817. Somebody from one of the vaults of hell over on the left hand side came and spoke to me. I was given to perceive that he belonged among villains. What he had perpetrated in the world was brought to light as follows: He was sent down quite some way into the lower earth, to a forward position a little to the left, and there he began to dig a grave as people do for the dead who are to be buried. This gave rise to a suspicion that during his lifetime he had been responsible for some act of murder. A bier draped with a black cloth appeared at that point. Soon afterwards someone rose out of the bier and came to me. He duly told me that he had died, and he assumed that that man had murdered him by poisoning, and that he had thought so around the time of his death though he did not know whether there were grounds for that suspicion. On hearing this that detestable spirit confessed that he had committed such a deed. Confession was followed by punishment. He was rolled around twice in the dark grave he had dug, and emerged looking black as an Egyptian mummy, in face and body. In that condition he was raised aloft and carried around before the eyes of spirits and angels, with the shout, 'What a devil!' He also turned cold, like those spirits in hell who are cold, and was sent to hell.