Part 4 (1/2)
While making our exit from this glaring pit, I heard one moaning and crying dolefully: ”I knew no better; no pains were ever taken to teach me to read my duties, nor could I spare the time to read and pray whereof I had need in order to earn bread for myself and my poor family.”
”Indeed,” quoth a crookback devil who stood close at hand, ”hadst thou no leisure to tell merry tales, no idle roasting before thy fire through the long winter evenings when I was up the chimney, so that no time might have been given to learning to read or pray? What of thy Sabbaths? Who was it that was wont to accompany me to the alehouse rather than the parson to the church? How many a Sunday afternoon was spent in vain, noisy talk of worldly things, or in sleeping, instead of in learning to meditate and pray? Didst thou act according to thy knowledge? Silence, sirrah, with thy lying chatter!” ”Thou raving bloodhound!” exclaimed the condemned, ”'tis not long since thou wert whispering other words in mine ear; hadst thou said this another day, it is not likely I would have come hither.” ”Ah!” said the devil, ”it matters not that we tell you the hateful truth here; for there is no fear of your returning hence now to carry tales.”
Lower down I could see a deep, valley whence arose the bluish glare of what seemed to be a countless number of enormous, burning mounds; and after drawing nigh, I knew by their howling that they were men piled mountains high with terrible flames crackling through them. ”That hollow,” said the Angel, ”is the abode of those who after committing some heinous deeds, exclaim: 'Well, I am not the first--I have plenty of companions,' and thus thou see'st they have plenty, to verify their words and add to their affliction.” Opposite this was a large cellar where I saw men tortured just as withes are twisted or wet sheets wrung. ”Who, prithee, are these?” asked I. ”They are the Mockers,” said he, ”and the devils from pure derision essay to find whether they can be twisted as pliantly as their tales.” A little below, but scarcely visible, was another gloomy dungeon-cell, wherein was what had once been men, but now with the faces of wolf-hounds, up to their lips in a mora.s.s, madly howling blasphemy and lies as often as they got their tongues clear of the mire. Just then a legion of devils pa.s.sed by, and some attempted to bite the heels of ten or twelve of the devils that had brought them there: ”Woe and ruin take you, ye h.e.l.l-hounds!” exclaimed one of the bitten devils, at the same time stamping upon the quagmire until they sank in the reeking depths. ”Who more deserving of h.e.l.l than ye, who gossipped and imagined all manner of tales, who retailed lies from house to house so that ye might laugh, after setting the entire neighbourhood at war? What more would one of us have done?” ”This,” said the Angel, ”is the abode of the slanderers, defamers and backbiters, and of all envious cowards who always do hurt in word or deed behind one's back.”
From thence we went past an enormous lair, the vilest I had yet seen, and the fullest of vermin, of soot, and of stench. ”This,” said he, ”is the place of those who hoped for heaven because they were harmless, in other words, because they were neither good nor bad.” Next to this foul pit I saw a great mult.i.tude sitting down, whose groans were more fierce than anything I had heard hitherto in h.e.l.l. ”Save us all!” cried I, ”what makes these complain more than all others, seeing there be no pain, nor demon near them?” ”Ah,” answered the Angel, ”if the pain without is less, that which is within is more,--here are stubborn heretics, the G.o.dless and unchristian, many of the worldy-wise, of apostates, of the persecutors of the church, and millions such as they, who have utterly been given over to the more bitterly painful punishment of the conscience, which now without let or ceasing has its full sway over them.
”I will not this time,” quoth conscience, ”be drowned in beer, or blinded by rewards, or deafened by song and good company, or hushed or stupified by a thoughtless torpor; now I will be heard, and never shall the truth, the stinging truth, cease dinning in your ears.” The will creates a desire for the lost paradise, the memory reproaches them with the ease wherewith it might have been gained, and the reason shews the greatness of the loss, and the certainty that nought awaits them but this unspeakable gnawing for ever and ever; so by these three means, conscience rends them more terribly than would all the devils in h.e.l.l.
