short while after the young man had taken his place, and it was with
painful feelings that he recognized, in the hollow-eyed and ragged monk
who mounted the pulpit, a priest whom he had seen more than once drunk to
imbecility, in Nesptah's tavern, And the revolting creature, who thus
flaunted his dirty, dishevelled person even in the pulpit, thundered down
on the trembling congregation declarations that the delay in the rising
of the Nile was the consequence of their sins, and God's punishment for
their evil deeds. Instead of comforting the terrified souls, or
encouraging their faith and bidding them hope for better times, he set
before them in burning words the punishment that awaited their wicked
despondency.

God Almighty was plaguing them and the land with great heat; but this was
like the cool north wind at Advent-tide, as compared with the fierceness
of the furnace of hell which Satan was making hot for them. The
scorching sun on earth at any rate gave them daylight, but the flames of
hell shed no light, that the terrors might never cease of those whom the
devil's myrmidons drove over the narrow bridge leading to his horrible
realm, goading them with spears and pitchforks, with heavy cudgelling or
gnawing of their flesh. In the anguish of death, and the crush by the
way, mothers trod down their infants and fathers their daughters; and
when the damned reached the spiked threshold of hell itself, a hideous
and poisoned vapor rose up to meet them, choking them, and yet giving
them renewed strength to feel fresh torments with increased keenness of
every sense. Then the devil's shrieks of anguish, which shake the vault
of hell, came thundering on their ears; with hideous yells he snatched at
them from the grate on which he lay, crushed and squeezed them in his
iron jaws like a bunch of grapes, and swallowed them into his fiery maw;
or else they were hung up by their tongues by attendant friends in
Satan's fiery furnace, or dragged alternately through ice and flames,