Chapter LXIII

I. B. Devil paced restlessly about in his brand new Hell. Everything was running in apple pie order, but not a soul in torment. That fact worried him, for it had been nearly two generations since Gud had planted the souls. He had done it well, had plunged the busy sphere into a day of thick darkness. There had been a mad howling and babble among the conceited rationals until the whole race of them had tumbled in their tracks and fallen into a profound slumber. It was then that the souls were planted.

One of Gud's newly employed assistants had made the count of the mortals, and the Devil had marvelled at his accuracy, for there were only six souls left over. These Gud had laughingly handed to the Devil, who had given them to six of his firemen--appreciative chaps they were, and it hadn't spoiled them, this thing of having two souls.

After the soul planting was finished, the Devil and Gud had parted cordially enough. They had agreed it was best not to be seen together after that. By the agreement Gud was first to visit the sphere alone and give out his revelation, and the Devil was then to make one visit to sow doubts and temptations.

The Devil had glanced at Gud's revelation most casually; it seemed quite ordinary--old stuff, and he had been rather careless in planting his doubts and temptations. The competition had looked easy. But now two generations had passed on the sphere and not a soul had arrived for torment.

The Devil was profoundly puzzled. He wondered if Gud had been unethical and double-crossed him with a spurious revelation, getting out another one later with utterly different beliefs and morals, so that the doubts and temptations were thus all obsoleted. This possibility made the Devil furious, for it was plausible enough--yet that Gud chap had seemed such a fair and simple sort!

Half a dozen times the Devil started to go up and see about it--yet, had he not pledged his own incombustibility on his keeping away from the sphere after the first visit? He had been a simple fool, and here he was with a fully equipped hell on his hands and a big payroll to meet and the best of his helpers deserting right and left, because they were bored with idleness. As good a hell as ever burned brimstone and not a soul to roast!

Drearily enough, the Devil began his rounds again. He had to keep the boys cheered up. How he wished that he had not been so democratic and told them just when things had been started on the sphere. The best he could do now, was to lie out of that and claim that this was just a trial run. But he could see that many of his once loyal helpers had utterly lost faith in his leadership. He had been proud of those helpers, some of the brightest demons in the game. He had bid them off good jobs in older hells by promises of greater freedom to try out their own ideas. In that way he had obtained a superior set of tortures for special sins. But now no souls--and half his demons deserted and the cleverest of his torture machines rusting from lack of use.

At last he could stand it no longer, and he went back to his private chambers. Telling his valet that he was not to be disturbed, he locked the door and took a sleeping potion gauged for a century.

* * * * *

Boom! Boom! Boom!

I. B. Devil awoke and tried to stretch himself, but he was so stiff he could hardly move. Cold, icy cold penetrated his very bones. He managed at last to sit up on the edge of his couch, and then the chamber door fell in before the battering ram of the last of his faithful followers. Six shivering demons piled into the chamber--the six grateful firemen to whom he had given the extra souls.

"The last of the fires are out, Your Majesty, and all the others have deserted."

"But why," demanded the Devil, "did you not keep my private furnace fired? We shall all freeze to death."

"But, Your Majesty, there is no one to work the mines. Do you not remember that you arranged for them to be worked by the souls of scabs who were to be killed by strikers?"

"Another blunder," sighed the Devil. "Well, there is a grate and in that case yonder is my private stock of smoking brimstone. Light it, for I must get thawed out so I can think."

The two-souled firemen hastened to obey and the seven of them were soon sitting around the spluttering blue flames and inhaling the delicious vapors.

The Devil got out a set of heavy, asbestos furs, smiling as he recalled for whom he had ordered them. He had intended to keep her in his private chamber to light his pipe and brew his tea--and he had chuckled many a time at the thought of her in summer furs.

He laid the furs on a chair and went to his desk and wrote busily for a few minutes.

"Now, boys," he said, "here are your passes for mortality, and remember you have two souls."

The firemen vanished and the Devil was alone in Hell.

He drew on the furs and wrapped his own travelling cape about them. Then he went into the outer chamber. Across the room the windows, into which usually shone the cheery redness of roaring flames, were now frosted with weird designs, and the fireproof platinum fittings on the great door were hoary white.

Slowly the Devil trudged across the chill chamber and, with a fur-clad hand, grasped the frosted handle, swung open the great door, and stepped out on the balcony.

For a moment he was blinded by the dazzling, sparkling white. He stumbled over some object and bent down to find the huddled form of a demon frozen stiff as an ice idol. It was poor little Beezel, who had come all the way from the hell of the three-ringed planet to try out his new scheme of torture for trigamists.

I. B. Devil stepped lightly over his frozen disciple and went to the balcony rail. Shading his eyes until they became accustomed to the white glare, he now looked far up and down the wide stretches of his domain, puzzled, dumbfounded and subdued. The water mains that supplied the steam baths had burst and flooded the place, and all hell was frozen over!

* * * * *

I. B. Devil leaped from the balustrade and straight as an arrow shot upward to Gud's Paradise.

He paused for a moment only outside the portals to discard the furs he wore, then he pushed open the great unguarded gate and stepped inside.

It was a goodly heaven, vast and beautiful and shining in its new-made emptiness.

I. B. Devil did not pause for admiration, but went straightway to Gud's private office and kicked open the door. There was no one there. Beside the larger desk was a lesser one, and on this lay a powder puff and a small mirror. The Devil stepped to the file cabinet, flung it open; and with uncanny accuracy reached in, pulled out the carbon copy of the order for souls, and read:

"In accordance with your quotation, you may ship us at once three billion mortal souls."

"Poor old chap," mused the Devil, "I should never have trusted one."

Then he stepped outside and mounted to the throne of Gud. There he found a note pinned to the upholstery. It read: "We have gone to Hell."

The Devil went back to the portal of Gud's heaven and picked up the furs: "I guess," he said, "I had better take them down to her."

* * * * *

But Gud let her go to Hell alone, for in the course of their headlong flight, he heard the faint sound of far off barking. Wheeling in the ether Gud made straight for the campfire, where he had left Fidu watching the beans.

"Did the beans boil over?" asked Gud.

"No, indeed," said Fidu, in his best dog language, "but you were gone so long that I caught a nice wild boar so that there is pork in the beans."

"Don't you know, Fidu," admonished Gud, "that I disapprove of eating pork?"

"But," said Fidu, "this was a vegetarian pig, for he was rooting for peanuts when I caught him."