dulous. The Devil waxed wroth, and said impatiently:

"I will show thee that gold has such irresistible power over the minds of
men, that even at this moment some fathers and mothers belonging to the
village are in the neighbouring wood selling for money their babes and
sucklings to the emissaries of the king, although they are well aware
that the poor little things are destined to be slaughtered, in order that
the king may drink their blood, with the foolish hope of renovating and
refreshing the corrupt tide which flows in his own veins.

_Faustus_ (_with a shudder_). Then the world is worse than hell, and I
shall quit it without regret. But I will be convinced with my own eyes
before I credit any thing so horrible.

They now went into the wood, and concealed themselves among the bushes,
where they perceived the emissaries of the king in conference with some
men and women, and the priest of the parish. Four little children were
stretched upon the grass, one of them crying pitiably. The mother lifted
it up and gave it pap, in order to quiet it; whilst the others crept upon
the ground, and played with the flowers. The emissaries counted money
into the hands of the husbands; the priest had his share, and the
children were delivered up. The echoes of the wood repeated for a long
time the cries of the little wretches as they were carried away. The
mothers groaned; but the men said to them, "Here is gold; let us go to
the public-house and buy wine, and drink to a fresh offspring. It is
better that the king should eat the brats now they are young than flay
them when they are old, or tie them up in a sack and fling them into the
Seine. It would have been much better for us if we had been devoured as
soon as we were born."

The priest comforted them, and said:

"They had done a meritorious act, and one which was pleasing to the
Mother of God, to whom the king was entirely devoted." He added, "that
subjects were born for the king; and that, as he reigned upon earth as
Heaven's vicegerent, he had a right to dispose of them according to his
pleasure, and that they were bound to revere the slightest of his fancies
as a sacred law."

The peasants then went to the public-house, where they spent half the
blood-money in drink, and kept the rest to pay the king's taxes.

The Devil now looked at Faustus with an air of mockery, and said, "Hast
thou still doubts whether the gentleman will sell thee his daughter?
Thou at l