" Hardly were the words from his lips,
when lo! heavenly Justice, who sits above the abyss, guardian of the
gates of Hell, 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 assassins, 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 passing 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.
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