The earth burst open under
my feet, and hot, rolling flame was all around me. I could feel my hair and
eyebrows scorch and burn; then in a moment everything would change. I could
hear a thousand voices, all talking to me at the same time, and every one
threatening me with some horrid death; then I would be surrounded with wild
animals, fighting and tearing each other to pieces, and glaring at me,
while devils told me they would tear me to pieces; then a tiger took my
whole arm between his bloody jaws, and mashed and mangled it to pieces, and
tore that arm from my shoulder; then some fiend, in the shape of an old
hag, would come up and pour red-hot embers into the bleeding wound, from
which my arm had been torn. When I screamed in agony, devils would laugh a
horrid, devilish laugh. I looked down and saw a jug of liquor at my feet,
and when I reached down to get it I heard the click of a hundred pistols,
and a grinning black devil threw his claws over the jug; then devils and
witches boiled the whisky. I could see it on the fire, and hear it seethe
and foam; then they danced around me, and said they had the liquor so hot
that it would scald me to death; then they pried open my mouth, and poured
it down my throat.
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