An awful fellowship indeed! This twofold devil condemns one out of the
other's mouth; whatever Madeline says, is ascribed to Gauffridi. And
the scared crowd were impatient to behold the burning of the dumb
blasphemer, whose ungodliness so loudly declared itself by the voice
of the girl.

The exorcisers then put to her this cruel question, to which they
themselves could have given the best answer:--"Why, Beelzebub, do you
speak so ill of your great friend?" Her answer was frightful: "If
there be traitors among men, why not among demons also? When I am with
Gauffridi, I am his to do all his will. But when you constrain me, I
betray him and turn him to scorn."

However, she could not keep up this hateful mockery. Though the demon
of fear and fawning seemed to have gotten fast hold of her, there was
room still for despair. She could no longer take the slightest food;
and they who for five months had been killing her with exorcisms and
pretending to relieve her of six or seven thousand devils, were fain
to admit that she longed only to die, and greedily sought after any
means of self-destruction. Courage alone was wanting to her. Once she
pricked herself with a lancet, but lacked the spirit to persevere.
Once she caught up a knife, and when that was taken from her, tried to
strangle herself. She dug needles into her body, and then made one
last foolish effort to drive a long pin through her ear into her head.

What became of Gauffridi? The inquisitor, who dwells so long on the
two women, says almost nothing about him. He walks as it were over
the fire. The little he does say is very strange. He relates that
having bound Gauffridi's eyes, they pricked him with needles all over
the body, to find out the callous places where the Devil had made his
mark. On the removal of the bandage, he learned, to his horror and
amazement, that the needle had thrice been stuck into him without his
feeling it; so he was marked in three places with the sign of Hell.
And the inquisitor added, "If we were in Avignon, this man should be
burnt to-morrow."

He felt himself a lost man; and defended himself no more. His only
thought now was to see if he could save his life through any of the
Dominicans' foes. He wished, he said, to confess himself to the
Oratorians. But this new order, which might have been called the right
mean of Catholicism, was too cold and wary to take up a matter already
so hopeless and so far advanced.

Thereon he went bac