Coming out of that wondrous defile, I heard much talking, and for every word such wild horse-laughter as if some five hundred devils would shed their horns with laughing. But after I had drawn near to behold the very rare sight of a smile in h.e.l.l, what was it but two gentlemen, lately arrived, appealing for the respect due to their rank, and the merriment was intended only to give affront to them. A pot-bellied squire stood there with an enormous roll of parchment, his genealogical chart, declaring from how many of the Fifteen Tribes of Gwynedd he had sprung, how many justices of the peace, and how many sheriffs there had been of his house. ”Ha ha,” cried one of the devils, ”we know the merit of most of your forebears, were you like your father, or great-great-grandsire, we would not have deigned to touch you. But thou, thou art but the heir of utter darkness, vile whelp, thou art hardly worth a night's lodging; and yet thou shalt have some nook to await the dawn.” And at the word the impetuous monster pierces him with his pitchfork, and after whirling him thirty times through the fiery welkin, hurled him into a hole out of sight. ”That is right enough for a half-blood squire,” said the other, ”but I hope ye will be better mannered towards a knight who has served the king in person; twelve earls and fifty knights can I recount from mine own ancient line.” ”If thine ancestors, and thy long pedigree are all thy plea, thou canst go the same gate,” quoth a devil, ”for we remember scarce one old estate of large extent which some oppressor, some murderer or robber has not founded, leaving it to others as arrant as they, to idle blockheads or to drunken swine. To maintain lavish pomp, they had to grind their va.s.sals and tenants, and if there be a beautiful pony or a fine cow which my lady covets, she will have them, and well it happens if the daughters, yea, even the wives, escape the l.u.s.t of their lord. And the small free-holders around them must either vainly follow or give bail for them, resulting in their own ruin, the loss of their possessions, and the sale of their patrimony, or expect to be hated and despised, and forced to every idle pursuit. Oh how n.o.bly they swear to gain the confidence of their minions or of their tradesmen, and when decked out in their finery, how contemptuously they look upon many an officer of importance in church and state, as if such were mere worms compared with them. Woe's me, is not all blood of one color? Was it not the same way that ye all entered the world?” ”For all that, craving your pardon,” said the knight, ”there are some births purer than others.”
”For the great doom all your carcases are the same,” said the imp, ”everyone of you is defiled by the sin that took its origin in Adam.”
But, sir,” continued he, ”if your blood is aught better than another, the less sc.u.m will there be when shortly it will be bubbling through your body, and if there be more, we must examine you, part by part, through fire and through water.” Thereupon, a devil in the shape of a fiery chariot receives him, and the other mockingly lifts him thereinto, and away he goes with the speed of lightning. Ere long the angel bade me look, and I saw the poor knight most horribly sodden in an enormous boiling furnace with Cain, Nimrod, Esau, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, and others who first established lineage, and emblazoned family arms.
After wending our way onward a little, my guide bade me peer through a riven wall, and within I saw a group of coquetts busily pr.i.m.m.i.n.g up, doing and undoing the deeds of folly they were formerly wont to do on earth; some puckering their lips, some plucking their eyebrows with irons, some anointing themselves, some patching their faces with black spots to make the yellow look whiter, and some endeavouring to crack the mirror; and after all the pains to color and adorn, upon seeing their faces far uglier than the devils', they would tear away with tooth and nail all the false coloring, the spots, the skin and the flesh all at once, and would shriek most dismally. ”Accursed be my father,” said one, ”it was he who forced me when a girl to wed an old shrivelling, and it was his kindling my desires with no power to satiate them, that doomed me to this place.” ”A thousand curses on my parents,” cried another, ”for sending me to a monastery to be taught to live a life of chast.i.ty; they might as well have sent me to a Roundhead to learn how to be generous, or to a Quaker to be taught good manners, as to a Papist to be taught honesty.” ”Fell ruin seize my mother,” shrieked a third, ”whose covetous pride refused me a husband at my need, and so drove me to obtain by stealth what I might have honestly obtained.” ”h.e.l.l, a double h.e.l.l to the raging bull of a n.o.bleman who first tempted me,” cried another, ”had he not by fair and foul broken through all bounds, I would not have become a common chattel, nor would I have come to this infernal place;”
and then would they lacerate themselves again.
I made all haste to leave their loathsome kennel, but I had not proceeded far before I observed, to my astonishment, another prison full of women, still more abominable; some had become frogs; some, dragons; some, serpents, and there they swam about, hissing and foaming, and b.u.t.ting one another, in a foetid, stagnant pool that was much larger than Bala Lake.
