outh. Mounting me, the old witch cried:

"'Be going, Johnnie, I will give you sore bones ere the cock crows.'

[Illustration: "We all rose in the air on broomsticks."]

"I was goaded to desperation. I ran, I leaped, I sprang from precipices
so high, that, had I not been held up by the spirits of the air, I must
have been dashed to death on the rocks below. I was agonized, and I
wanted to die.

"At last we came to a valley and a house, which I recognized as the old
Ames Meeting House. Here a number of poor wretches like myself who had
been changed to beasts and ridden almost to death, were tied up. Some of
them were horses, some were bulls, and one had been changed to a ram,
another to an ostrich. I was tied to a tree so near to the door of the
house, that I could see within.

"Verily, it was such a sight as I pray God I may never witness again.
There were the witches at their infernal feast. The liver and lungs,
torn warm and bleeding from some helpless wretch, lay on the table. They
partook of the food, also the diabolical sacrament, and then commenced
their dance. I saw them dancing with their feet up to the ceiling and
their heads hanging down.

"In my agony of spirit, I seized the tree nearest me in my mouth, and
bit it so hard that I broke out the tooth," and here the narrator
exhibited his teeth, one of the front ones being gone. "You see the
tooth is missing. A week later I went to the Ames Meeting House and
found the tooth sticking in the tree.

"After they had kept up their infernal dance for an hour, Goody Nurse
again appeared and, mounting on my back, did ride me most grievously
hard over the hills and plains, until we came to my home. Then she
suddenly slipped from my back and hurled me head first through the
window, where I fell in my own shape by the side of the bed."

Charles Stevens, feeling assured that he had a solution to the
marvellous story, said:

"It was no doubt a frightful dream, which to you seemed real."

"Dream, was it?" cried Louder. "I sprang to my feet, ran to the window,
and, sure as I am a white man, there was Goody Nurse soaring away
through the air on a broomstick."

When he had finished his story, the horrified group shuddered and
gathered closer about the fire which had burned low on the hearth. Pete
tried to lay on a stick with his trembling hand, but was not equal to
the task. The lamp-wick burned low in its socket, flickered and
threatened to go out, while the storm w