n, why do you torment Mistress Putnam and these others in
this grievous fashion?"

"I do not torment them," replied Dulcibel calmly, but a little
scornfully.

"Who does torment them, then?"

"How should I know--perhaps Satan."

"What makes you suppose that Satan torments them?"

"Because they tell lies."

"Do you know that Satan cannot torment these people except through the
agency of other human beings?"

"No, I do not."

"Well, he cannot--our wisest ministers are united upon that. Is it not
so, Master Parris?"

"That is God's solemn truth," was the reply.

"Who is it that torments you, Mistress Putnam?" continued Squire
Hathorne, addressing Mistress Ann Putnam, who had sent so many already
to prison and on the way to death.

Mistress Putnam was angered beyond measure at Dulcibel's intimation that
she and her party were instigated and tormented directly by the devil.
And yet she could not, if she would, bear falser witness than she
already had done against Rebecca Nurse and other women of equally good
family and reputation. But at this appeal of the Magistrate, she flung
her arms into the air, and spoke with the vehemence and excitement of a
half-crazy woman.

"It is she, Dulcibel Burton. She was a witch from her very birth. Her
father sold her to Satan before she was born, that he might prosper in
houses and lands. She has the witch's mark--a snake--on her breast, just
over her heart. I know it, because goodwife Bartley, the midwife, told
me so three years ago last March. Midwife Bartley is dead; but have a
jury of women examine her, and you will see that it is true."

At this, as all thought it, horrible charge, a cold thrill ran through
the crowd. They all had heard of witch-marks, but never of one like
this--the very serpent, perhaps, which had deluded Eve. Joseph Putnam
smiled disdainfully. "A set of stupid, superstitious fools!" he muttered
through his teeth. "Half the De Bellevilles had that mark."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Most part of this noble lineage carried upon their body
for a natural birth-mark, from their mother's womb, a snake."--_North_.]

"I will have that looked into," said Squire Hathorne. "In what shape
does the spectre come, Mistress Putnam?"

"In the shape of a yellow-bird. She whispers to it who it is that she
wants tormented, and it comes and pecks at my eyes."

Here she screamed out wildly, and began as if defending her eyes from an
invisible assailant.

"It is coming to me n