Appearing to my affrighted eyes the gigantic form of two men strangely merged into one, there uprose on that summit a figure so odd, weird, and grimly fantastic, it was small wonder I gazed, never thinking it could be other than the Evil One.  It was unclothed from head to heel, and, gleaming ghastly white beneath the moonbeams, it brought no Indian suggestion to mind.  High above the head, causing the latter to appear hideously deformed, arose something the nature of which I could not rightly judge.  It reminded me of a vast mat of hair sticking directly upward, ever waving back and forth to the breath of the night wind.  Nor did this horrid figure remain one moment still.  There upon the very edge of the precipice, it would leap high into the air, flinging aloft long gaunt arms, even appearing to float bodily forth into the space above us, to disappear instantly, like some phantom of imagination, amid the shrouding gloom of those rock shadows—­flitting swiftly, and as upon wings, along the crest; now showing directly in our front, looming like a threatening giant, mocking with wild, furious gestures; then dancing far to right or left, a vague shade in the sheen, a mere nothing in the shadow, yet ever returning, the same weird, unnatural, spectral figure, wildly gyrating upon the air, leering down upon our speechless misery.

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?”

“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.”