I dreamed I was lying in bed in the wilderness be-
side hell. The deep yet orderly wailing of all the
ghosts blended with the roar of flames, the seething
of oil and the clashing of iron prongs to make one
vast, intoxicating harmony, proclaiming to all three
worlds the peace of the lower realm.

Before me stood a great man, beautiful and benign,
his whole body radiant with light; but I knew he was
the devil.

"This is the end of everything! The end of every-
thing! The wretched ghosts have lost their good hell."

He spoke with indignation, then sat down to tell me
a story that he knew.

"It was when heaven and earth were made honey-
coloured that the devil overcame god, and wielded
absolute power. He held heaven, earth, and hell. Then
he came in person to hell and sat in the midst of it,
radiating bright light over all the ghosts.

"Hell had long been neglected: the spiked trees had
lost their glitter, the verge of the boiling oil no longer
seethed, at times the great fires puffed out merely a
little grey smoke, and far off there still bloomed some
mandrake flowers, their blossoms very small, pale and
wretched. But that was not to be wondered at, for
the earth had been fearfully burnt and had naturally
lost its fertility.

"Awaking amid the cold oil and lukewarm fires, by
the light of the devil the ghosts saw the small flowers

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