Ben stood in the pulpit, and spoke to the people of Capel Dissenters.

"How many of you have been to his church?" he cried. "Not one male bach
or one female fach. Go there the next Sabbath, and the black muless will
not say to you: 'Welcome you are, persons Capel. But there's glad am I
to see you.' A comic sermon you will hear. A sermon got with
half-a-crown postal order. Ask Postman. Laugh highly you will and stamp
on the floor. Funny is the Parson in the white frock. Ach y fy, why for
he doesn't have a coat preacher like Respecteds? Ask me that. From where
does his Church come from? She is the inheritance of Satan. The only
thing he had to leave, and he left her to his friends the parsons.
Iss-iss, earnest affair is this. Who gives him his food? We. Who pays
for Vicarage? We. Who feeds his pony? We. His cows? We. Who built his
church? We. With stones carted from our quarries and mortar messed about
with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our fathers."

At the gate of the chapel men discussed Ben's words; and two or three of
them stole away and herded Gwen into the corner of the field; and they
caught her and cut off her tail, and drove a staple into her udder.
Sunday morning eleven men from Capel Dissenters, with iron bands to
their clogs on their feet, and white aprons before their bellies,
shouted without the church: "We are come to pray from the book." The
Parson was affrighted, and left over tolling his bell, and he bolted and
locked the door, against which he set his body as one would set the stub
of a tree.

Running at the top of their speed the railers came to Ben, telling how
the Parson had put them to shame.

"Iobs you are," Ben answered. "The boy bach who loses the key of his
house breaks into his house. Does an old wench bar the dairy to her
mishtress?"

The men returned each to his abode, and an hour after midday they
gathered in the church burial-ground, and they drew up a tombstone, and
with it rammed the door; and they hurled stones at the windows; and in
the darkness they built a wall of dung in the room of the door.

Repentance sank into the Parson as he saw and remembered that which had
been done to him. He called to him his servant Lissi Workhouse, and her
he told to take Gwen to Deinol. The cow lowed woefully as she was
driven; she was heard even in Morfa, and many hurried to the road to
witness her.

Abel was at the going in of the close.

"Well-well, Lissi Workhouse," he said, "what's doing then?"

"'Go give the male his beast,' mishtir talked."

"Right for you are," said Abel.

"Right for enough is the rascal. But a creature without blemish he
pilfered. Hit her and hie her off."

As Lissi was about to go, Ben cried from within the house: "The cow the
fulbert had was worth two of his cows."

"Sure, iss-iss," said Abel. "Go will I to Vicarage with boys capel.
Bring the baston, Ben bach."

Ben came out, and his ardor warmed up on beholding Lissi's broad hips,
scarlet cheeks, white teeth, and full bosoms.

"Not blaming you, girl fach, am I," he said. "My father, journey with
Gwen. Walk will I with Lissi Workhouse."

That afternoon Abel brought a cow in calf into his close; and that night
Ben crossed the mown hayfields to the Vicarage, and he threw a little
gravel at Lissi's window.

*       *       *       *       *

The hay was gathered and stacked and thatched, and the corn was cut
down, and to the women who were gleaning his father's oats, Ben said how
that Lissi was in the family way.

"Silence your tone, indeed," cried one, laughing. "No sign have I seen."

"If I died," observed a large woman, "boy bach pretty innocent you are,
Benshamin. Four months have I yet. And not showing much do I."

"No," said another, "the bulk might be only the coil of your apron,
ho-ho."

"Whisper to us," asked the large woman, "who the foxer is. Keep the
news will we."

"Who but the scamp of the Parson?" replied Ben. "What a sow of a hen."

By such means Ben shifted his offense. On being charged by the Parson he
rushed through the roads crying that the enemy of the Big Man had put
unbecoming words on a harlot's tongue. Capel Dissenters believed him.
"He could not act wrongly with a sheep," some said.

So Ben tasted the sapidness and relish of power, and his desires
increased.

"Mortgage Deinol, my father bach," he said to Abel. "Going am I to
London. Heavy shall I be there. None of the dirty English are like me."

"Already have I borrowed for your college. No more do I want to have.
How if I sell a horse?"

"Sell you the horse too, my father bach."

"Done much have I for you," Abel said. "Fairish I must be with your
sisters."

"Why for you cavil like that, father? The money of mam came to Deinol.
Am I not her son?"

