“A pious fraud,” said Anno, “which not one of the Fathers would for a moment have scrupled to commit.”

The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and bore him carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for his detention.  Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery, but each felt that the eyes of his six brethren were upon him:  and all, therefore, retired simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell.

Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards.  He had the most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in his present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were the usual concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to his taste, and he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner.  The dungeon was not only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the poor devil in his present form had no latent store of infernal heat to draw upon.  His teeth chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt devoured with hunger and thirst.  There is much probability in the assertion of some of his biographers that it was on this occasion that he invented ardent spirits; but, even if he did, the mere conception of a glass of brandy could only increase his sufferings.  So the long January night wore wearily on, and Lucifer seemed likely to expire from inanition, when a key turned in the lock, and Cardinal Anno cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a loaf, half a cold roast kid, and a bottle of wine.

“I trust,” he said, bowing courteously, “that I may be excused any slight breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from the difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under present circumstances, ‘Your Holiness,’ or ‘Your Infernal Majesty’ be the form of address most befitting me to employ.”

“Bub-ub-bub-boo,” went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth.

“Heavens!” exclaimed the Cardinal, “I crave your Infernal Holiness’s forgiveness.  What a lamentable oversight!”

And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection, upon which the demon fell voraciously.

“Why the devil, if I may so express myself,” pursued Anno, “did not your Holiness inform us that you were the devil?  Not a hand would then have been raised against you.  I have myself been seeking all my life for the audience now happily vouchsafed me.  Whence this mistrust of your faithful Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously these many years?”

Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters.

“I shall never forgive myself,” protested the Cardinal, “for the part I have borne in this unfortunate transaction.  Next to ministering to your Majesty’s bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as to express my penitence.  But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I believed myself to be acting in your Majesty’s interest by overthrowing a magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon errands, and who might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you into the sea.  It is deplorable that your Majesty’s most devoted servants should have been thus misled.”