And I remained there all alone, clothed in a garment of the faith of Jesus Christ and armed with all my power and great hope of gaining victory, having great contrition in my heart for all the sins which they might remind me that I had committed, and having firmly all my remembrance and hope in God, begging him humbly and piteously not to abandon me in this so strait and dangerous a pass, and likewise praying and begging him I said that he should give me strength and power against the enemies, for his pity which never failed a man who had hope in him.
And as I was sitting all alone in the chamber awaiting the great battle of the malign spirits, I suddenly heard a great noise as if the whole world had come together there to make a great riot; and everyone shouted as loudly as he could: I do not believe that a greater noise could be made and, if the virtue of heaven had not protected me and the good men had not taught me, I would have gone clean out of my mind.
After this noise came the sight of the devils, horrible demons, who in every part of that so delightful and pleasing chamber were so thick no one could count them. And I saw them in various hideous forms and shapes and they greeted me and looked at me and said to me as if in flattery and scorn:
‘The other men in the world who are wise27 do not come here until they are dead. For this we must be grateful to you and give you greater thanks than to the others who do not come back;28 since with great diligence you have served very well, you are coming here to suffer torment for the sins which you have committed and perpetrated, for which you will have great torments and pain with us. But because you have served us well, if you will follow our advice and go back, we will let you live a good while yet in the world with great joy and pleasure; and if not, you will lose all the things which can help you and be good and sweet to body and soul.’
And this they told me to deceive me through threats and lies; but God gave me courage to disdain it all to them and I had no care for all their threats and never would I go out for any one thing or another, quite the contrary I held myself secure and answered them nothing. And when the devils saw that I disdained them in all, they began to grind their teeth against me and at once they made a great fire in the middle of the chamber and tightly bound my arms, my feet and my hands, and then threw me onto the fire. And they dragged my arms with iron hooks and shouted and bellowed to give me greater fear and frighten me more. But God, who had provided and fortified me with hope, did not let me forget his holy name nor what the good men had taught me — that I should call on the name of God — and in this way I defended myself against their temptation. And when they had thrown me into the fire, just as soon as I spoke the name of Jesus Christ, I was at once cured and the fire extinguished so that not a single spark remained. And when I saw this, I took courage and was much more bold than before and decided in my heart that never again would I fear them since by calling on the name of God I had beaten them.