Though his daughters, murmured--"We wake at the caw of the crows," they
said, "and weary in the young of the day"--Abel obeyed his son, who
thereupon departed and came to Thornton East to the house of Catherine
Jenkins, a widow woman, with whom he took the appearance of a burning
lover.

Though he preached with a view at many English chapels in London, none
called him. He caused Abel to sell cattle and mortgage Deinol for what
it was worth and to give him all the money he received therefrom; he
swore such hot love for Catherine that the woman pawned her furniture
for his sake.

Intrigued that such scant fruit had come up from his sowings, Ben
thought of further ways of stablishing himself. He inquired into the
welfare of shop-assistants from women and girls who worshiped in Welsh
chapels, and though he spoiled several in his quest, the abominations
which oppressed these workers were made known to him. Shop-assistants
carried abroad his fame and called him "Fiery Taffy." Ben showed them
how to rid themselves of their burden; "a burden," he said, "packed full
and overflowing by men of my race--the London Welsh drapers."

The Welsh drapers were alarmed, and in a rage with Ben. They took the
opinion of their big men and performed slyly. Enos-Harries--this is the
Enos-Harries who has a drapery shop in Kingsend--sent to Ben this
letter: "Take Dinner with Slf and Wife same, is Late Dinner I am pleased
to inform. You we don't live in Establishment only as per printed Note
Heading. And Oblige."

Enos-Harries showed Ben his house, and told him the cost of the
treasures that were therein.

Also Harries said: "I have learned of you as a promising Welshman, and I
want to do a good turn for you with a speech by you on St. David's Day
at Queen's Hall. Now, then."

"I am not important enough for that."

"She'll be a first-class miting in tip-top speeches. All the drapers and
dairies shall be there in crowds. Three sirs shall come."

"I am choked with engagements," said Ben. "I am preaching very busy now
just."

"Well-well. Asked I did for you are a clean Cymro bach. As I repeat,
only leading lines in speakers shall be there. Come now into the
drawing-room and I'll give you an intro to the Missus Enos-Harries. In
evening dress she is--chik Paris Model. The invoice price was ten-ten."

"Wait a bit," Ben remarked. "I would be glad if I could speak."

"Perhaps the next time we give you the invite. The Cymrodorion shall be
in the miting."

"As you plead, try I will."

"Stretching a point am I," Harries said. "This is a favor for you to
address this glorious miting where the Welsh drapers will attend and the
Missus Enos-Harries will sing 'Land of my Fathers.'"

Ben withdrew from his fellows for three days, and on the third
day--which was that of the Saint--he put on him a frock coat, and combed
down his mustache over the blood-red swelling on his lip; and he cleaned
his teeth. Here are some of the sayings that he spoke that night:

"Half an hour ago we were privileged to listen to the voice of a lovely
lady--a voice as clear as a diamond ring. It inspired us one and all
with a hireath for the dear old homeland--for dear Wales, for the land
of our fathers and mothers too, for the land that is our heritage not
by Act of Parliament but by the Act of God....

"Who ownss this land to-day? The squaire and the parshon. By what right?
By the same right as the thief who steals your silk and your laces, and
your milk and butter, and your reddy-made blousis. I know a farm of one
hundred acres, each rod having been tamed from heatherland into a manna
of abundance. Tamed by human bones and muscles--God's invested capital
in His chosen children. Six months ago this land--this fertile and rich
land--was wrestled away from the owners. The bones of the living and the
dead were wrestled away. I saw it three months ago--a wylderness. The
clod had been squeesed of its zweat. The land belonged to my father, and
his father, and his father, back to countless generations....

"I am proud to be among my people to-night. How sorry I am for any one
who are not Welsh. We have a language as ancient as the hills that
shelter us, and the rivers that never weery of refreshing us....

"Only recently a few shop-assistants--a handful of
counter-jumpers--tried to shake the integrity of our commerse. But their
white cuffs held back their aarms, and the white collars choked their
aambitions. When I was a small boy my mam used to tell me how the chief
Satan was caught trying to put his hand over the sun so as to give other
satans a chance of doing wrong on earth in the dark. That was the object
of these misguided fools. They had no grievances. I have since
investigated the questions of living-in and fines. Both are fair and
necessary. The man who tries to destroy them is like the swimmer who
plunges among the water lilies to be dragged into destruction....

"Welsh was talked in the Garden of Aden. That is where commerse began.
Didn't Eve buy the apple?...

"Ladies and gentlemen, Cymrodorion, listen. There is a going in these
classical old rafterss. It is the coming of God. And the message He
gives you this night is this: 'Men of Gwalia, march on and keep you
tails up.'"

