He could discern faintly that many creatures were there whose uncanny noises, freighted with oaths and blasphemies, sent their sulphurous fumes around. Although Mr. World was accustomed to foul scenes and profanity, yet he was sickened at this deeper touch of Hell.
“Where am I and how came I here?” he cried out excitedly. A woman came quickly in response to his outcry.
“You are in a place of liberty and personal license,” she answered. “Here you are free from the annoyances of narrow-minded pilgrims from the King’s Highway, and you may spend a season in pure delight in these secret abodes which you will find more and more suited to the cravings of your natural heart and mind.”
Now Mr. World was a somewhat judicious man, and although he would not sanction what he called church fanaticism, yet he had some self-respect, and had never allowed himself to reach the slum-level of society.
“Here I cannot and will not stay. Are there no other apartments to which I can go?” he asked, as the woman offered him a glass of wine, and in a sensual way entreated him to remain.
Mr. World was a lover of wine, but was suspicious of the place, and so he moved to go and found great difficulty in getting to another door, which, at last, he reached only by determination, and, giving a pass-word, he went into the first regular department of Satan’s Secret Service.
This place, which was secretly connected with the Wizard City, was one of Satan’s centers from which originated schemes and devices to commit and practice embryonic murder.
I saw in this dark cavern the sons and daughters of earth, high and low, noble and ignoble, and my heart bled within at what I further witnessed.
Mr. World passed through from one section to another, studying carefully the secret processes in vogue, while illustrations, drawn by the artists of the Devil, instead of sending the blush of shame to his cheek, only fed his inner curiosity and verily aroused his baser passions.
Having finished, he gave the pass-word and was admitted to a sub-department called Foeticide.