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.  Before I could ask aught, quoth the Angel:  “This is the gulf that reaches to another great world.”  “What, pray, is that world called?” I enquired. “’Tis called the bottomless pit or the Nethermost Hell, the home of the devils, whither they now have gone.  And those vast, dreary wilds, parts of which thou hast traversed, are called the Region of Despair, ordained for the condemned until the Judgment Day; then it will become one with the utmost, bottomless Hell; then will one of us come and seal up the devils and the damned together, never more to open upon them, never to all eternity.  In the meantime they have leave to come to this colder country to torment lost souls.  Yea, often are they suffered to wander through the air, and about the earth, to tempt men into the pernicious ways that lead to this horrible prison whence no man returns.”

While listening to this account, and wondering that the entrance of Perdition should differ so from that of the Upper Hell, I heard the tremendous clash of arms, and the roar of artillery, from one quarter, and what seemed like loud-rumbling thunder answering from another quarter, while the deadly rocks resounded.  “This is the turmoil of war!” I cried, “if there be war in hell.”  “There is,” said he, “there cannot be but continuous warfare here.”  When we were on the point of going out to know of the affair, I beheld the jaws of the Pit open and belch forth thousands of hideous, greenish candles—­for such had Lucifer and his chiefs become after surviving the tempest.  But when he heard the din of war he turned more livid than Death, and began to call out, and levy armies of his proven veterans to suppress the tumult.  While thus occupied he came across a little imp, who had escaped between the feet of the warriors.  “What is the matter?” demanded the King.  “Such a matter as will endanger your crown, an you look not to it.”  Close upon this one’s heels another devilish courier in a harsh voice cries:  “You that plan the disquietude of others, look now to your own peace; yonder are the Turks, the Papists and the murderous Roundheads in three armies, filling the whole plain of Darkness, committing every outrage and turning everything topsy-turvey.”  “How came they out?” demanded the Evil One, frowning more terribly than Demigorgon.  “The Papists,” said the messenger, “somehow or other broke out of their purgatory, and then, to pay off old scores, went to unhinge the portals of Mahomet’s paradise, and let loose the Turks from their prison, and afterwards in the confusion, through some ill chance, Cromwell’s crew escaped from their cells.”  Then Lucifer turned and peered beneath his throne, where every damned