The conqueror, doubly misled by fierce and unruly passions and by his inauspicious commerce with the goblins of the abyss, retired not immediately to his couch, but walked up and down his apartments, with a hasty and irregular step. “Thanks to my favourable stars,” exclaimed he, “I am triumphant! What power can resist me? Where is the being that shall dare to say, that one wish of my heart shall go unfulfilled? Well then, I have got the fair the charming she into my power. She is shut up in a palace, unseen by every human eye, to which no human foot ever found its way but at my bidding. She is closed round with spells and enchantment. I can by a word deprive her every limb of motion. If I but wave this wand, the leaden God of sleep shall sink her in a moment in the arms of forgetfulness, whatever were before her anxieties and her wakeful terrors. In what manner then shall I, thus absolute and uncontroled in all I bid exist, proceed? Shall I press the unwilling beauty to my bosom, and riot in her hoard of charms, without waiting like meaner mortals to sue for the consent of her will? There is something noble, royal, and independent, in the thought. Beauty never appears so attractive as from behind a veil of tears. Oh, how I enjoy infancy [sic] the anger that shall flush her lovely cheek! Perhaps she will even kneel to me to deprecate that which an education of prejudices has taught her to consider as the worst of evils. Yes, my lovely maid, I will raise thee. Do not turn from me those scornful indignant eyes. I will be thy best friend. I will not hurt a hair of thy head. Oh, when her spotless bosom pants with disdain, how sweet to beat the little chiders, and by a friendly violence, which true and comprehensive wisdom cannot stigmatize, to teach her what is the true value of beauty, and for what purpose such enchanting forms as her’s were sent to dwell below!”
Thus spoke the ravisher, and as he spoke he assumed, although alone, a firmer stride and a more haughty crest. Upon the instant however his ears were saluted with a low and continual sound, that became, by just degrees, stronger and more strong. The walls of his palace shook; a sudden and supernatural light gleamed along his apartment, and a spectre stood before him. Roderic lifted up his eyes, and immediately recognised the features of that goblin, who from the hour of his birth, had declared himself his adversary. He had been repeatedly used to the visits of this malicious spirit, who delighted to subvert all his schemes, and to baffle his deepest projects. This was the only misfortune, the sovereign of the hills had ever known; this was the only instance in which he had at any time been taught what it was to have his power controled and his nod unobeyed. 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.