caught the eye of the alarmed girl,
and turning very pale, she held forth a crucifix, which hung about her
neck, towards the spot where stood Magdalena, as if to exorcise the
powers of witchcraft directed against her, and sobbed--"Oh! take her
from my sight--save me--she would destroy me!"

"It is she condemns me!" cried Magdalena; and, with another
heart-rending exclamation of despair, she fell forward to the earth as
if in violent convulsions.

"See, see!" shouted Claus in triumph, "how the sight of the holy cross
causes the devil within her to tear and rend her."

The bystanders shrank in horror from the prostrate form of the unhappy
woman. The guards, who had approached, kept at a sufficient distance to
avoid all contact with the reputed witch, although near enough to
prevent her escape.

Petrified with astonishment and dismay at the strange scene that had
passed thus rapidly before him, and shocked at the sight of Bertha's
wound and terror, Gottlob had stood at first incapable of movement. But
when he saw Magdalena thus stricken to the earth, he forgot all the
terrors of witchcraft--he forgot the horrible denunciation--he forgot
even Bertha's fainting form; the instinctive impulse of his kindly
nature was to rush forward and to raise the poor old woman. Before he
could reach her, however, twenty hands had pulled him back with
force--twenty voices screamed in his ear, "Touch her not--beware!" In
vain he struggled, and strove to extricate himself--in vain he protested
the poor woman's innocence--he was held back by force.

In the meanwhile, although those nearest to the accused woman drew back
with terror, the remoter crowd rushed forward towards the church steps
in violent excitement, preferring loud cries of "A witch!--a witch! To
the stake with her--to the stake!" The deeper voices of the men mingling
with the shriller cries of the women and children.

In the midst of this scene of tumult, the Ober-Amtmann conveyed his
daughter in his arms--for she had now completely fainted--to the church,
and confided her to the care of her women. Upon returning, he sternly
gave orders that the accused female should be placed in the prison of
the town, with a guard before the door, until the denouncer should be
heard against her.

"Come hither man, black cripple!" he continued, with some disgust, to
Claus: "We know that the dreadful crime of witchcraft has, like heresy,
made much and notable progress in the land of late