on like a bell in a dome.

"My father hath the key to their ward. My father saith there is like
to be trouble if they do not confess--"

"Confess!" I broke out. "Confess what? If they confess the lie they
will be burned for witchcraft. And if they refuse to confess, they
will be hanged for not telling the lie. Pretty justice! And your holy
men fined one fellow a hundred pounds for calling their justices a pack
of jackasses----"

"Sentence is to be pronounced to-morrow after communion," said Rebecca.

"After communion?" I could say no more. On that of all days for
tyranny's crime!

God forgive me for despairing of mankind that night. I thought freedom
had been won in the Commonwealth war, but that was only freedom of
body. A greater strife was to wage for freedom of soul.

CHAPTER IV

REBECCA AND JACK BATTLE CONSPIRE

'Twas cockcrow when I left pacing the shore where we had so often
played in childhood; and through the darkness came the howl of M.
Picot's hound, scratching outside the prison gate.

As well reason with maniacs as fanatics, say I, for they hide as much
folly under the mask of conscience as ever court fool wore 'neath
painted face. There was Mr. Stocking, as well-meaning a man as trod
earth, obdurate beyond persuasion against poor M. Picot under his
charge. Might I not speak to the French doctor through the bars of his
window? By no means, Mr. Stocking assured. If once the great door
were unlocked, who could tell what black arts a sorcerer might use?

"Look you, Ramsay lad," says he, "I've had this brass key made against
his witchcraft, and I do not trust it to the hands of the jailer."

Then, I fear, I pleaded too keenly; for, suspecting collusion with M.
Picot, the warden of the court-house grew frigid and bade me ask Eli
Kirke's opinion on witchcraft.

"'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,'" rasped Eli Kirke, his stern
eyes ablaze from an inner fire. "'A man' also, or woman, that hath a
familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.'
Think you M. Picot burns incense to the serpent in his jars for the
healing of mankind?" he demanded fiercely.

"Yes," said I, "'tis for the healing of mankind by experimentation with
chemicals. Knowledge of God nor chemicals springs full grown from
man's head, Uncle Eli. Both must be learned. That is all the meaning
of his jars and crucibles. He is only trying to learn what laws God
ordained among materials.