Demon, Or What?

My eyes, wide-opened by terror, followed these movements, marking this ghastly shape. I listened vainly for the slightest sound to connect it with aught human. The mantle of the night's solemn silence, the dread stillness of wilderness solitudes, rested everywhere. I heard the mournful sighing of the wind amid jagged rocks and among the swaying branches of the cedars; the dull roar of the little river, even the stentorian breathing of the Puritan lying asleep behind us, but that was all. That hideous apparition dancing so madly along the cliff summit emitted no sound of foot or voice--yet there it hung, foreboding evil, gesticulating in mockery; a being too hideous for earth, ever playing the mad antics of a fiend.

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?"