nd freedom were offered him
by a being, whose power to accomplish his promise he did not doubt. The
struggle was hard; but he resisted the temptation, and answered
firmly,--

"No."

"Then die the felon death thou meritest," cried Bess, fiercely; "and I
will glut mine eyes with the spectacle."

Incensed beyond endurance, the abbot looked sternly at her, and raised
his hand in denunciation. The action and the look were so appalling,
that the affrighted woman would have fled if her husband had not
restrained her.

"By the holy patriarchs and prophets; by the prelates and confessors; by
the doctors of the church; by the holy abbots, monks, and eremites, who
dwelt in solitudes, in mountains, and in caverns; by the holy saints and
martyrs, who suffered torture and death for their faith, I curse thee,
witch!" cried Paslew. "May the malediction of Heaven and all its hosts
alight on the head of thy infant--"

"Oh! holy abbot," shrieked Bess, breaking from her husband, and flinging
herself at Paslew's feet, "curse me, if thou wilt, but spare my innocent
child. Save it, and we will save thee."

"Avoid thee, wretched and impious woman," rejoined the abbot; "I have
pronounced the dread anathema, and it cannot be recalled. Look at the
dripping garments of thy child. In blood has it been baptised, and
through blood-stained paths shall its course be taken."

"Ha!" shrieked Bess, noticing for the first time the ensanguined
condition of the infant's attire. "Cuthbert's blood--oh!"

"Listen to me, wicked woman," pursued the abbot, as if filled with a
prophetic spirit. "Thy child's life shall be long--beyond the ordinary
term of woman--but it shall be a life of woe and ill."

"Oh! stay him--stay him; or I shall die!" cried Bess.

But the wizard could not speak. A greater power than his own apparently
overmastered him.

"Children shall she have," continued the abbot, "and children's
children, but they shall be a race doomed and accursed--a brood of
adders, that the world shall flee from and crush. A thing accursed, and
shunned by her fellows, shall thy daughter be--evil reputed and evil
doing. No hand to help her--no lip to bless her--life a burden; and
death--long, long in coming--finding her in a dismal dungeon. Now,
depart from me, and trouble me no more."

Bess made a motion as if she would go, and then turning, partly round,
dropped heavily on the ground. Demdike caught the child ere she fell.

"Thou hast killed her!"