power of
sympathy it affected the crowd almost to madness. If Dulcibel looked at
them, they cried she was tormenting them. If she looked upward in
resignation to Heaven, they also stared upwards with fixed, stiff necks.
If she leaned her head one side they did the same, until it seemed as if
their necks would be broken; and the jailers forced up Dulcibel's neck
with their coarse, dirty hands.

Dulcibel had not attended any of the other examinations, but similar
demonstrations on the part of the "afflicted" had been described to her.
It was very different, however, to hear of such things and to experience
them in her own person. And if she had been at all a nervous and less
healthy young woman, she might have been overcome by them, and even led
to admit, as so many others had admitted under similar influences, that
she really was a witch, and compelled by her master, the devil, could
not help tormenting these poor victims.

"Why do you not cease this?" at last cried Squire Hathorne, sternly and
wrathfully.

"Cease what?" she replied indignantly.

"Tormenting these poor, suffering children and women!"

"You see I am not tormenting them. Bid these men unloose my hands, they
are hurting me."

"They say your spectre and your familiar are tormenting them."

"They are bearing false witness against me."

"Who does hurt them then?"

"Their master, the devil, I suppose and his imps."

"Why should he hurt them?"

"Because they are liars, and bear false witness; being hungry for
innocent blood."

The spirit of the free-thinking, free-spoken old sea-captain--nurtured
by the free winds and the free waves for forty years--was fully alive
now in his daughter. A righteous, holy indignation at the abominable
farce that was going on with all its gross lying and injustice had taken
possession of her, and she cared no longer for the opinions of any one
around her, and thought not even of her lover looking on, but only of
truth and justice. "Yes, they are possessed with devils--being children
of their father, the devil!" she continued scornfully. "And they shall
have their reward. As for you, Ann Putnam, in seven years from this day
I summon you to meet those you have slain with your wicked, lying
tongue, at the bar of Almighty God! It shall be a long dying for you!"
Then, seeing Thomas Putnam by his wife's side, "And you, Thomas Putnam,
you puppet in a bad woman's hands, chief aider and abettor of her wicked
ways, you shall