He had often sought, by means of
the confederacy he held with other spirits of the infernal regions, to
restrain his enemy, or by punishment and suffering to make him rue his
opposition. But the goblin he had to encounter, though not the most
potent, was of all the rest the most crafty in his wiles, and the most
abundant in expedients. As many times as his fellows had by the
instigation of Roderic undertaken to encounter him, so often had they in
the end been eluded and defeated. The contest was now given up, and the
goblin was at liberty to haunt and threaten his impotant adversary as
much as he pleased.
"Roderic," cried he, with a harsh and unpleasant accent, "I am come to
humble the haughtiness of thy triumph, and to pull down thy aspiring
thoughts. Impotent and rancorous mortal! Know, that innocence is
defended with too strong a shield for thee to pierce! Boast not thyself
of the immensity of thy walls, and put no confidence in the subtlety of
thy enchantments. Before the mightiness that waits on innocence, they
are not less impotent than the liquid wax, or the crumbling ruin. Learn,
oh presumptuous mortal, that sacred and unyielding chastity is
invulnerable to all the violence of men, and all the stratagems of
goblins.
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