Prisoners of Chance

My gaze rested questioningly upon De Noyan's upturned face, and saw it ghost-like in lack of color, drawn and haggard. Mine no doubt was the same, for never have I felt such uncontrollable horror as that which, for the moment, fairly paralyzed me in brain and limb. It is the mysterious that appals brave men, for who of earth might hope to struggle against the very fiends of the air?

"Mon Dieu!" whispered my comrade, his voice shaking as if from an ague fit. "Is it not Old Nick himself?"

"If not," I answered, my words scarce steadier, "then some one must tell me what; never before did I gaze on such a sight. Has it been there long?"

"I know not whence it came, or how. I was not watching the crest. After I bathed at the stream to open my eyes better, I began overhauling the commissary for a bite with which to refresh the inner man. I was sitting yonder, my back against the big stone, munching away contentedly, humming the words of a song to keep me awake, when I chanced to glance up to mark the position of the moon, and there that hell's imp danced in the sheen as he has been dancing ever since. Sacre! it was the bravest deed of my life to crawl here and awaken you; the devilish thing did charm me as a snake does a bird."

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.