Now spoke Amaimon, in the form of a thick suet-colored worm going upright upon his tail, which shone like the tail of a glowworm. He had no feet, but under his chops were two short hands, and upon his back were bristles such as grow upon hedgehogs. "But we are rather overrun with emperors," said Amaimon, doubtfully, "and their crimes are a great trouble to us. Were you a very wicked ruler?" "Never since I became an emperor," replied Jurgen, "has any of my subjects uttered one word of complaint against me. So it stands to reason I have nothing very serious with which to reproach myself." "Your conscience, then, does not demand that you be punished?" "My conscience, gentlemen, is too well-bred to insist on anything." "You do not even wish to be tortured?" "Well, I admit I had expected something of the sort. But none the less, I will not make a point of it," said Jurgen, handsomely. "No, I shall be quite satisfied even though you do not torture me at all." And then the mob of devils made a great to-do over Jurgen. "For it is exceedingly good to have at least one unpretentious and undictatorial human being in Hell. Nobody as a rule drops in on us save inordinately proud and conscientious ghosts, whose self-conceit is intolerable, and whose demands are outrageous." "How can that be?" "Why, we have to punish them. Of course they are not properly punished until they are convinced that what is happening to them is just and adequate. And you have no notion what elaborate tortures they insist their exceeding wickedness has merited, as though that which they did or left undone could possibly matter to anybody. And to contrive these torments quite tires us out." "But wherefore is this place called the Hell of my fathers?" "Because your forefathers builded it in dreams," they told him, "out of the pride which led them to believe that what they did was of sufficient importance to merit punishment. Or so at least we have heard: but if you want the truth of the matter you must go to our Grandfather at Barathum." "I shall go to him, then. And do my own grandfathers, and all the forefathers that I had in the old time, inhabit this gray place?" "All such as are born with what they call a conscience come hither," the devils said. "Do you think you could persuade them to go elsewhere? For in that event, we would be deeply obliged to you. Their self-conceit is pitiful: but it is also a nuisance, because it prevents our getting any rest." "Perhaps I can help you to obtain justice, and certainly to attempt to secure justice for you is my imperial duty. But who governs this country?" They told him how Hell was divided into principalities that had for governors Lucifer and Beelzebub and Belial and Ascheroth and Phlegeton: but that over all these was Grandfather Satan, who lived in the Black House at Barathum.