the devils tremble till they knocked one against
another, "that it is the will of the Great Creator, that I should myself
bring these three accursed murderers to their home. Sirrah," said he to
one of the devils, "unbolt for me the prison of the murderers, where are
Cain and Nero, Bonner, Bradshaw, Ignatius, and innumerable others of a
similar description." "Alas, alas! we never killed any body," said one
of the prisoners. "No, because you did not get time and because you were
prevented," said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such a
horrible puff of bloody flame, and such a yell as if a thousand dragons
were giving their last gasp in their death agony. Into this den Justice
hurled his prisoners; {93} and on his way back he breathed obliquely,
such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds upon the Arch-Fiend and all his
potentates, as he passed by them, that Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch,
Abaddon, Asmodeus, Dagon, Apollyon, Belphegor, Mephistophiles, and all
the other principal demons were whisked away, and tumbled headlong into a
kind of gulf, which was opening and closing in the midst of the palace,
and whose aspect was more horrible, and whose steam was more frightful
than the aspect and vapour of any gulf which I had previously seen.
Before I could enquire of the angel as to what it was, he said, "that is
a hole which leads to another vast world." "Pray," said I, "what is the
name of that world?" "It is called," said he, "Unknown, or extremest
Hell, the habitation of the devils, and the place to which they are at
present gone. The vast wilderness, over part of which you have come, is
called the country of Despair, a place intended for the lost until the
Day of Judgment, when it will fall into extremest, bottomless Hell, and
the two will become one. When that has happened one of ourselves will
come and close the gate of the whole region of horror upon the devils and
the damned, which gate shall never, to all eternity, be opened for them.
In the meantime, however, permission is given to the devils to come to
these cooler regions, in order to torment the lost souls. Yea, they
often obtain permission to go even into the air, and about the earth, to
tempt men to the destructive paths, which lead to this dismal prison,
from which there is no escape." In the midst of this history, and whilst
I was in great surprise at seeing the mouth of Unknown, so much
surpassing in horror the jaws of upper Hell, I could