Prosperity then
is my earthly vicegerent; follow her to Britain, and obey her as ye would
our own royal majesty."
At that instant the huge bolt was whirled, and Lucifer and his chief
counsellors were swept away into the vortex of Uttermost Perdition; woe's
me, how terrible it was to behold the jaws of Hell yawning wide to
receive them! "Come now," said the Angel, "we will return, but what thou
hast seen is as nothing compared with all that is within the bounds of
Hell; and if thou didst see everything therein that again would be as
nought when compared with the unutterable woe of the Bottomless Pit; for
it is impossible to have any conception of the life in the Uttermost
Hell." Then suddenly the heavenly Eagle caught me up into the vault of
the accursed gloom by a way I knew not, where, from the court, across the
entire firmament of dark-burning Perdition, and all the land of oblivion
up to the ramparts of the City of Destruction, I obtained full view of
the hideous monster of a giantess whose feet I had previously observed.
"Words fail me to describe her ways and means; but of herself I can tell
thee, that she was a three-faced ogress: one villainous face turned
towards Heaven, yelping and snarling and belching forth cursed
abomination against the heavenly King; another face (and this was fair to
look upon) towards earth, to allure men beneath her baneful shadow; and
the other direful face towards the infernal abyss, to torture all therein
for ages without end.
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