From that hour Ben flourished. He broke his league with the
shop-assistants. Those whom he had troubled lost courage and humbled
themselves before their employers; but their employers would have none
of them, man or woman, boy or girl.

Vexation followed his prosperity. His father reproached him, writing:
"Sad I drop into the Pool as old Abel Tybach, and not as Lloyd Deinol."
Catherine harassed him to recover her house and chattels. To these
complainings he was deaf. He married the daughter of a wealthy
Englishman, who set him up in a large house in the midst of a pleasure
garden; and of the fatness and redness of his wife he was sickened
before he was wedded to her.

By studying diligently, the English language became as familiar to him
as the Welsh language. He bound himself to Welsh politicians and engaged
himself in public affairs, and soon he was as an idol to a multitude of
people, who were sensible only to his well-sung words, and who did not
know that his utterances veiled his own avarice and that of his masters.
All that he did was for profit, and yet he could not win enough.

Men and women, soothed into false ease and quickened into counterfeit
wrath, commended him, crying: "Thank God for Ben Lloyd." Such praise
puffed him up, and howsoever mighty he was in the view of fools, he was
mightier in his own view.

"At the next election I'll be in Parliament," he boasted in his vanity.
"The basis of my solidity--strength--is as immovable--is as impregnable
as Birds' Rock in Morfa."

Though the grandson of Simon Idiot and Dull Anna prophesied great things
for himself, it was evil that came to him.

He trembled from head to foot to ravish every comely woman on whom his
ogling eyes dwelt. His greed made him faithless to those whom he
professed to serve: in his eagerness to lift himself he planned,
plotted, and trafficked with the foes of his officers. Hearing that an
account of his misdeeds was spoken abroad, he called the high London
Welshmen into a room, and he said to them:

"These cruel slanderers have all but broken my spirit. They are the
wicked inventions of fiends incarnate. It is not my fall that is
required--if that were so I would gladly make the sacrifise--the zupreme
sacrifise, if wanted--but it is the fall of the Party that these men are
after. He who repeats one foul thing is doing his level best to destroy
the fabric of this magnificent organisation that has been reared by your
brains. It has no walls of stone and mortar, yet it is a sity builded by
men. We must have no more bickerings. We have work to do. The seeds are
springing forth, and a goodly harvest is promised: let us sharpen our
blades and clear our barn floors. Cymru fydd--Wales for the Welsh--is
here. At home and at Westminster our kith and kin are occupying
prominent positions. Disestablishment is at hand. We have closed
public-houses and erected chapels, each chapel being a factor in the
education of the masses in ideas of righteous government. You, my
friends, have secured much of the land, around which you have made
walls, and in which you have set water fountains, and have planted rare
plants and flowers. And you have put up your warning signs on
it--'Trespassers will be prosecuted.'

"There is coming the Registration of Workers Act, by which every worker
will be held to his locality, to his own enormous advantage. And it will
end strikes, and trades unionism will deservedly crumble. In future
these men will be able to settle down, and with God's blessing bring
children into the world, and their condition will be a delight unto
themselves and a profit to the community.

"But we must do more. I must do more. And you must help me. We must
stand together. Slander never creates; it shackles and kills. We must be
solid. Midway off the Cardigan coast--in beautiful Morfa--there is a
rock--Birds' Rock. As a boy I used to climb to the top of it, and watch
the waters swirling and tumbling about it, and around it and against it.
But I was unafraid. For I knew that the rock was old when man was young,
and that it had braved all the washings of the sea."

The men congratulated Ben; and Ben came home and he stood at a mirror,
and shaping his body put out his arms.

"How's this for my maiden speech in the house?" he asked his wife.
Presently he paused. "You're a fine one to be an M.P.'s lady," he said.
"You stout, underworked fool."

Ben urged on his imaginings: he advised his monarch, and to him for
favors merchants brought their gold, and mothers their daughters. Winter
and spring moved, and then his mind brought his enemies to his door.

"As the root of a tree spreads in the bosom of the earth," he said, "so
my fame shall spread over the world"; and he built a fence about his
house.

But his mind would not be stilled. Every midnight his enemies were at
the fence, and he could not sleep for the dreadful outcry; every
midnight he arose from his bed and walked aside the fence, testing the
strength of it with a hand and a shoulder and shooing away his enemies
as one does a brood of chickens from a cornfield.

