ams. I was happy
then, I tell thee. I called myself by another name. No matter what it
was. Black Claus is the avenger's name, and he will cleave to it. One
day there came an aged beggar-woman to our cottage, and begged. My
mother heeded her not. I know not why; for she was ever kind. My father
drove her from the door; and, as she turned away, she cursed us all. I
never can forget that moment, nor the terror of my youthful mind, as I
heard that curse. And the curse clave to us; for she--_was a witch_; and
it came upon us soon and bitterly. My mother was in the pride of her
beauty still, when a gay noble saw her in her loveliness, and paid her
court. Then came a horrible night, when the witch's curse was fearfully
fulfilled. My father was jealous. He attacked the young noble as he came
by the darkness of night; and it was he--my father--who was killed. I
saw him die, weltering in his blood. My poor mother, too, was spirited
away; the fell powers of witchcraft dragged her from that bloody hearth.
Yes; witchcraft it was--it must have been; for she was too pure and good
to listen to the voice of the seducer--to follow her husband's murderer.
She died, probably, of grief--my poor wretched mother; for I never saw
her more. For days and nights I sought her, but in vain; suffering cold
and hunger, and sleeping oft-times in the cold woods and dank morasses.
Then fell the witches curse on _me_ also; and I began to suffer these
pains, which thy foul tribe have never ceased to inflict upon me since.
The tortures of the body were added to the tortures of the mind. My
limbs grew distorted and withered. I became the outcast of humanity I
now am; and then it was I vowed a vow to pursue, even unto death, all
those hideous lemans of Satan, who, like her who cursed us, sell their
wretched souls but to work evil, and destruction, and death to their
fellow-creatures. And I have kept my vow!"

In spite of herself, Magdalena had been obliged to listen to the
witchfinder's tale, which, with his face pressed against the iron bars
of the grating, he poured, with harsh voice, into her unwilling ear. As
he proceeded, however, she appeared fascinated by the words he uttered,
as the poor quivering bird is fascinated by the serpent's eye. Her
eyeballs were distended--her arms still outstretched towards him, as she
had first raised them to him in her cry of expostulation; but the hands
were desperately clenched together--the arms stiffened with the ext