Not wishing to receive my orders from the mouth of a demon, I talked to my better Friend who bade me go and be assured that _a body-guard of ten thousand would ever be at my side, though I saw them not._ On wings, swifter than the wind, Blackana and I covered the intervening space. We stood in the dark valley at one of the openings, now appearing ten-fold larger than before, and the mountains reared their imposing crests as if to an endless height. “Follow me,” grimly spoke Blackana as he advanced through the monstrous arcade into the deepening darkness. I remembered the ten thousand, and feared not as I followed. Downward and inward we went, with no light but a horrid glare casting its uncertain rays athwart our path. “Is this the passage-way to Destruction?” I cried, as I saw how spectral all things were, for more than a thousand grimy faces had already added their fitful glances to the glimmering scene. “The passage-way to Hell is not so smooth; we go to a better place,” he answered, without so much as turning his head. We finally stopped at a line of massive elevators, ever in busy motion, carrying the throngs upward or downward. As we paused, Blackana regarded me silently. I was then able, for the first time, to see his face clearly. No light reveals the countenance of a demon so well as the light of his own region. I stood as if paralyzed under his awful eyes. Oh! thought I, can two orbs picture such infinite depth of remorse; such absence of tenderness; such barrenness of sympathy, far beyond the most care-worn look of earth? Then, pervading all these lineaments of despair were the positive characteristics of his nature--malice, envy, and hatred. These lent their repulsive fires to his eye, already overcharged with insidious gleamings. I suddenly thought of my ten thousand, and my fears subsided. “It were better for you to remain a stranger to the greater depth and go no farther,” were the words that finally came from Blackana’s scarcely moving lips. “Fulfill your mission, Blackana! I fear not the deepest depth when I am thus equipped.” “Where is your sword and where is your armor?” he tauntingly asked. “My steel is hid until I find a foe worthy of its mettle.” Blackana quivered and resumed his task. He told me that above us, deep in the bowels of these mountains, were the more refined legislative halls of Satan; while below us, at varying and terrible depths, lay scattered many a brooding station where the lowest laws of Hell are hatched. “Let us go downward,” I said, and scarcely had the words escaped my lips ere Blackana had ushered me into an elevator, holding me as we dropped down and down with increasing velocity, while a cold chill was freezing my heart, and my body playing the part of an aspen leaf.