Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/95

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POPE AND PAGAN
87

was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings down there, that, had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away. But, as I said just now the sun was rising. Then said he, "His candle shineth on my head, and by His light I go through darkness."

In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now, I saw in my dream that at the end of the valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and, while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, Pope and Pagan, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny, the men whose bones, blood, ashes, etc., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that Pagan has been dead many a day; and, as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come to them.

So I saw that Christian went on his way; yet, at the sight of the old man that sat at the mouth