‘And you really are from....’
‘From Hell,’ he said, and showed her his teeth that were white and strong as an animal’s. She shrank a little from him. He told her not to fear to approach and touch him, for he was in human guise. There was no sulphur on his person, no blasting fire in his hands. To prove his wholesome humanity he touched her wrist, and she experienced a shock of joy such as she had formerly experienced when her mother had led her to Satan in the heart of the oak wood. This joy she accounted a religious joy—such (so she explained to Mr. Zelley) as a Christian would experience at receiving the visitations of an angel.
Now was she no longer alone in this sad world, for her god (that is, Satan) had come to succour her, or had at least sent her a messenger. She asked him which he was, Satan or lesser demon. At the mention of Satan’s name, he bowed his head reverently. He admitted that he was but one of many fallen angels who had left Paradise with the Awful Prince. At first she was cast down, for she had hoped to hear that it was the Prince himself. But she looked again, and marked how handsome a man he was and of what a fine ruddy complexion. She saw how strong were his shoulders, and how arched and strong his chest. She was thankful then that Satan had not seen fit to send her merely some ancient hag or talking cat, ram, or little green bird, but this stalwart demon. She thought, ‘He can protect me even from the hate of Mrs. Hannah.’ She thought, in her utter and damnable folly, ‘He can protect me from the Wrath of God.’
The whole barn fell into the cellar hole. As she looked towards this glowing pit, she thought of that vaster and crueller bonfire in which her soul would burn forever. She thought well to ask him a little concerning those pains which she later must suffer. He laughed at her. There would be, he said, no pain. Those who served Satan faithfully in this world were never burned in Hell. Was not Satan King of Hell? Why should he burn those who loved and obeyed him? She was stuffed full of lunatic theology. The only souls that suffered in Hell were such of God’s subjects as had angered Him and yet had made no pact of service with Satan. These the devils burned—even as God ordered. It gave them a thing to do. He pointed out there were no angels in Hell watching out that God’s orders be fulfilled, so naturally the devils did not carry out the cruel sentences God meted out to true subjects of Satan. Again he said, ‘Why should they?’
She asked him of news concerning her father and mother—good witches whom the French had burned in Brittany. These he assured her roamed happily and at free will, finding cooling breezes even in Hell. When it pleased them, they sat and conversed with antiquity or with the greatest kings, princes, etc., who had ever lived in this world. But her mother was a kindly woman and got more pleasure out of good deeds than from idle conversation. Therefore Satan permitted her to go about among those who burn and give them water or fan away the smoke. Doll was convinced that the messenger had indeed seen her mother, whom she always remembered as a gentle and loving woman.
Was this kind mother aware of her daughter’s sufferings? Was it she who had thought to send him to comfort her? No, no. A mortal who is dead cannot see back into life. It was Satan himself who had pitied her and ordered him to her side. Him he bade her worship, ‘Truth in and humbly.’ At first she could not understand this reversal of many sacred phrases. Later she came to know this blasphemous jargon well. For every night she said Our Lord’s most holy prayer backwards—thereby addressing herself to Satan; but what came to her as punishment for this wicked practice we shall see.
He had about him a bottle of grog, and from this he baptized her, ‘Ghost holy and son, Father of name the in.’ Now he said she was no longer Bilby’s Doll. Now she was the Devil’s Doll. And he kissed her reverently upon the forehead. His pretty imp peeked out from within his blue blouse where he kept it. He bade her stroke it. This she did. She said it was a warm and gentle imp, with tired and thoughtful (but not malicious, as she had at first thought) eyes. It was well furred and, if it were not for its wise, sad face and minute black hands, she might have thought it indeed but an animal. She came to love this imp, playing with it and petting it. Its name, he said, was Bloody Shad. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that is the name of one of the pirates that escaped.’ The fiend said he knew that fine fellow well. He had taken his nickname from the imp the young woman now held in her pretty little hands.
The fire was laid and the dawn gave more light than the embers. Birds shook the thin, watery air with their calling. A few men still stood about the fire. The one called to the other that Ahab was in a village garden devouring new-set cabbage plants and terrifying women. Doll leaned towards these men, listening to their news. As she turned back to inquire of her instructor the true status of Ahab in the community and in the Hierarchy of Hell, she found to her great sorrow that he was gone.
At the same time one of the barnyard fowls who the night before had suffered bitterly, being as he was a cock, struck a gallant attitude upon a heap of dung, and, lifting his head, greeted the coming day with a triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo. She heard the cocks on her own farm answer this challenge with distant fairy cries.
This was a new day, and with it came great hopes.