pressive weight of trouble, but could not realize what had
occurred. As one awakening from a troubled dream, he strove to gather up
his scattered faculties and recall what had happened. Like a blast of
doom, the awful truth burst upon him, and he leaped to his feet. He was
at the home of Landlord Nurse, and the pale, sad, horror-stricken faces
about him were the old gentleman and his sons and daughters. They caught
Charles before he reached the door.

"My mother!" cried the young man.

"No; you can do her no good by an act of rashness!" John Nurse
answered.

"Tell me all about it. I will sit here and listen to it all," said
Charles, when he discovered that he could not break away from his
friends.

"Your mother and Cora Waters have both been cried out upon as witches,
warrants were issued, and they were arrested. Now collect your faculties
and act on your coolest judgment. Think what you will do."

Charles Stevens bowed his head in his hands and reflected long and
earnestly on the course to pursue. He recalled the words of Oracus, the
brave young chief, who could muster a hundred warriors. He was cunning
and might devise some plan of escape, and Charles was not long in
resolving what to do. He would not act hurriedly. He would be desperate;
but that desperation would have coolness and premeditation about it.

He promised his friends to be calm, assuring them he would be guarded in
his speech, and then begun seeking an interview with his mother and
Cora. It was three days before the interview was granted. He found them
occupying loathsome cells, each chained to the wall. The interview was
long, and just what such an interview could be, full of grief and
despair. Charles tried to hope. He tried to see a ray of sunlight; but
the effort only revealed the swaying forms of those hung on Witches'
Hill.

Even if he summoned Oracus and all his braves, would they be strong
enough to break down that door of iron, or cut the chains asunder!
Charles, in his desperation, resolved to rescue the beloved ones or die
in the effort. He went away weeping.

He did not return home. That home was desolate, lonely and so like the
tomb, that he dared not go near it. At the home of his kind friend, he
wrote to relatives at New Plymouth, Boston, New York, Virginia and the
Carolinias. To all he appealed for help, for Charles was determined to
move heaven and earth or rescue his mother and Cora; but he did not
depend on those distant rela