uced to feel more pity and to order more tortures. The
judge assented to this, and two bodies were carried into court shrouded
in wrappings, and the order was given that Apuleius himself should
remove the wrappings.

The face of the young man grew white as he heard the words of the judge,
for even a hardened criminal cares but little to touch the corpse of a
man whom he has murdered. But he dared not disobey, and walked slowly to
the place where the dead bodies lay. He shrank for a moment as he took
the cloth in his hand, but his guards were behind him, and calling up
all his courage he withdrew it. A shout of laughter pealed out behind
him, and to his amazement he saw that his victims of the previous night
had been three huge leather bottles and not men at all!

As soon as Apuleius found out the trick that had been played on him he
was no less amused than the rest, but in the midst of his mirth a sudden
thought struck him.

'How was it you managed to make them alive?' asked he, 'for alive they
were, and battering themselves against the door of the house.'

'Oh, that is simple enough when one has a sorceress for a mistress,'
answered a damsel, who was standing by. 'She burned the hairs of some
goats and wove spells over them, so that the animals to whom the hairs
and skins had once belonged became endowed with life and tried to enter
their former dwelling.'

'They may well say that Thessaly is the home of wonders,' cried the
young man. 'But do you think that your mistress would let me see her at
work? I would pay her well--and you also,' he added.

'It might be managed perhaps, without her knowledge,' answered Fotis,
for such was the girl's name; 'but you must hold yourself in readiness
after nightfall, for I cannot tell what evening she may choose to cast
off her own shape.'

Apuleius promised readily that he would not stir out after sunset, and
the damsel went her way.

That very evening, Hesperus had scarcely risen from his bed when Fotis
knocked at the door of the house.

[Illustration: APULEIUS CHANGES INTO AN ASS]

'Come hither, and quickly,' she said; and without stopping to question
her Apuleius hastened by her side to the dwelling of the witch Pamphile.
Entering softly, they crept along a dark passage, where they could peep
through a crack in the wall and see Pamphile at work. She was in the act
of rubbing her body with essences from a long row of bottles which
stood in a cupboard in the wall, chant