One hundred, two hundred, three hundred years passed.
Beelzebub did not count the time. Around him spread black darkness and dead silence. He lay immovable, trying not to think of what had happened, yet he could not help thinking, and he helplessly hated him who had caused his ruin.
Then suddenly—and he did not remember, nor know how many hundred years elapsed—he heard above his head sounds resembling the trampling of feet, groans, cries, and the gnashing of teeth.
Beelzebub lifted his head and listened.
That Hell could be reestablished after the victory of Jesus, Beelzebub could not believe; and yet the trampling, the groans, the cries and gnashing of teeth grew louder and louder.