Page:The Pilgrims Progress (1890).djvu/133

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THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
89

father, and Judas your father, and you have trod in their steps; it is but a devilish prank that thou usest, thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. Assure thyself, that when we come to the King, we will tell him of this thy behavior. Thus they went their way.

By this time Byends and his companions were come again within sight, and they at the first beck went over to Demas. Now, whether they fell into the pit by looking over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain; but this I observed, that they were never seen again in the way. Then sang Christian,

Byends and Silver-Demas both agree;
One calls, the other runs, that he may be
A sharer in his lucre; so these two
Take up in this world, and no farther go.”

Now I saw that, just on the other side of this plain, the pilgrims came to a place where stood an old monument, hard by the highway-side, at the sight of which they were both concerned, because of the strangeness of the form thereof; for it seemed to them as if it had been a woman transformed into the shape of a pillar. Here, therefore, they stood looking and looking upon it, but could not for a time tell what they should make thereof. At last Hopeful espied, written above upon the head thereof, a writing in an unusual hand; but he being no scholar, called to Christian (for he was learned) to see if he could pick out the meaning: so he came, and after a little laying of the letters together, he found the same to be this, “Remember Lot’s wife.” So he read it to his fellow; after which they both concluded