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 God took me, and the one from Hell exclaimed: 'O thou from Heaven, why dost thou rob me? Thou bearest away the eternal portion of him for one small tear that snatches him from me? I will, however, deal in another fashion with the other (i.e., with the mortal portion) .'"

And now Dante, in order to relate how the Devil raised a tempest which filled the livers to overflowing, bo that they should sweep away and conceal the body of Buonconte, gives a description of the formation of rain, and makes Buonconte show how the Fiend used his diabolical intelligence to adapt the elements to his evil purposes.

"Thou knowest well how there gets collected in the atmosphere that humid vapour which is re-converted into water, ao soon as it rises up to where the cold condenses into rain. He (the Devil) joined that malign will, which desires naught but ill, to his demoniacal intelligence, and stirred np the smoky mist and the wind, by that power which his (angelic) nature imparted to him. Then as soon as the day was spent, he covered with mist the (whole) valley from Pratomagno to the great mountain chain (i.e., the Apennines), and made the sky above to be so compressed, that the charged air was converted into water: down poured the rain, and what of it the earth could not absorb ran into the watercourses; and as it joined with the mighty torrents, it rushed headlong towards the kingly river (the Amo) with such impetuosity that nothing could check its course. The impetuous Archiano found my frozen body near its outfall, and swept it into the Amo, and loosened from my breast the Cross that I had made of myself (by folding my arms across my breast) when the deathagony overcame me: it (the Amo) rolled me along its banks, and over its bottom, after which it covered and entangled me with its spoils (i.e., with the mud, gravel, weeds and branches which were being swept along by the swollen current)."