A huge fire throws its yellow, fitful light upon the
grim spectre-like objects that bound, leap, yell and howl, bend and
pass, aim their weapons, and using their tomahawks in a mimic warfare,
a hideous pantomine, around and across the blaze. Their gesticulations
summon up visions of murder, horror, scalps, bleeding and dangling at
their belts, human hearts and heads fixed upon their spears; their
yells resemble at times the long and distant howl of a pack of
famished wolves, when on the track of some hapless deer; and again
their cries, their forms, their actions, their very surroundings could
be compared to nothing else than some infernal scene, wherein the
demons are frantic with hell, inflamed passions. Each one might bear
Milton's description in his "Paradise Lost," of Death:
"The other shape--
If shape it might be called, that shape had none,
Distinguishable, in member, joint or limb:
* * * * *
black it stood as night.
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.--"
And the union of all such beings might also be described in the words
of the same author.
"The chief were those who from the pit of hell,
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats; long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars, by his altar; gods adored
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the cherubim; yea of 'en placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations: and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned.
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