added, "that I knew we should not
perish thus."

"How did you know that, Lady? By all tokens your bodies and hot flame
were near enough together," and he glanced towards the stakes and the
scattered faggots.

"Sir, I knew it because of a vision that God sent to me in my sleep last
night."

"Aye, she swore that at the stake," exclaimed a voice, "and we thought
her mad."

"Now can you deny that she is a witch?" broke in Maldon. "If she were
not one of Satan's own, how could she see visions and prophecy her own
deliverance?"

"If visions and prophecies are proof of witchcraft, then, Priest, all
Holy Writ is but a seething pot of sorcery," answered Legh. "Then the
Blessed Virgin and St. Elizabeth were witches, and Paul and John should
have been burnt as wizards. Continue, Lady, leaving out your dreams
until a more convenient time."

"Sir," went on Cicely, "we have worked no sorcery, and my crime is that
I will not name my child a bastard and sign away my lands and goods to
yonder Abbot, the murderer of my father and perhaps of my husband. Oh!
listen, listen, you and all folk here, and briefly as I may I will tell
my tale. Have I your leave to speak?"

The Commissioner nodded, and she set out her story from the beginning,
so sweetly, so simply and with such truth and earnestness, that the
concourse of people packed close about her, hung upon her every word,
and even Dr. Legh's coarse face softened as he heard. For the half of an
hour or more she spoke, telling of her father's death, of her flight and
marriage, of the burning of Cranwell Towers, and her widowing, if such
it were; of her imprisonment in the Priory and the Abbot's dealings with
her and Emlyn; of the birth of her child and its attempted murder by
the midwife, his creature; of their trial and condemnation, they being
innocent, and of all they had endured that day.

"If you are innocent," shouted a priest as she paused for breath, "what
was that Thing dressed in the livery of Satan which worked evil at
Blossholme? Did we not see it with our eyes?"

Just then some one uttered an exclamation and pointed to the shadow of
the trees where a strange form was moving. Another moment and it came
out into the light. One more and all that multitude scattered like
frightened sheep, rushing this way and that; yes, even the horses took
the bits between their teeth and bolted. For there, visible to all,
Satan himself strolled towards them. On his head were horns, beh