”Pray, what can these be?” asked I. ”There are here,” said he, ”four chief cla.s.ses of women, not to mention their minions--Firstly: Panders, who maintained harlots to sell their virginity an hundred times, and the worst of these around them. Secondly: Mistresses of gossip, surrounded by thousands of tale-bearing hags. Thirdly: Huntresses followed by a pack of cowardly, skulking hounds, for no man ever dared approach them, unless in fear of them. Fourthly: The scolds, become a hundredfold more horrid than snakes, always grinding and gnas.h.i.+ng their venomous stings.”
”I would have deemed Lucifer too gracious a monarch to place a n.o.ble lady of my rank with these vulgar furies,” complained one, who much resembled the others, but was far more hideous than a winged serpent. ”Oh, that he would send hither seven hundred of the basest demons of h.e.l.l in exchange for thee, thou poisonous h.e.l.lworm,” cried another ugly viper. ”Many thanks to you,” quoth a gigantic devil, overhearing them, ”we regard our place and worth as something better; though ye would cause everyone as much pain as we, yet we do not choose to be deprived of our office in your favor.” ”And Lucifer hath another reason,” whispered the Angel, ”for keeping strict guard over these, and that is, lest on breaking loose, they might send all h.e.l.l into utter confusion.”
Thence we still descended until I saw an immense cavern wherein was such fearful clamor that I had never heard the like before--swearing, cursing, blaspheming, snarling, groaning and yelling. ”Whom have we here?” I asked. ”This,” answered he, ”is the Den of Thieves; here are myriads of foresters, lawyers and stewards, with old Judas in their midst.” And it grieved them sorely to behold a pack of tailors and weavers above them in a more comfortable chamber. Hardly had I turned round when a demon, in the shape of a steed, bore in a physician, and an apothecary, and hurled them into the midst of the pedlars and horse cheats, because they had sold worthless drugs. And they too began murmuring against being allotted to such low society. ”Stay, stay,” cried one of the devils, ”ye deserve a better place,” and he pitched them down amongst conquerors and murderers. There were vast numbers in here for playing false dice and cheating at cards, but before I had time to observe them closely, I could hear by the door a huge crowd in wild tumult and shouts--hai, hw, ptrw- how-ho-o-o-p--as of cattle being driven along. I turned round to see the cause of it, but could perceive only the horned demons. I enquired of my Guide if there were cuckolds with the devils. ”No,” said he, ”they are in another cell; these are drovers who wished to escape to the prison of the Sabbath-breakers, and are sent here against their will.” Thereupon I look and saw that they had on their heads the horns of sheep and kine; and those that were driving them on, cast them down beneath the feet of blood-stained robbers. ”Lie there,” said one, ”however much ye feared footpads on the London road erstwhile, ye yourselves were the very worst cla.s.s of highwaymen, who made your living on the road and on robbery, yea and by the peris.h.i.+ng of many a poor family whom ye left in hunger, vainly hoping for the sustenance of their possessions, while ye were in Ireland or in the King's Bench laughing at them, or on the road with your wine and lemans.” On leaving the furnace-like cave, I caught a glimpse of a haunt, which for loathsome, stinking abomination, went beyond anything (with one sole exception) that I had set my eyes upon in h.e.l.l,--where an accursed herd of drunken swine lay weltering in the foulest slime.
The next den was the abode of Gluttony, where Dives and his companions, wallowing on their bellies, devoured dirt and fire alternately, with never a drop to drink. A little below this, was a very extensive roasting-kitchen, where some were being roasted and boiled, others broiling and flaming in a fiery chimney. ”This is the place of the merciless and the unfeeling,” said the Angel. Turning a little to the left, where there was a cell lighter than any I had so far seen, I asked what place it was: ”The abode of the Infernal Dragons,” said he, ”which growl and rage, rush about and rend one another every instant.” I drew near and oh! what an indescribable sight they were! It was the glowing fire of their eyes that gave all that light. ”These are the descendants of Adam,” said my Guide, ”scolds and raving, wrathful men; but yonder are some of the ancient seed of the great Dragon, Lucifer;” but verily I could not perceive any difference in loveliness between them. In the next dungeon dwell the misers in awful torment, being linked by their hearts to chests of burning coin, the rust of which was consuming them without end, just as they had never thought of an end to the piling of them, and now they were tearing themselves to pieces with more than madness through grief and remorse. Below this was a charnel vault where some of the apothecaries had been ground down and stuffed into earthenware pots with Alb.u.m graec.u.m, dung, and many a stale ointment.
