He handed a flask to the youth, and bade him drink. Farina drank and felt
richly invigorated. The Monk then took bell and book.

'But half an hour,' he muttered, 'for this combat that is to ring through
centuries.'

Crossing himself, he strode wildly upward. Farina saw him beckon back
once, and the next instant he was lost round an incline of the highest
peak.

The wind that had just screamed a thousand death-screams, was now awfully
dumb, albeit Farina could feel it lifting hood and hair. In the unnatural
stillness his ear received tones of a hymn chanted below; now sinking,
now swelling; as though the voices faltered between prayer and
inspiration. Farina caught on a projection of crag, and fixed his eyes on
what was passing on the height.

There was the Monk in his brown hood and wrapper, confronting--if he
might trust his balls of sight--the red-hot figure of the Prince of
Darkness.

As yet no mortal tussle had taken place between them. They were arguing:
angrily, it was true: yet with the first mutual deference of practised
logicians. Latin and German was alternately employed by both. It thrilled
Farina's fervid love of fatherland to hear the German Satan spoke: but
his Latin was good, and his command over that tongue remarkable; for,
getting the worst of the argument, as usual, he revenged himself by
parodying one of the Church canticles with a point that discomposed his
adversary, and caused him to retreat a step, claiming support against
such shrewd assault.