On its top
sat a personage almost enveloped in smoke and flame, which- not to
startle the reader- appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach,
as well as from the engine's brazen abdomen.
"Do my eyes deceive me?" cried I. "What on earth is this! A
living creature? If so, he is own brother to the engine he rides
upon!"
"Poh, poh, you are obtuse!" said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a
hearty laugh. "Don't you know Apollyon, Christian's old enemy, with
whom he fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of Humiliation? He was
the very fellow to manage the engine; and so we have reconciled him to
the custom of going on pilgrimage, and engaged him as chief
conductor."
"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm, "this
shows the liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, that
all musty prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how will
Christian rejoice to hear of this happy transformation of his old
antagonist! I promise myself great pleasure in informing him of it,
when we reach the Celestial City."
The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away
merrily, accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than
Christian probably trudged over in a day. It was laughable while we
glanced along, as it were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to observe
two dusty foot-travellers, in the old pilgrim-guise, with cockle-shell
and staff, their mystic rolls of parchment in their hands, and their
intolerable burthens on their backs.
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