The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

3 TUB MYSTERIES. _ could not give veut to the scream which he wished to send forth as the expression of his agony ;—and through the black palpable mist was he borne along, with hurricane speed, in the arms of the colossal phantom whoee touch was like that of the slimy snake. On—on through the stupendous soot-mist did the terrible being bear the Prince, whose mind was filled with such dire horror that no mortal pen can find words to depict it—no human language afford terms to delineate its intensitv. And by degrees the con- Viction dawned in unto the soul of this Prince that he was in the embrace of another Prince, more powerful than himself—the Prince of the Realms of Darkness! At the same time that this reflection was working its way into his mind, he became aware that the shape of the colossal being was growing every instant more and more terrible: for although the headlong journey was continued through the black darkness which was felt with the same sensation as if the Prince were being dragged through a pool of muddy water,—yet was he enabled to trace all the outlines of the hideous being that held him in its infernal grasp. And he saw that instead of possess- ing legs and feet, the lower portion of the demon’s body elongated in the form of a tremendous serpent —the vast mass of moving, loathsome, undulating blackness stretching away, away, to an incalculable distance and at length being lost in the soot-like gloom. And as the fiend went rushing on with the speed of the hurncane, thousands of miles a minute, that monstrous tail rolled after him in a huge sable volume, as if the darkest thunder-cloud had gathered to form his train ! As the traveller through a night of pitchy ob- scurity catches a glimpse of lights glimmering in the distance and beholds them increasing in bright- ness and in number as he draws nearer and nearer, until he distinguishes a vast city splendidly Ulumi- nated to celebrate some grand festive occasion,—so did the Prince of Wales now begin to catch glimpses of far-off fires, which gradually developed their vast- ness and their lurid brilliancy to his view, as the demon hurried him on towards that appalling desti- nation. At length it appeared to the gaze of the horrified Prince that he was approaching an illimi- table tract of country all flooded with liquid flames, as the fields of the Earth are inundated with water. Pestilential odours filled his nostrils with a sulphurvus smel], and his throat grew parched as if he had been swallowing ashes. A sense of consuming heat came rapidly upon him at the same time; and he knew that he was being borne headlong on towards the endless burning jake of hell! But suddenly the demon stopped short—and his sable arms placed the Prince upon the summit of a pillar shooting up from some unfathomable depth below,—a black marble pillar on which his Royal Highness was left by the fiend to balance himself as well as he might, with the intuitive conviction that if he fell it would be to encounter destruction. “ Behold my kingdom !”’ exclaimed the Prince of Darkness, addressing the Prince of the Earth in that sonorous voice which now seemed to roll in undu- lating waves of sound throughont all space. “ Upon the earth, immense is the line of demarcation which selfishness, egotism, and usurpation have traced be- tween the high-born aad the hamble—the pampered few and the toiling many! But in my kingdom all are equal—and those distinctions disappear! In von fiery lake, Kings are suffering by the side of beggars—Popes and Bishops are writhing in the same pit with thieves and vagabonds. But if there be. places in my realms where tortures are more ex- quisitely keen than elsewhere,—if there be spots where the fire burns more intensely and serpents bite more sharply than in others,—then do I reserve those scenes of excelling anguish for the souls of men who have occupied the highest places,upon the earth! And now behold the wonders and the horrors of my kingdom ” With these words, the flend waved his mighty arm. the sweeping effect of which was as if a strong wind suddenly agitated the sooty darkness that filled the air above the lake of fire; and it seemed to the Prince as if he tottered and shool upon the summit of the colossal pinnacle where he stood. But re- covering his balance just at the moment when he was about to give vent to a piercing shriek in the terror of falling, his Royal Highness suddenly be- held a strange and fearful spectacle. For the Jake of fire bad risen in a moment so high up that it appeared as if he suddenly beheld by the aid of a microscope a scene which was far distant and confused before. And that flood of flaming lava was now swarming with life—as a drop of muddy water abounds in hideoua things when inspected by the magnifying power of the instrument just mentioned. Yes—there, in that vast range of fire which stretched illimitably northward and southward, eastward and westward,—there, in the erubescent flood of living, liquid flames which glowed with a withering, stifling heat,—there, in that boundless morass of ever burning levin, writhed the millions that people Satan’s Kingdom! Attired as they were when upon the earth, and retaining all their mortal lineaments, those immortal spirits of the damned tossed, heaved, and struggled with hideous convul- sions amidst the tortures that enveloped them. But, ob! with what an awful shudder and with what a direful sickness at the heart, did the Prince of Wales observe that amongst the doomed myriads were thousands and thousands wearing crowns, or mitres, or coronets-—the emblems of their rank on earth! Yes—and how vast was the proportion of those whose forms were decked in rich garments, and who had gold chairs suspendea to their necks and glis- tening rings apon their fingers—the evidences of the luxury in which they had revelled during their lives! And then, indee|l, did the horrified Prince behold the fulfilment of the divine saying, that it is easier for a cable to pass through the eye of a needle than for @ rich man to enter the Kingdom of God J Suddenly, while he was yet gazing upon the tre- mendous scene which stretched around and far away —that ocean of living fire which had no limit and which was bounded by no shore—the demon grasped him again with his sable hand which was fashioned like the claw of a valture; and, holding him forth at arm’s length over the candescent flood which glowed and roared below, he exclaimed in a loud voice—“ Now shait thou receive the reward due to thy crimes! Oc‘avia Clarendon and all thine other victims shall be avenged! Down, down into the depths of hell—and writhe there henceforth in ever- lasting torments!” As these last words rolled away from the demon’s lips—sounding like awful thunoderings throughout the realms of space—he relinquished his hold upon the Prince, who instantaneously fell screaming and shrieking hurribly through the jet black air. GOH GOO ee es: <i, OO aes a —_——__ SS