Ever downward we were journeying through the wilderness of ruin, in the midst of untold and eternal tortures, from cell to cell, from dungeon to dungeon, the last alway surpa.s.sing in monstrous ghastliness, until finally we came within view of an enormous entrance hall, most unsightly of all that I had previously seen. It was very s.p.a.cious and terribly steep, running in the direction of a gloomy red corner, full of the most inconceivable abominations and horrors: it was the royal court. At the upper end of the king's accursed hall, amidst thousands of other dread sights, by the light my companion shed, I could see in the darkness two feet of prodigious size, and so enormous as to overcast the whole infernal firmament. I inquired of my Guide what such immensities might be. ”Thou shalt have a fuller view of this monster when returning,” said he, ”but, come now, let us to see the court.” As we were going down that awful entrance hall, we heard behind us the noise as of very many people advancing; on stepping aside to let them pa.s.s I noticed four divers host, and upon enquiry I learnt that it was the four princesses of the City of Destruction leading their subjects as an offering to their sire. I distinguished the troop of the Princess of Pride, not only because they insisted upon the foremost position, but also because they stumbled now and then from want of keeping their eyes upon the ground. She led captive kings without number, princes, courtiers, n.o.blemen and braggarts, many Quakers, and women innumerable and of all grades. Next to these came the Princess of Lucre with her sly and crafty followers--a great many of the brood of Simon Skinflint, money lenders, lawyers, userers, stewards, foresters, harlots, and some of the clergy. Then came the gracious Princess of Pleasure and her daughter Folly, leading her subjects--players of dice, cards and back-gammon, conjurers, bards, minstrels, storytellers, drunkards, bawds, balladmongers and pedlars with their trinkets in countless number, to be at length instruments of punishment to the d.a.m.ned fools.
When these three had taken their captives into the court to receive judgment, Hypocrisy, last of all, brings in a more numerous troop than any of the others, of every nation and age, from town and country, patrician and plebeian, men and women. In the rear of this double-faced legion we came within sight of the court; pa.s.sing through the midst of many dragons and horned demons, and h.e.l.l's giants, the dusky porters of the devil-hunted fire; I, the while, carefully hiding within the veil, we entered that direful edifice: wonderful, and of amazing roughness was every part of it; the walls were cruel rocks of burning adamant; the floor was one unendurable extent of sharp-cutting flint, the roof of fiery steel, meeting in an arch of greenish and blood-red flames, similar, except in its size and heat, to a tremendous circular oven.
Opposite the door, upon a flame-encompa.s.sed throne sat the Evil One with the lost archangels around him, seated on benches of terrible fire, according to the rank they formerly bore in the region of light--the lovely whelps--it would only be a waste of words to attempt to describe how atrociously ugly they were, and the longer I gazed upon them, sevenfold more frightful did they become. In the centre above Lucifer's head was a huge hand grasping an awful bolt. The princesses, after paying their courtesy, immediately returned to their duties on earth. No sooner had they departed than at the King's bidding, a gigantic devil with cavernous jaws set up a roar, louder than the discharge of a hundred cannon, and as loud, were it possible, as the last trump, to proclaim the infernal Parliament, and behold, without delay, the court and hall are filled by the rabble of h.e.l.l in every shape, each upon the form and image of that particular sin he was wont to urge upon men. After enjoining silence, Lucifer, looking steadfastly upon the chieftains nearest him, began and spake these gracious words:-
”Ye peers of this profoundest gulf, princes of the hopeless gloom, if we have lost the place we erst possessed, when, clothed with brightness, we dwelt in those celestial, happy realms; yet, however great our fall, 'twas glorious, nought less than all did we hazard, nor is all lost--for, behold regions wide and deep extending to the utmost bounds of desolate Perdition still 'neath our sway. 'Tis true we reign while racked with raging torment, yet, for spirits of our majesty, 'tis better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven. {85a} And what is more, we have well nigh won another world, a greater than a fifth of earth has been for long beneath my standard. And although our Omnipotent Enemy sent his own Son to die for them, I, by my pleasing guile, gain ten for every one He gains through his crucified Son. Though we cannot aspire to do hurt to Him on high who hurls His all-conquering thunder, yet revenge by whatsoever means is sweet. {85b} Let us then bring ruin on the rest of men who adore our Destroyer. Well do I recollect the time when ye caused them, their armies and their cities, to be consumed in horrible combustion, yea and caused nigh all the dwellers on the earth to fall through the whelming waters into this fire. But now, although your strength and innate cruelty are no whit less, ye have been somewhat listless; were it not for this, we would have long ago destroyed the G.o.dly few, and brought the earth one with this our vast domain. But know this, ye grim ministers of my wrath, if ye henceforth be not up and doing, valiantly and with all haste, seeing the brevity of our alloted time, I swear by h.e.l.l and by Perdition, and by the vast, eternal gloom, that upon you, yourselves, my ire first shall fall, with pain the like of which the oldest amongst you hath never proved.” Whereupon he frowned until the court became sevenfold darker than before.
