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Trevennack uttered a little cry, half sob, half wail, as she looked out of the window and, under the gas-lamps opposite, recognized through the mist the form of Walter Tyrrel. But Trevennack didn't rush out at him as she feared and believed he would. He only stood still in his place and glared at his enemy. "Not now," he said, slowly; "not now, on Cleer's wedding day.
Was she bound thus to wreck her own daughter's happiness? Was she bound to speak out the very secret of her heart which she had spent her whole life in inducing Trevennack himself to bottle up with ceaseless care in his distracted bosom? And yet ... she saw the other point of view as well alas, all too plainly.
But in the rough open-air life of summer visitors on the Cornish coast, meals as a rule are very movable feasts; and Michael Trevennack wasn't particularly alarmed when he reached home that evening to find Cleer hadn't returned before him.
It was growing dark fast, for these were the closing days of August twilight; and dense fog had drifted in, half obliterating everything. They could barely descry the dim outline of the pyramidal rock in its lower half; its upper part was wholly shrouded in thick mist and drizzle. With a wild cry of despair, Trevennack raised his voice, and shouted aloud, "Cleer, Cleer! where are you?"
Trevennack had no leisure to think what this portent might mean. Man or fiend, it was a life-and-death struggle now between them. He stood face to face at last in mortal conflict with his materialized enemy. What form the Evil Thing had assumed to suit his present purpose Trevennack knew not, nor did he even care.
Cr'r'r'k! as he stood there, waiting, a terrible shock brought him to himself all at once with startling suddenness. Trevennack drew back aghast and appalled. Even in his mad exaltation this strange assault astonished him. He had expected a struggle, indeed; he had expected a conflict, but with a spiritual foe; to meet his adversary in so bodily a form as this, wholly startled and surprised him.
Trevennack knew his "Paradise Lost" by heart it was there, indeed, that he had formed his main ideas of the archangelic character; and he repeated the sonorous lines to himself, over and over again, in a ringing, loud voice, as he roamed the free moor or poised light on the craggy pinnacles.
He must trample his foe under foot, then, in this final struggle, by sheer force of strong thews and strained muscles alone. He fought the Creature as it stood, flinging his arms round it wildly. The Thing seemed to rear itself as if on cloven hoofs. Trevennack seized it round the waist, and grasping it hard in an iron grip, clung to it with all the wild energy of madness. Yield, Satan, yield!
He only struggled ineffectually, instead of blasting them with his hot breath, or clutching his strong arms round their bare throats and choking them. As he stood there and hesitated, half undecided how to act, of a sudden a sharp cry arose from behind. Trevennack turned and looked. Through the dark and the fog he could just dimly descry two men hurrying up, with ropes and life buoys.
"There was war in heaven," said the gospel for the day that sonorous gospel Mrs. Trevennack so cordially dreaded for her husband would always go to church at morning service, and hold himself more erect than was his wont, to hear it "There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not."
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