a tremendous stir. All the infernal powers roused themselves and looked out of the gates and windows with their unbreakable bolts.
And the soldier went all round the cauldron, and he called out to the master of the cauldron: "Let me in, please; do let me into the cauldron. I have come to you to be tortured for my sins."
"No, I will not let you in. Go away wherever you will—there is no room for you here."
"Well, if you will not let me in to be tortured, at least give me two hundred souls. I will take them up to God, and perhaps the Lord will pardon my faults."
And the master of the cauldron answered: "I will add fifty more souls to the lot; only do go away!" So he instantly ordered two hundred and fifty souls to be counted out and to be taken to the rear gates in order that the soldier might not see him.
So the soldier gathered up the guilty souls, and he went up to the gates of Paradise.
The Apostles saw him, and said to the Lord: "Some soldier or other has come up here with two hundred and fifty souls from hell!"
"Take them into Paradise, but do not let the soldier in."
But the soldier had given up his nosebag to one guilty soul, and had told it: "Just look here. When you enter the gates of Paradise, say at once: 'Soldier, jump into the nosebag!'"
Then the gates of Paradise opened, and the souls began to go in; and this guilty soul also went in, and for sheer joy forgot all about the soldier.
Thus the soldier was left behind, and could not find any home in either place, and for long after that he still had to live and go on living in the white world. And after very many days he died.