Next him, Moloch one of the infernal potentates, stood up, and after making due obeisance to his king, spake thus:- ”Oh Emperor of the Sky, great ruler of the darkness, none ever doubted my desire to practice utmost bale and cruelty, for that has always been my pleasure; no sound was more delightful to mine years than the shrieks of children peris.h.i.+ng in the flames outside Jerusalem, where in former days they were sacrificed to me. And also after our crucified foe had returned to his celestial home, I, during the reigns of ten emperors, continued as long as it availed me, slaying and burning his followers in my attempt to sweep the Christians off the face of the earth. And afterwards in Paris, in England, and in several other places, did I cause many a ma.s.sacre of them; but what have we gained? The tree whose branches are lopped off grows but the quicker; we snarl without the power of biting.”
”Pshaw!” exclaimed Lucifer, ”shame! cowardly hosts that ye are! Never more will I place my trust in you. This work I myself will perform, this enterprise none shall partake with me. {87a} In mine own imperial majesty will I descend upon the earth, and alone will I devour all therein contained; henceforth no man shall there be found to wors.h.i.+p the Most High.” Thereon he gave one terrific flying leap to start--a blaze of living fire, but the hand overhead whirls the terrible dart so that he trembles notwithstanding his rage, and ere he had gone far, an invisible hand drags the brute back by the chain for all his struggles; his rage becomes sevenfold more vehement, his eyes more fierce than dragons, thick black clouds of smoke issue from his nostrils, livid flames from his mouth and bowels, while he gnaws his chain in his grief, and mutters fearful blasphemy and awful oaths.
At last, finding how futile was his attempt to sunder his bonds and how unavailing to contend against the Almighty, he returned to his throne and resumed his speech, in words somewhat more calm, but twice as malignant: ”Though none but the Omnipotent Thunderer could overcome my power and my guile, to Him I am unwillingly constrained to submit; but I can pour forth the vials of my wrath here below, nearer at hand, and let loose my ire upon those who are already under my banner, and within the length of my chain. Arise, ye too, ministers of destruction, lords of the unquenchable fires, and as my anger and my venom overflow, and my malice rush forth, do ye a.s.siduously scatter all broadcast among the d.a.m.ned, and chiefly among the Christians; urge on the engines of torture to their uttermost; devise and invent; increase the heat of the fire and the ebullition, until the hissing flood of the cauldrons overwhelms them; and when their unutterable woes are extremest, then sneer at them and mockingly reproach them, and when ye have exhausted all your store of scorn and gall, hie to me and ye shall be replenished.”
A great stillness had brooded over h.e.l.l for some time, while the pains grew far more unbearable by being given no vent. But now the silence which Lucifer had enjoined was broken, when the fierce butchers, like bears maddened by hunger, fell upon their captives; then there arose such doleful cries, such dismal howling, from every quarter, louder than the roar of rus.h.i.+ng torrents, than the rumble of an earthquake, till h.e.l.l itself became ten times more horrible. I would have died, had not my friend saved me. ”Quaff deep this time,” said he, ”to give thee strength to behold things yet more dire.” Hardly were the words from his lips, when lo! heavenly Justice, who sits above the abyss, guardian of the gates of h.e.l.l, advanced scourging three men with rods of fiery scorpions.