His fortieth summer ran out--a season of short days and nights speeding
on the heels of night. Then peace fell upon him; and at dusk of a day he
came into his room, and he saw one sitting in a chair. He went up to the
chair and knelt on a knee, and said: "Your Majesty...."




III

THE TWO APOSTLES


God covered sun, moon, and stars, stilled the growing things of the
earth and dried up the waters on the face of the earth, and stopped the
roll of the world; and He fixed upon a measure of time in which to judge
the peoples, this being the measure which was spoken of as the Day of
Judgment.

In the meanseason He summoned Satan to the Judgment Hall, which is at
the side of the river that breaks into four heads, and above which, its
pulpits stretching beyond the sky, is the Palace of White Shirts, and
below which, in deep darknesses, are the frightful regions of the Fiery
Oven. "Give an account of your rule in the face of those whom you
provoked to mischief," He said to Satan. "My balance hitched to a beam
will weigh the good and evil of my children, and if good is heavier
than evil, I shall lighten your countenance and clothe you with the
robes of angels."

"Awake the dead" He bade the Trumpeter, and "Lift the lids off the
burying-places" He bade the laborers. In their generations were they
called; "for," said the Lord, "good and evil are customs of a period and
when the period is passed and the next is come, good may be evil and
evil may be good."

Now God did not put His entire trust in Satan, and in the evening of the
day He set to prove him: "It is over."

"My Lord, so be it," answered Satan.

"How now?" asked God.

"The scale of wickedness sways like a kite in the wind," cried Satan.
"Give me my robes and I will transgress against you no more."

"In the Book of Heaven and Hell," said God, "there is no writing of the
last of the Welsh."

Satan spoke up: "My Lord, your pledge concerned those judged on the Day
of Judgment. Day is outing. The windows of the Mansion are lit; hark the
angels tuning their golden strings for the cheer of the Resurrection
Supper. Give me my robes that I may sing your praises."

"Can I not lengthen the day with a wink of my eye?"

"All things you can do, my Lord, but observe your pledge to me. Allow
these people to rest a while longer. Their number together with the
number of their sins is fewer than the hairs on Elisha's head."

God laughed in His heart as He replied to Satan: "Tell the Trumpeter to
take his horn and the laborers their spades and bring to me the Welsh."

The laborers digged, and at the sound of the horn the dead breathed and
heaved. Those whose wit was sharp hurried into neighboring chapels and
stole Bibles and hymn-books, with which in their pockets and under
their arms they joined the host in Heaven's Courtyard, whence they went
into the Waiting Chamber that is without the Judgment Hall.

"Boy bach, a lot of Books of the Word he has," a woman remarked to the
Respected Towy-Watkins. "Say him I have one."

"Happy would I be to do like that," was the reply. "But, female, much
does the Large One regard His speeches. What is the text on the wall?
'Prepare your deeds for the Lord.' The Beybile is the most religious
deed. Farewell for now," and he pretended to go away.

Holding the sleeve of his White Shirt, the woman separated her toothless
gums and fashioned her wrinkled face in grief. "Two tens he has," she
croaked. "And his shirt is clean. Dirty am I; buried I was as I was
found, and the shovelers beat the soil through the top of the coffin. Do
much will I for one Beybile."

"A poor dab you are," said Towy.

"Many deeds you have? But no odds to me."

"Four I have."

"Woe for you, unfortunate."

"Iss-iss, horrid is my plight," the woman whined. "Little I did for
Him."

"Don't draw tears. For eternity you'll weep. Here is a massive Beybile
for your four deeds."

"Take him one. Handy will three be in the minute of the questioning."

"Refusing the Beybile bach you are. Also the hymn-book--old and new
notations--I present for four. Stupid am I as the pigger's prentice who
bought the litter in the belly."

"Be him soft and sell for one."

"I cannot say less. No relation you are to me. Hope I do that right
enough are your four. Recite them to me, old woman."

"I ate rats to provide a Beybile to the Respected," the woman trembled.
"I--"

"You are pathetic," Towy said. "Hie and get your tokens and have that
poor one will I because of my pity for you."

The woman told her deeds in Heaven's Record Office, and she was given
four white tablets on which her deeds were inscribed; and the rat tablet
Towy took from her. "Faith and hope are tidy heifers," he said, "but a
stallion is charity. Priceless Beybile I give you, sinner."

