"BretHarte-LegendsAndTales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harte Bret)

gold.

An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at
this discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor
satisfaction in the stranger's air, which was still of serious and
fateful contemplation. When Father Jose recovered his equanimity,
he said, bitterly,--

"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure
for the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the
Christian grace of holy Spain!"

"This is what must be," returned the stranger, gloomily. "But
listen, Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a
time. Leave me here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with
you your bells, your images, and your missions. Continue here, and
you only precipitate results. Stay! promise me you will do this,
and you shall not lack that which will render your old age an
ornament and a blessing"; and the stranger motioned significantly
to the lake.

It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed--
as he always shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy
Padre, sorely perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth
must be told, a little nettled at this wresting away of the glory
of holy Spanish discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the
unlucky bribe of the Enemy of Souls touched his Castilian spirit.
Starting back in deep disgust, he brandished his crucifix in the
face of the unmasked Fiend, and in a voice that made the dusky
vault resound, cried,--

"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou
bribe me,--me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus,
Licentiate of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou
to buy me with thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!"

What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete
might have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend,
who was recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing
symbol, we can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped
through his fingers.

Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father
simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they
clinched, and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his
antagonist in bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat
the Great Adversary to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the
long nails of the stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized
his heart, a numbing chillness crept through his body, and he
struggled to free himself, but in vain. A strange roaring was in