wouldst thou here?" said Master Hans, completely recovered from
his spiritual alarm.

"I cannot rest," replied the witchfinder with bitterness. "Until her
last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose,
body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the
hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my
distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my
poor limbs--curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she
too shall feel all the tortures of hell--tortures worse than those she
has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her
body round--the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the
stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until
the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and
stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its
infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious
sight!" And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and
revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back
from him with horror.

It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on
his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment,
however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in
a calmer tone, "Yes, it will be a glorious sight--for it will be for the
cause of the Lord, and of his holy church."

Little as they comprehended the witchfinder's raving, the soldiers again
crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.

"What wouldst thou?" said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the
prison door.

"I would look upon her, there--in her prison," said the cripple, with an
expression that denoted a malicious eagerness to gloat upon his victim.

The soldiers interchanged glances with one another, as if they doubted
whether such a permission ought to be allowed to the witchfinder.

"Ah, bah!" said Hans. "It is not he that will aid her to escape. Let him
pass. They'll make a fine sport with one another, the witchfinder and
the witch--dog and cat. Zist, zist!" continued the young soldier,
laughing and making a movement and a sound as if setting on the two
above-mentioned animals to worry each other.

"Take care," said his more scrupulous companion. "Jest not with such
awful work. Who knows but it may be blasphemy; and what would Father
Peter sa