Hereupon a little Death, one of the King’s secretaries, asked me my name, and bade Master Sleep carry me at once into the King’s presence. I had to go, though most unwilling, by reason of the power that took me up like a whirlwind, ’twixt high and low, thousands of miles back on our left, till we came, a second time, in sight of the boundary wall, and in an enclosed corner we could see a vast palace, roofless and in ruins, extending to the wall wherein were the countless doors, all of which led to this terrible court. Its walls were built of human skulls with hideous, grinning teeth; the clay was black with mingled tears and sweat, the lime ruddy with gore. On the summit of each tower stood a Deathling, with a quivering heart on the point of his shaft. Around the court were a few trees—a poisonous yew or twain, or a deadly cypress, and in these owls, ravens, vampires and the like, make their nests, and cry unceasingly for flesh, although the whole place is but one vast, putrid shamble. The pillars of the hall were made of thighbones, and those of the parlour of shinbones, while the floors were formed of layer upon layer of all manner of charnel. I had not to wait a longwhile ere I came in view of a tremendous altar, where we could see the King of Terrors devouring human flesh and blood, while a thousand impish deaths, from every hole, were continually feeding him with warm, fresh meat. “Here is a rogue,” said the Death that led me thither, “whom I found in the midst of the land of Oblivion, having approached so light-footed that your majesty never tasted a bite of him,” “How can that be?” demanded the king, opening his jaws, wide as a chasm, to swallow me. Whereupon I turned trembling to Sleep. “It was I who brought him hither,” said he. “Well then, for my brother Sleep’s sake,” said the awful and lanky monarch, “you can retrace your steps for the nonce; but beware of me the next time.” Having been for some time cramming his gluttonous maw with carrion, he caused his subjects to be called together, and moved from the altar to a very lofty and dreadful throne, to adjudge newly-arrived prisoners. In an instant, lo! the dead in countless multitudes paid homage to the king, and took their places in wonderful array. King Death was in his regal robe of brilliant scarlet, whereon depicted were wives and children weeping and husbands sighing; on his head a dark-red, three-cornered cap, a gift his cousin Lucifer had sent him, on the corners of which were written Grief, Sorrow, and Woe. Above his head were a myriad pictures of battles on land and sea, of towns aflame, of the earth yawning, and of the waters of the deluge; the ground beneath his feet was nought else than the crowns and sceptres of all the kings he had ever conquered. At his right hand sat Fate with a morose and scowling visage, reading an enormous tome that lay before him; at his left, was an old man called Time, warping innumerable threads of