" Having been for some time
cramming his gluttonous maw with carrion, he caused his subjects to be
called together, and moved from the altar to a very lofty and dreadful
throne, to adjudge newly-arrived prisoners. In an instant, lo! the dead
in countless multitudes paid homage to the king, and took their places in
wonderful array. King Death was in his regal robe of brilliant scarlet,
whereon depicted were wives and children weeping and husbands sighing; on
his head a dark-red, three-cornered cap, a gift his cousin Lucifer had
sent him, on the corners of which were written Grief, Sorrow, and Woe.
Above his head were a myriad pictures of battles on land and sea, of
towns aflame, of the earth yawning, and of the waters of the deluge; the
ground beneath his feet was nought else than the crowns and sceptres of
all the kings he had ever conquered. At his right hand sat Fate with a
morose and scowling visage, reading an enormous tome that lay before him;
at his left, was an old man called Time, warping innumerable threads of
gold, silver, copper, and many of iron--some threads were growing better
towards the end, a myriad worse; along the threads were marked hours,
days and years, and Fate, at his book, cut the thread of life and opened
the doors in the boundary wall between the two worlds.
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