He felt himself once more lifted into the air; the trees rooted in the rock bent before his companion and himself as beneath a storm; the bears howled mournfully; troops of wolves fled shivering over the snow. Great reddish clouds flew across the sky, jagged and quivering like the wings of bats. The evil spirits of the valley rose up and eddied through the night. The heads of the rocks seemed alive; the army of the mountains appeared to shake themselves and follow him. They traversed a wall of clouds and stopped upon the peak of Anie. At that very moment, a flash cleft the vapory mass. Bos saw a phantom tall as a huge pine, the face burning like a furnace, enveloped in red clouds. Violet aureoles flamed upon his head; the lightning crept at his feet in dazzling trains; his whole body shone with white flashes. The thunder burst forth, the neighboring summit fell, the upturned rocks smoked, and Bos heard a mighty voice saying: “Bos has returned; Bos is the friend of our master; Bos, I illumine the valley for thy return better than the tapers of thy church.”
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
The poor Bos, bathed in a cold sweat, was suddenly borne to the foot of the chateau of Bénac, and the devil said to him: “Good knight, go now, find again thy wife!” Then he began to laugh with a noise like the cracking of a tree, and disappeared, leaving behind a smell of sulphur.
