From time to time he sees a devil emerge from the ranks to plunge sinners back into the lake of pitch, or to spear one with his fork and, after letting him squirm aloft for a while, hurl him back into the asphalt lake.

One of these victims, questioned by Virgil, acknowledges he once held office in Navarre, but, rather than suffer at the hands of the demon tormentors, this peculator voluntarily plunges back into the pitch.

Seeing this, the baffled demons fight each other, until two actually fall into the lake, whence they are fished in sorry plight by fellow-fiends.
_Canto XXIII._ By a passage-way so narrow they are obliged to proceed single file, Dante and Virgil reach the next division, the author of this poem continually gazing behind him for fear lest the demons pursue him.

His fears are only too justified, and Virgil, seeing his peril, catches him up in his arms and runs with him to the next gulf, knowing demons never pass beyond their beat.
"Never ran water with such hurrying pace Adown the tube to turn a land-mill's wheel, When nearest it approaches to the spokes, As then along that edge my master ran, Carrying me in his bosom, as a child, Not a companion." In the sixth division where they now arrive, they behold a procession of victims, weighed down by gilded leaden cowls, creeping along so slowly that Dante and Virgil pass all along their line although they are not walking fast.

Hearing one of these bowed figures address him, Dante learns that, because he and his companions were hypocrites on earth, they are doomed to travel constantly around this circle of the Inferno, fainting beneath heavy loads.
A moment later Dante notices that the narrow path ahead of them is blocked by a writhing figure pinned to the ground by three stakes.
This is Caiaphas, who insisted it was fitting that one man suffer for the people and who, having thus sentenced Christ to the cross, has to endure the whole procession to tramp over his prostrate form.