Nor Sceptres, Nor Mitres

"The fact is," continued the man in the hat, "that, as your worship knows better than I do, we are all of us liable to death, and to-day we are, and to-morrow we are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody can promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased to give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life's door, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor sceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say, and as they tell us from the pulpits every day." (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote) The Witness stared at him with alarm, his face red as blood pudding, the handful of pamphlets he’d been carrying falling determinedly to the ground. Off to his ongoing left Victor Cockscone stood admiring his reflection in the glass, the Greek Deli, now owned by the dogmen, battened up for the afternoon, the windows, soaked in eventide, ideal for admiring one’s countenance in. ‘I have witness much in my life’ said the Witness, ‘but never have I witnessed such a vile display of heathenry’. Looking over his shoulder, a soiled goat whizzing by, the man in the hat said ‘one hears worse from the pulpit every day’. Frozen stiff as whiplash, her eyes two icy gemstones, Paraná softened by the glower of the fire, the biggest dogman snapping fichus branches over his bent knee. The last they’d seen of Brimblecombe he was booking passage aboard a Belgian whaler, his clothes soaked through to the bone. Scavenged corpses and poached ivory pled a man crazy, captains and yeomen willing to take a chance on a guinea and a gawk.