”Ha ha,” cried Lucifer, ”here are three reverend gentlemen whom Justice thought worthy himself to conduct to my kingdom.” ”Woe's me,” said one of the three, ”who ever wanted him to take the trouble?” ”That matters not,” answered he, with a look that made the fiends wax pale, and tremble so that they knocked one against the other, ”it was the will of the Infinite Creator that I myself should lead to their home such accursed murderers.” ”Sirrah,”--addressing one of the demons,--”open me the fold of the a.s.sa.s.sins, where Cain, Nero, Bradshaw, Bonner, Ignatius and innumerable others like them dwell.” ”Alack, alack! we have never slain any man,” cried one. ”No thanks to you that you did not, for time only was wanting,” said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such a hideous blast of blood-red flames, and such a shriek as if a thousand dragons were uttering their death-wail. As Justice was pa.s.sing by on his return, in an instant he caused such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds to fall upon the Evil One and his princes that Lucifer was swept away, and with him Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch, Abadon, Asmodai, Dagon, Apolyon, Belphegor, Mephistopheles, and all their compeers, and they were hurled headlong into a whirlpool which opened and closed in the centre of the court and which, both in aspect and in the execrable stench that arose from it, was a hundredfold more foul and horrid than anything I had ever seen. Before I could ask aught, quoth the Angel: ”This is the gulf that reaches to another great world.” ”What, pray, is that world called?” I enquired. ”'Tis called the bottomless pit or the Nethermost h.e.l.l, the home of the devils, whither they now have gone. And those vast, dreary wilds, parts of which thou hast traversed, are called the Region of Despair, ordained for the condemned until the Judgment Day; then it will become one with the utmost, bottomless h.e.l.l; then will one of us come and seal up the devils and the d.a.m.ned together, never more to open upon them, never to all eternity. In the meantime they have leave to come to this colder country to torment lost souls. Yea, often are they suffered to wander through the air, and about the earth, to tempt men into the pernicious ways that lead to this horrible prison whence no man returns.”
While listening to this account, and wondering that the entrance of Perdition should differ so from that of the Upper h.e.l.l, I heard the tremendous clash of arms, and the roar of artillery, from one quarter, and what seemed like loud-rumbling thunder answering from another quarter, while the deadly rocks resounded. ”This is the turmoil of war!”
I cried, ”if there be war in h.e.l.l.” ”There is,” said he, ”there cannot be but continuous warfare here.” When we were on the point of going out to know of the affair, I beheld the jaws of the Pit open and belch forth thousands of hideous, greenish candles--for such had Lucifer and his chiefs become after surviving the tempest. But when he heard the din of war he turned more livid than Death, and began to call out, and levy armies of his proven veterans to suppress the tumult. While thus occupied he came across a little imp, who had escaped between the feet of the warriors. ”What is the matter?” demanded the King. ”Such a matter as will endanger your crown, an you look not to it.” Close upon this one's heels another devilish courier in a harsh voice cries: ”You that plan the disquietude of others, look now to your own peace; yonder are the Turks, the Papists and the murderous Roundheads in three armies, filling the whole plain of Darkness, committing every outrage and turning everything topsy-turvey.” ”How came they out?” demanded the Evil One, frowning more terribly than Demigorgon. ”The Papists,” said the messenger, ”somehow or other broke out of their purgatory, and then, to pay off old scores, went to unhinge the portals of Mahomet's paradise, and let loose the Turks from their prison, and afterwards in the confusion, through some ill chance, Cromwell's crew escaped from their cells.” Then Lucifer turned and peered beneath his throne, where every d.a.m.ned king lay, and commanded that Cromwell himself should be kept secure in his kennel, and that all the sultans should be guarded.
Accordingly, Lucifer and his host hurried across the sombre wilds of darkness, each one's own person furnis.h.i.+ng light and heat; guided by the tumultuous clangor he marched fearlessly upon them. Silence was proclaimed in the King's name, and Lucifer demanded the cause of such uproar in his realm. ”May it please your infernal majesty,” said Mahomet, ”a quarrel arose between myself and Pope Leo as to which had done you the better service--my Koran or the Romish religion; and when this was going on a pack of Roundheads, who had broken out of their prison during the disorder, joined in and clamoured that their Solemn League and Covenant deserved more respect at your hands than either; so, from striving to striking from words to blows. But now, since your majesty hath returned from h.e.l.l, I lay the matter for your decision.”
