"Impudent varlet!" said the Devil. "In with him into the furnace! Yet, stay. How much money did you cheat our friend Andrew Gavin of?"
"I needna try to conceal it," said Duncan to himself. "He kens it as weel as I do. Here it is" (speaking out) "and some mair—ye may hae it a', if ye'll no consign me to that red-hot fiery furnace. Fearfu, fearfu place!"
"Count it out," said Satan.
Duncan complied with trembling hands and Beelzebub took up the money.
"That is a most precious commodity," said he. "They say, above, that our dwelling is paved with good intentions—they should rather say, that it is paved with gold, a metal with which the ancient infidels said heaven was constructed. Never was there a greater error. 'The root of all evil' cannot surely be found in the very birth-place of good."
"I ken, at least," said Duncan Schulebred "that it was gowd that brought me here. Cursed trash! It is the gowd, and no the puir sinners deceived by't, that should be put into the furnace. Weel, weel has it been ca'd the root o' a' evil. Oh, cursed dross! what am I to suffer for ye?
'Yon warld's gear, when I think on
Its pride, and a' the lave o't;
Fie! fie! on silly coward man,
That he should be the slave o't.'"
"Doth the creature malign our staple commodity," said Satan, "and say it should be melted? Well, away with him, Asmody, to the furnace!—melt him!"
Now did Duncan scream for mercy, while the dark spirits laid hold of him, and proceeded to carry him to the mouth of the furnace, at last blown up into a fearful red heat. He continued to roar with very great vociferation, making all the cone ring, and casting about his legs and arms, like one distracted. Those who were not engaged in carrying him, brought within an inch of his face, their burning globes of glass, and made indications as if they would apply them to his body; the bearers, turning his head to the fiery volcano, laid it within a foot of the burning coal; the whole ceremony was accompanied by a chorus of really frightful yells, set up by the operators, and made to echo and reverberate throughout the area of the cone. Independently, altogether, of the conviction of being in the hands of the Evil One and his legions, the situation of Duncan, with his head within a foot of a furnace, and surrounded by wild-looking howling beings, intent apparently on his destruction, would have terrified a pretty stout heart; but he truly believed himself on the very eve of being punished for his crimes, by being thrust head-foremost into the burning furnace, from which no power could save him. And who could contemplate that position without horror? His agony was, in short, inexpressible, except by screams; and it was cruelly prolonged by affected manœuvres, such as blowing the bellows, and stirring and restirring the coals, to make them burn more fiercely, for the more adequate reception of the greatest of human sinners that had ever been consigned to the pit.
Having held him for some time in this position, Satan, seeming to recollect himself, cried out—