They flew through the air, and were on the prison before the officers arrived with their captives. The two assassins were at once consigned to one of its lowest deeps, while Thomasa was led to a bed of straw, which she was to share with three or four other abandoned women, who had fallen into the hands of justice the same day; and with whom she was destined to be transported to the colonies, which a grateful mother country generally endows with this description of female inhabitants. "I am satisfied," said Zambullo; "I have tasted a delicious revenge: my dear Thomasa will not pass the night quite so pleasantly as she had anticipated. So, now, if you please, we will continue our observations." "We could not be in a better place, then," replied the Spirit. "Within these walls is much to interest you. Innocent and guilty, in somewhat equal numbers, are here enclosed: it is the hell in which commences the punishment of the one, and the purgatory in which the virtue of the others may be purified,--you see I'm a good Catholic, Signor Student! Of both of these species of prisoners I will show you examples, and I will inform you why they are here enfettered." CHAPTER VII. THE PRISON, AND THE PRISONERS. "And before I commence my memoirs, just observe the gaolers at the entrance of this horrible place. The poets of antiquity placed but one Cerberus at the gate of their hell: there are many more here, however, as you perceive. They are creatures who have lost all the feelings of humanity, if they ever possessed any;--the most malicious of my brethren could hardly replace one of them. But I observe that you are looking with horror on those cells whose only furniture consists of a wretched bed,--those fearful dungeons appear to you so many tombs. You are reasonably astonished at the misery you behold; and you deplore the fate of those unhappy persons whom the law restrains; still, they are not all equally to be pitied; and I will enable you to distinguish between them. "To begin, in that large cell to the right are four men sleeping in two beds; one of them is an innkeeper, accused of having poisoned a foreigner who died suddenly the other day in his house. They assert that the deceased owed his death to the quality of the wine he partook of; the host maintains, that the quantity, alone, killed him: and the accused will be believed, for the stranger was a German." "Well! who is in the right, the innkeeper or his accusers?" said Don Cleophas. "It is difficult to decide," replied the Devil "The wine was certainly drugged; but, i' faith, the Baron drank so largely, that the judges may for the nonce most conscientiously acquit a tavern-keeper of poisoning his customer."