Down it sinks, and the black waters of hell close upon it for ever!' Then followed a sort of vision of the lost--delivered in short abrupt sentences--the form of the speaker drawn rigidly up meanwhile to its full height, the long arm outstretched.

The utterance had very little of the lurid materialism, the grotesque horror of the ordinary ranter's hell.

But it stole upon the imagination little by little, and possessed it at last with an all-pervading terror.

Into it, to begin with, had gone the whole life-blood and passion of an agonised soul.

The man speaking had himself graven the terrors of it on his inmost nature through many a week of demoniacal possession.