monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this
droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon's
mind so that he could not think what he was going to say or do.

The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke of the great and good man the
Don had been. Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question at issue,
which was how much Ramon would pay for a mass. The more he paid, the
longer the mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier would be
the journey of the Don's soul through purgatory and into Paradise.

"O, my little brother in Christ!" droned the priest in his vibrant
sing-song, "I must not let you neglect this last, this greatest of things
which you can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable of course that
his soul should go to hell--hell, where a thousand demons torture the soul
for an eternity. Hell is for those who commit the worst of sins, sins they
dare not lay before God for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins--sins
like murder. But few of us go through life untouched by sin. The soul must
be purified before it can enter the presence of its maker.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Doubtless the
soul of your uncle is in purgatory, and to you is given the sweet power to
speed that soul on its upward way.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

"Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} More than once, doubtless, he took
the life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as a
servant of the State.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is not murder. That would not doom him to
hell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon with increasing power. The
monotonous, hypnotic voice went on and on, becoming ever more eloquent and
confident. Father Lugaria was a man of imagination, and the special home
of his imagination was hell. For thirty years he had held despotic sway
over the poor Mexicans who made up most of his flock, and had gathered
much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures of hell. He was a
veritable artist of hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed from
the strict line of his argument to speak of hell. With all the vividness
of a thing seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible stink
of burning flesh and the vast chorus of agony that filled it.{~