As he moved away Towy cried in the manner of one selling by auction:
"This is the beloved Beybile of Jesus. This is the book of hymns--old
and new notations. Hymns harvest, communion, funerals, Sunday schools,
and hymns for children bach are here. Treasures bulky for certain."

For some he received three tablets each, for some five tablets each, and
for some ten tablets each. But the gaudy Bible which was decorated with
pictures and ornamented with brass clasps and a leather covering he did
not sell; nor did he sell the gilt-edged hymn-book. Between the leaves
of his Bible he put his tablets--as a preacher his markers--the writing
on each tablet confirming a verse in the place it was set. His labor
over, he chanted: "Pen Calvaria! Pen Calvaria! Very soon will come to
view." Men and women gazed upon him, envying him; and those who had
Bibles and hymn-books hastened to do as he had done.

Among the many that came to him was one whose name was Ben Lloyd.

"Dear me," said Towy.

"Dear me," said Ben.

"Fat is my religion after the springing," cried Towy. "Perished was I
and up again. Amen, Big Man. Amen and amen. And amen.

"I opened my eyes and I saw a hand thrusting aside the firmament and I
heard One calling me from the beyond, and the One was God."

"Like the roar of heated bulls was the noise, Ben bach."

"Praise Him I did that I was laid to rest at home. Away from the stir
of Parliament. Tell Him I will how my spirit, though the flesh was dead,
bathed in the living rivers and walked in the peaceful valleys of the
glorious land of my fathers--thinking, thinking of Jesus."

"Hold on. Not so fast. From Capel Bryn Salem I journeyed to mouth with
my heart to the Lord, and your slut of widow paid me only four soferens.
Eloquent sermon I spouted and four soferens is the price of a supply."

"In your charity forgive her; her sorrow was o'erpowering."

"Sorrow! The mule of an English! She wasn't there."

"You don't say," cried Ben. "If above she is I will have her dragged
down."

"Not a stone did she put over your head, and the strumpets of your
sisters did not tend your grave. Why you were not eaten by worms I can't
know."

On a sudden Towy shouted: "See an old parson do I. Is not this the day
of rising up? Awful if the Big Man mistakes us for the Church. Not been
inside a church have I, drop dead and blind, since I was born."

None gave heed to his cry, for the sound of the bargaining was most
high. "Dissenters," he bellowed, "what right have Church heathens to mix
with us? The Fiery Oven is their home."

The people were dismayed. Their number being small, the Church folk were
pressed one upon the other; and after they were thrown in a mass against
the gate of the Chariot House the Dissenters spread themselves easily as
far as the door of the Crooked Stairway.

"Now, boys capel," Towy-Watkins said, "we will have a sermon. Fine will
Welsh be in the nostrils of the Big Preacher. Pray will I at once."

The prayer ended, and one struck his tuning-fork; and while the
congregation moaned and lamented, a tall man, who wore the habit of a
preacher and whose yellow beard--the fringe of which was singed--hung
over his breast like a sheaf of wheat, passed through the way of the
door of the Stairway, and as he walked towards the Judgment Hall, some
said: "Fair day, Respected," and some said: "Similar he is to
Towy-Watkins."

"Shut your throats, colts," Towy rebuked the people. "Say after me: 'Go
round my backhead, Satan.'"

"Go round my backhead, Satan," the people obeyed.

"Catch him and skin him," Towy screamed. "Teach him we will to snook
about here."

Fear arming his courage, Satan shouted: "He who hurts me him shall I
pitch head-long to the flames." The people's hands went to their sides,
and Satan departed in peace.

"In my heart is my head," Towy said. "Near the Oven we are. Blow your
noses of the stench. Young youths, herd blockheads Church over here."

Before the stalwarts started on their errand, the Overseer of the
Waiting Chamber came to the door of the lane that takes you into the
Judgment Hall, wherefore the Dissenters wept, howled, and whooped.

"Ready am I, God bach," Towy exclaimed, stretching his hairy arms. "Take
me."

"Patiently I waited for the last Trump and humbly do I now wait for the
Crown from your fingers," said Ben Lloyd. "My deeds are recorded in the
archives of the House of Commons and the Cymrodorion Society."

"Clap up," Towy admonished Ben. "My religious actions can't be counted."

Lowering his eyes the Overseer murmured: "I am not the Lord."

"For why did you not say that?" cried Towy. He stepped to the Overseer.
"Hap you are Apostle Shames. A splendid photo of Shames is in the
Beybile with pictures. Fond am I of preaching from him. Lovely pieces
there are. 'Abram believed God.' Who was Abram? Father of Isaac bach.
Who made Abram? The Big Man. And the Big Man made the capel and the
respected that is the jewel of the capel. Is not the pulpit the throne?
Glad am I to see you, indeed, Shames."

