"Explain it to me," I asked as I looked wonderingly at Blackana.
"Urge it not, urge it not! Be content to dwell in ignorance!"
"I am here to learn, and I would know what force or power can so well-nigh destroy this wretched center. Tell me the truth. I demand it."
Then did Blackana move himself in his startling att.i.tudes, as if loath to speak. He rolled his heavy eyes as his discordant voice yielded the unwilling explanation.
"These are the votes that just fell in favor of reform in a campaign on earth. Such votes, under the panoply of prayer, strike more terror to these kingdoms than all else combined, and the most disastrous feature is that they go bounding from the buildings of this level ever downward and work their ruin from kingdom to kingdom, until they have wrought their havoc even to the lowest level. If we only knew the way to break the power of these votes, our comrades would not then dwell in constant dread of what might happen."
"May you never learn that power, and may the votes of good citizenship ever increase in number until these legislative halls shall be broken to rise no more, and their inmates driven from their secret machinations to the abode prepared for the Devil and his angels."
Blackana sprang at me in great rage.
"Silence, you contemptible mortal! You have not such liberty of speech here! Why fling insults into the face of one more powerful than yourself?"
"_Ho, ye ten thousand!_" I shouted with all my power, and Blackana fell backward at my very words. Sullen, but cowed, he arose to his feet and took me to the elevators.
"Where next?" he gruffly asked.
"What is on the next level below?" I inquired.
"Greater proceedings than on this one. It is devoted to the government of counties, cities, boroughs, and villages, and their political work."
"Pa.s.s it by and take me to the lowest level."
"You do not know what you ask. The lowest level is very, very deep, and takes us where things have no weight. It is the lowest haunt outside of h.e.l.l, inhabited by the vilest imps. How can you live or move in such a realm?"
"Not by the futile force of human power, but by the strength of Him who bids me go. I fear not, O Blackana; conduct me thither."
What an awful experience followed! I was taken down at an amazing speed, held under the great hand of Blackana. We pa.s.sed region after region of infernal lights, each one existing for the purpose of carrying out its part of Satan"s fiendish plan.
At length we stopped in the red glare of an awful burning amidst a company of hobgoblins out of harmony with all human shape or symmetry.
"This must be the bed of h.e.l.l, indeed," I said, after I had conquered my rising fears. "Far from it, far from it!" answered Blackana. "We are now in the lowest legislative center _where foul fiends invent the horrible laws of personal pollution in the mortal body, and political bribery in the civil body._"
Blackana held me by the hand. I seemed not to walk but rather to move along without effort, seeing the pictures of lowest life and ill-shaped spirits, some of monster size.
Into an immense auditorium I was wafted, a building without foundations or floor. Here, amidst uncanny noises, hovered a vast throng of Satan"s lowest legislators.
The dreadful suggestions here given, and the terrible debates that followed, beggar human description. From all parts of the great hall the busy wires were communicating with every section of the earth"s surface.
Blackana, still holding me by the hand, spoke! thus in a derisive strain:
"O mortal, now comes my glorious revenge I have tasted your insults until their galling bitterness grinds me still. I have craved for this hour when I might leave you to the mercy of the lowest, and bring you under my feet for ever."
Then, turning to the chairman of the great a.s.semblage, Blackana attracted his attention, and at once the attention of all the spectral monsters of the place.
"Here," commenced he, "is a piece of mortal flesh, fresh from the surface. I have been forced, by some strange power, to conduct this mortal man through these nether levels until he has seen the workings of our underground plans and schemes. He must never see the light of day, lest the world above may know the true inwardness and source of such laws as are called cursed, and rise in hosts against our surface operations."
At this Blackana thrust me forward, and I went straightway to the chairman who seized me by the back and held me aloft in his right hand, while a deafening roar of strident voices was measuring my doom.
"_Ho, ye ten thousand!_" I cried aloud, at which the horrid chairman fell backward, and I dropped unharmed to his own chair as the whole host were rushing at me en ma.s.se.
The chairman sprang to his feet and waved a wand. "Silence and order!"
he commanded.
Thousands of brandishing weapons were brought to a stand, and quietness reigned in a moment.
"Why say you "ten thousand"? What power lives in those words?" asked the chairman with a show of boldness, but in secret quaking. "Power unlimited, even over death, h.e.l.l, and the grave. My flesh is not food for such as these."
"Who can you be to talk thus boldly to your superiors?"
"I am one who is sealed by the blood of Jesus, and have no superiors outside the gates of Heaven."
"Why came you here?" he impatiently and furiously demanded. "Tell me while yet you have opportunity to speak."
Then, fully confiding in my unseen Guard, I stood erect and said with boldness of speech: "I have come to learn the secrets of this underground legislation which is sending its blighting curse throughout the world. Having witnessed the wide extent of these secret operations, I will now return to the brotherhood of man and sound the alarm of a coming reformation. O, beware ye mult.i.tudes that now rise against me!
I am not alone, nor forsaken. By faith I see armies of the living G.o.d.
I declare, at this moment, that earth will not forever receive her laws from such a depth. The hour must come when these million wires will be broken beyond repair, and all you fiends go groveling under penal chains in darkness eternal."
[Ill.u.s.tration: The armies of righteousness will some day triumph over the black hordes of civil iniquity.]
No more could I speak, for the air was thickening all around me with a rush of wild demons whose threatening weapons thirsted for my blood.
I stood motionless, glorying in the power of the Unseen, for I saw, shining far above me, a beautiful star of hope with peace and purity in its rays.
In the same instant I again shouted, "_Ho, ye ten thousand!_" Oh, what a transformation took place! Regiment upon regiment of Heaven"s military hosts, converging as from infinite depth of s.p.a.ce, burst into sudden view, revealed by a dazzling light which filled the whole region arid dazed the infernal hosts as with blindness, while their weapons broke and fell beneath them in futile fragments.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HILL OF REMORSE.
1. While climbing a steep hill Miss Church-Member is touched by Remorse.
2. Satan"s strategy in keeping her away from the Narrow Path.
3. All her trouble is lost in company with Mr. World on the Mountain Top of Apathy.
Returning to my former post of observation, and looking again through the open door, I beheld Mr. World and Miss Church-Member still riding on the gravity road. They were approaching the Shadowy Vale, and Mr.
World was desirous that his friend should close her eyes until they had pa.s.sed through the shadows.
She reclined her head, and soon was resting so comfortably that she fell fast asleep and opened not her eyes until they had pa.s.sed beyond the darker scenes of the miserable valley.
Then did Mr. World engage her with artful and pleasant conversation, so that she might not fully observe the features that constantly make this part of the Broad Highway dark and dreary.