United States or Uruguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Carlos revealed the horrid plot, detailing every circumstance, to the utter astonishment of his fair companion. "Oh! fiends! fiends!" she exclaimed; "who could have imagined such atrocity? Who would suppose that on the earth were wretches like these? But that you, dear Carlos, have told me, I could not have believed in such villainy!
Soon after this, his daughter came herself to meet him, and related to her father, that her soul was no sooner departed from her body, but it was seized by two ugly fiends, who would have thrown her headlong into a lake of fire; but that two unknown persons, whose countenances were venerably modest, snatched her out of the gripe of her two executioners, and restored her to life, but in what manner she could not tell.
"Yes," he replied, "the habit is comparatively new, although in Paris, I believe, they call the drug fiends, 'heroinomaniacs. It is, as I told you before, a derivative of morphine. Its scientific name is diacetyl-morphin. It is New York's newest peril, one of the most dangerous drugs yet. Thousands are slaves to it, although its sale is supposedly restricted.
But when the torture was almost ended, and nature had yielded to this work of fiends, the dying face was turned towards his mother, the eyes, dim with the veil that falls between time and eternity, seeking her eyes with their latest glance, the voice, not weak, but clear and thrilling even in death, cried for her ear, "Be of good cheer, mother! they may kill the body, but they cannot touch the soul!" and even with the words the great soul walked with God.
But then, might not general distress, and thirst in particular, be affected? And might not that same undiminished Spanish crew, alleged to have perished off to a remnant, be at that very moment lurking in the hold? On heart-broken pretense of entreating a cup of cold water, fiends in human form had got into lonely dwellings, nor retired until a dark deed had been done.
'Sancta Dei Genitrix! Be all as mothers of gods, O women! Be as gods, O men! Be as gods in courage, in truth, in wisdom, in freedom! Suffer not devils to have command of you! For devils there are, as there are gods; evil there is, as there is good. Fiends are born of women as gods are and yet evil itself is of God, inasmuch as without God there can be neither evil nor good.
By a series of artful leading questions, the poor creature, in the extremity of her anguish, was induced to confess that she had often attended the sabbath of the fiends upon the Brocken that she had seen two Jesuits there, who had made themselves notorious, even among witches, for their abominations that she had seen them assume the form of goats, wolves, and other animals; and that many noted witches had borne them five, six, and seven children at a birth, who had heads like toads and legs like spiders.
"He says his name be Job Winter, and that he was one of the crew of Admiral Hawkins' ship, the Minion. He've been in this hell upon earth since last August, and all that time they fiends in human form up there," indicating the occupants of the dais, "have been trying their hardest to make a good Catholic of him. And this is how they've been doing it. Look to mun."
"But how are they to defend themselves against the fiends, my gallant Colonel?" said Wildrake. "Methinks had I an interest in yonder pretty girl, such as thou dost boast, I should be loth to expose her to the terrors of a residence at Woodstock, where these devils I beg their pardon, for I suppose they hear every word we say these merry goblins make such gay work from twilight till morning."
Now they were indeed converted into fiends and furies and sold themselves to swift destruction. Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime and took pleasure in everything dark and terrible, but this was a small trial compared to those which Mrs. Jemmison was called upon to endure from the intoxication and recklessness of her son.
Word Of The Day