And now there came an exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor through which the monk and the man-at-arms had fallen; but the light, though bright, was still of a ghastly blue tinge; and by that light full twenty devils, or it might be more, were seen ascending and descending to and from the flaming pit, or chasm in the floor. Some of these fiends had blubber-lips, beetle heads, humped shoulders, and bandy legs, and were hirsute[137] and black as soot; others of them were red and altogether shapeless; others were round and yellow; but all their visages were most irregular and frightful, and they had all long tails tipped with fire, and flashes of red, green, and yellow flames came out of the mouths of every one of them. As for hoarse throats, no voices could be hoarser and more dreadful than the voices of these lubber-fiends as they went up and down the pit, like buckets in a well, or as they roared in the dark cavities under the passage, and beneath the very spot where the Normans lay huddled. The intrusive abbat tried to say a _De profundis_, but the words stuck in his throat, not being very familiar with that passage. By degrees that exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor died away, leaving the corridor as black as Erebus. “An we could but get to the church door,” said one of the false monks, “we might be safe! Will no man try?—Is there no brave man-at-arms that will adventure along this passage and see whether we can cross that chasm and get out of it?” The men-at-arms thought that this was a reconnaissance to be more properly made by monks, who were supposed to know more about the devil and his ways than did plain soldiers: nevertheless several of them said they would adventure, if they had but their swords or their pikes with them. But they had all left their weapons in their several lodgings; and so, not one of them would budge. The darkness continued, but the voices which had been roaring below ground ceased. At last Alain of Beauvais, fortifying himself with such short prayers and Latin interjections as he could recollect, and crossing himself many score times, resolved to go along the dark passage and try whether there could be an exit from it. Slowly he went upon his hands and knees, groping and feeling the floor with his hands, and now and then rapping on the floor with his fist to essay whether it was sound. Thus this unrighteous intruder went on groping and rapping in the dark until he came close to the edge of the chasm. Then a quivering blue light shot out of the pit, and then—monstrum horrendum! a head, bigger than the heads of ten mortal men, and that seemed all fire and flame within, rose up close to the intrusive abbat’s nose, and a sharp shrill voice was heard to say in good Norman French, “Come up, my fiends, from your sombre abodes! Come up and clutch me my long while servant and slave Alain of Beauvais!” The intrusive abbat rushed back screaming, and fell swooning among the swooned.