The Overseer opened his lips.

"Enter with you will I," said Towy. "Look through my glassy soul you
can."

"Silence--" the Overseer began.

"Iss, silence for ever and ever, amen," said Towy. "No trial I need. How
can the Judge judge if there's no judging to be? Go up will I then. Hope
to see you again, Shames."

The Overseer tightened his girdle. "Thus saith the Lord," he proclaimed:
"'I will consider each by his deeds or all by the deeds of their two
apostles.'"

"Ho-ho," said Towy. "Half one moment. Think will we. Dissenters, crowd
here. Ben Lloyd, make arguments. Tricky is old Shames."

The Dissenters assembled close to Ben and Towy, and the Church people
crept near them in order to share their counsel; but the Dissenters
turned upon their enemies and bruised them with fists and Bibles and
hymn-books, and called them frogs, turks, thieves, atheists, blacks; and
there never has been heard such a tumult in any house. Alarmed that he
could not part one side from the other, the Overseer sought Satan, who
had a name for crafty dealings with disputants.

Satan was distressed. "If it was not for personal reasons," he said, "I
would let them go to Hell." He sent into the Chamber a carpenter who put
a barrier from wall to wall, and he appointed Jude in charge of the
barrier to guard that no one went under it or over it.

Then the wise men of the Dissenters continued to examine the Lord's
offer; and a thousand men declared they were holy enough to go before
God, and from the thousand five hundred were cast out, and from the five
hundred three hundred, and from the two hundred one hundred were cast
away. Now this hundred were Baptists, Methodists, and
Congregationalists, and they quarreled so harshly and decried one
another so spitefully that Ben and Towy made with them a compact to
speak specially for each of them in the private ear of God. The strife
quelled and Towy having cried loudly: "Dissenters and Churchers, glad
you are that me and Ben Lloyd, Hem Pee, are your apostles," he and Ben
followed the Overseer.

In the Judgment Hall the two apostles crouched to pray, and they were
stirred by Satan laying his hands on their shoulders.

"Prayers are useless here, my friends," said the Devil. "We must proceed
with the business. I am just as anxious as you are that everything
reaches a satisfactory conclusion."

"I object," said Ben. "Solemnly object. I don't know this infidel. I
don't want to know him."

"Go from here," Towy gruntled. "A sweat is in my whiskers. Inhabitants,
why isn't his tongue a red-hot poker?... Well, boys Palace, grand this
is. Say who you are?" he asked one whose face shone like a mirror.
"Respected Towy-Watkins am I."

He whose face shone like a polished mirror answered that he was Moses
the Keeper of the Balance. "The Lord is in the Cloud," he said.

Towy addressed the Cloud, which was the breadth of a man's hand, and
which was brighter than the golden halo of the throne: "Big Man, peep at
your helper. Was not I a ruler over the capel? Religious were my
prayers."

"I did not hear any," said God.

"Mistake. Mistake. Towy bach eloquent was I called. Here am I with the
Speech, and the Speech is God and God is the Speech. Take you as a
great gift this nice hymn-book."

"What are hymns?" asked God.

"Moses, Moses," cried Towy, "explain affairs to Him."

God spoke: "Satan, render your account of the mischief you made these
men do."

"This is a travesty of the traditions of the House," said Ben.
"Traditions that are dear to me, being taught them at my mother's knees.
I refuse to be drenched in Satan's froth. Against one who was a member
of the Government you are taking the evidence of the most discredited
man in the universe--the world's worst sinner."

He ceased, because Satan had begun to read; and Satan read rapidly, with
shame, and without pantomime, not pausing at what times he was abused
and charged with lying; and he read correctly, for the Records Clerk
followed him word by word in the Book of the Watchers; and for every
sin to which he confessed Moses placed a scarlet tablet in the scale of
wickedness.

"I will attend to what I have heard," said the Lord when Satan had
finished. "Put your tablets in the scale and go into the Chamber."

Ben and Towy withdrew, and as they passed out they beheld that the scale
of scarlet tablets touched the ground.

Then the Cloud vanished and God came out of the Cloud.

"My wrath is fierce," He said. "Bind these Welsh and torment them with
vipers and with fire in the uttermost parts of Hell. They shall have no
more remembrance before me."