”Stay, we've not done with you yet,” cried Pope Julius, and madly they engage once more, tooth and nail, until the strokes clashed like earthquakes; the three armies of the d.a.m.ned tore each other piecemeal, and like snakes became whole again, and spread far and wide over the jagged, burning crags, until Lucifer bade his veterans, the giants of h.e.l.l, separate them, which indeed was no easy task.
When the conflict ceased, Pope Clement spake--”Thou Emperor of Horrors, no throne has ever performed more faithful and universal service to the infernal crown than have the bishops of Rome, throughout a large portion of the world, for eleven centuries, and I hope you will allow none to vie with them for your favor.” ”Well,” said a Scotch-man of Cromwell's gang, ”however great has been the service of the Koran for these eight hundred years, and of popish superst.i.tions for a longer period, yet the Covenant has done far more since its appearance, and everyone begins to doubt the others and be weary of them, but we are still increasing, the wide world over, and have much power in the island of your foes, that is, in Britain and in London, the happiest city under the sun.” ”Ha ha,” exclaimed Lucifer, ”if I hear rightly ye too are about to suffer disgrace there.
But whatever ye may have done in other kingdoms, I will have none of your rioting in mine. Wherefore make your peace forthwith under the penalty of more woes, bodily and spiritual.” And at the word I could see many of the fiends and all the d.a.m.ned, with their tails between their hoofs, steal away to their holes in fear of a change for the worse.
Then after ordering all to be locked up in their lairs, and punis.h.i.+ng and dismissing the officers whose carelessness had allowed them to break loose, Lucifer and his counsellors returned to the court, and sat once more upon the fiery thrones, according to their rank; and when silence had been obtained, and the court cleared, a burly, lob-shouldered devil threw down at the bar a fresh load of prisoners. ”Is this the way to Paradise?” asked one (for they had no idea where they were). ”Or if this be Purgatory,” said another, ”I have a dispensation under the Pope's own signet to pa.s.s straight on to Paradise, without a moment's delay anywhere; wherefore show us the way, or by the Pope's toe, we will have him punish you.” ”Ha ha,” laughed a thousand demons, and Lucifer himself opened his tusked jaws some half a yard in scornful laughter. At which the new comers were sore amazed. ”Look ye,” said one, ”if we have missed our way in the dark, we will pay for guidance.” ”Ha ha,” cried Lucifer, ”ye shall not hence till ye have paid the uttermost farthing.” But on searching them it was found that they had one and all left their trouser behind. ”Ye went past Paradise on the left above those mountains there,”
said the Evil One, ”and although it is easy to descend hither, to return is next to impossible, so dark and intricate is the country, so many steep ascents of flaming iron are there on the way, and huge imminent rocks, overhanging glaciers of insurmountable ice, and here and there, a headlong cataract, all too difficult to clamber over, if ye have not nails as long as a devil's. Ho there! convey these blockheads to our paradise to their companions.” Just then I heard voices drawing nigh, swearing and cursing fearfully. ”Fiends' blood! a myriad devils seize me if ever I go!” and immediately the noisy crew were cast down before the court. ”There,” exclaimed the steed that bore them, ”there is fuel with the best in h.e.l.l.” ”What are they?” asked Lucifer. ”Past masters in the gentle art of swearing and cursing,” said he, ”who knew the language of h.e.l.l as well as we do.” ”A lie to your face, i' the devil's name!” cried one. ”Sirrah! wilt take my name in vain?” said the Evil One. ”Ho, seize them and hook them by their tongues, to that burning precipice, and be at hand to serve them; if on one devil they call, or on a thousand, they shall have their fill.”
When these had departed, a gigantic fiend calls loudly for clearing the bar, and throws down thereat a man who was a load in himself. ”What hast thou there?” demanded Lucifer. ”An innkeeper,” answered he. ”What?”
cried the King, ”only one innkeeper, when they used to come by the thousands. Hast thou, sirrah, not been out for ten years, and dost bring hither but one, and such an one as would serve us in the world better than thee, foul lazy hound!” ”You are too just to condemn me before hearing me,” pleaded he, ”he was the only one laid to my charge, and now I am rid of him. But I despatched you from his house many an idler who drank his family's maintenance, and now and then a dicer, and card player, a fine swearer, an innocent glutton, a negligent tapster and a maid, harsh in the kitchen, but never a kinder abed or in the cellar.”