t pit of death before noon on the day of her second
examination, and, excepting some unwholesome bread and water, according to
the custom of the prison, had had no food since she came into the custody
of the _commentariensis_ the day before. The order came from the
magistrates to bring her out earlier in the morning than was intended, or
the prison might have really effected that death which Calphurnius had
purposed to pretend. When the apparitors attempted to raise her, she
neither spoke or moved, nor could well be seen. "Black as Orcus," said one
of the fellows, "another torch there! I can't see where she nestles."
"There she is, like a bundle of clothes," said another. "Madam gets up
late this morning," said a third. "She's used to softer couches," said a
fourth. "Ha! ha! 'tis a spoiler of beauty, this hole," said a fifth. "She
is the demon of stubbornness, and must be crushed," said the jailer; "she
likes it, or she would not choose it." "The plague take the witch," said
another; "we shall have better seasons when a few like her are ferreted
out."

They got her out like a corpse, and put her on the ground outside the
prison. When she still did not move, two of them took her between them on
their shoulders and arms, and began to move forward, the instrument of
torture preceding her. The fresh air of the morning revived her; she soon
sat up. She seemed to drink in life again, and became conscious. "O
beautiful Light!" she whispered, "O lovely Light, my light and my life! O
my Light and my Life, receive me!" Gradually she became fully alive to all
that was going on. She was going to death, and that rather than deny Him
who had bought her by His own death. He had suffered for her, and she was
to suffer for Him. He had been racked on the Cross, she too was to have
her limbs dislocated after His pattern. She scarcely rested on the men's
shoulders; and they vowed afterwards that they thought she was going to
fly away, vile witch as she was.

"The witch, the witch," the mob screamed out, for she had now come to the
place of her conflict. "_We'll_ pay you off for blight and pestilence!
Where's our bread, where's the maize and barley, where are the grapes?"
And they uttered fierce yells of execration, and seemed disposed to break
through the line of apparitors, and to tear her to pieces. Yet, after all,
it was not a very hearty uproar, but got up for the occasion. The populace
had spent their force, not to say their lives, in