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Elias did not move a step. I even thought I detected a smile upon his countenance, which irritated me.

“How!” said I; “here am I pointing out to you an infallible method to get rid of the just punishment of your crime, and you doubt–you hesitate–you even smile!”

“No,” said he, “but I am not accustomed to walk on the edges of precipices, and I am afraid I should fall into the Holderloch along with the goat.”

“Ah, you are a coward! I can see it all. You have just once displayed a little courage to get exemption for the rest of your days. Well, sir, if you refuse to carry out my advice, I will do it myself.”

And I rose.

“Christian! Christian!” cried my friend, “don’t trust yourself too far. Your foot is not steady–just now.”

“My foot not steady! Do you dare to insinuate that I am drunk because I have just had ten or a dozen glasses of beer and three glasses of schnapps this morning? Away with you! Back! back, son of Belial!”

And advancing a few feet above the goat, with my head raised and hands extended, I cried solemnly–

“Azazel! goat destined for misery and expiation, I lay upon your hairy back the remorse of my friend Elias Hirsch, and I send you down to the spirits of darkness!”

Then, passing round the ledge on which we stood, I descended to the next below to catch the goat and throw him over.

A sacred rage and fury seemed to possess me. I took no notice of the abyss. I stepped along the edge of the precipice like a cat.

The goat, perceiving my approach, eyed me suspiciously, and stepped back a little way.

“Ha!” I cried, “you may flee from me, but you shall not escape from me, accursed beast! I have got you!”

“Oh, Christian, Christian!” Elias kept repeating in a heartrending voice, “do come back. You are risking your life!”

“Silence, unbeliever!” I cried. “You are unworthy of the great sacrifice which I am making for your happiness! But your friend Christian never draws back. Azazel must perish!”

A little farther on the ledge narrowed and ended in a point.

The goat, having a second time examined me with a curious eye, drew back a little farther, but not without some hesitation.

“Aha!” I exclaimed, “you are beginning to understand what is going to happen. Yes, let me get you into that corner, and your doom is sealed!”

And undoubtedly, when he had got to the spot where the ledge came to an end, Azazel seemed puzzled to know what to do next. I edged up to him closer and closer, full of a noble excitement, and laughing in anticipation at the coming descent and the splash in the torrent below.

I now beheld him at four paces from me, and I was grasping tightly a root of holly that was growing out of a rock to launch out a kick at the devoted beast.

“Look, Elias, see the accursed!” I cried.

When, all in a moment, I felt in my stomach a most awful blow, a butt which would have sent me into the Holderloch had I not kept hold of that blessed root of holly. The fact was that that miserable goat, seeing himself driven into a corner, had himself commenced the attack.

Oh, what was my astonishment! Before I knew where I was or what had happened, there was the brute standing up again on his hind-legs, and his horns digging into my stomach and my sides with a hollow sound.

What a position to be in! It is impossible to be more astounded than I was at that moment! It was the world upside down. It was a bad dream–a nightmare! The precipice with all its jagged peaks seemed to dance around me, and so did the trees and sky above. At the same moment I heard piercing cries from Elias of “Help! help!” while Azazel’s horns were ploughing up my sides.