nd vigorous young
men, who took him up out of the ground, cut his body to pieces, and
placed it on a pile, whereon it was burned to ashes; but beforehand,
some one amongst them having said that he could not be consumed by
fire until they had torn out his heart, his side was pierced with a
stake, and when they had taken out his heart through the opening, they
set fire to the pile; he was consumed by the flames and appeared no
more.

The pagans also believed that the bodies of the dead rested not,
neither were they safe from magical evocations, so long as they
remained unconsumed by fire, or undecayed underground.

"Tali tua membra sepulchro,
Talibus exuram Stygio cum carmine Sylvis,
Ut nullos cantata Magos exaudiat umbra,"

said an enchantress, in Lucan, to a spirit she evoked.

Footnotes:

[481] William of Malms. lib. ii. c. 4.

CHAPTER XIX.

GHOSTS IN PERU.

The instance we are about to relate occurred in Peru, in the country
of the Ititans. A girl named Catharine died at the age of sixteen an
unhappy death, and she had been guilty of several sacrilegious
actions. Her body immediately after her decease was so putrid that
they were obliged to put it out of the dwelling in the open air, to
escape from the bad smell which exhaled from it. At the same time they
heard as it were dogs howling; and a horse which before then was very
gentle began to rear, to prance, strike the ground with its feet, and
break its bonds; a young man who was in bed was pulled out of bed
violently by the arm; a servant maid received a kick on the shoulder,
of which she bore the marks for several days. All that happened before
the body of Catharine was inhumed. Some time afterwards, several
inhabitants of the place saw a great quantity of tiles and bricks
thrown down with a great noise in the house where she died. The
servant of the house was dragged about by the foot, without any one
appearing to touch her, and that in the presence of her mistress and
ten or twelve other women.

The same servant, on entering a room to fetch some clothes, perceived
Catharine, who rose up to seize hold of an earthen pot; the girl ran
away directly, but the spectre took the vase, dashed it against the
wall, and broke it into a thousand pieces. The mistress, who ran
thither on hearing the noise, saw that a quantity of bricks were
thrown against the wall. The next day an image of the crucifix fixed
against the wall was all on a sudden torn