were near.  The vanishing of that spectral figure relieved us greatly, while the steady coming of daylight revived those spirits upon which the haunted night had rested grimly.  Nevertheless I felt it incumbent to speak somewhat harshly to the yet sulking sectary for such untimely uproar.

“Did you mistake this for a conventicle, Master Cairnes,” I asked grimly, “an assembly of crop-eared worshippers, that you venture to lift your voice in such a howl when you wake?  It will be better if you learn to keep still at such a time, if you hope to companion long with me.”

“You!” he scarcely deigned to lift his eyes to regard me.  “You are but an unbelieving and damned heretic.  Had it not been in all the earnestness of a contrite spirit I besought the Lord in prayer, wrestling even as did David of old, ’tis not likely the foul fiend I beheld on yonder crest would have departed so easily.  I tell you, you unregenerated son of iniquity, it is naught save the faith of the elect, the prayer of the redeemed, which overcomes the wiles of the Devil, and relieves the children of God from his snares.”