There were hanged upon a spit of mud in the tidal waters of the Charles at Boston, on the tenth day of July, 1671, three pirates, long wanted for their unparalleled offences. These three, Black Pig Murch, Ben Bottle, and the Bloody Shad, had been taken into custody some two months earlier, but, having escaped their guardians, separated each to his own hiding. By agreement they came together again upon the second of July, thinking the hunt to be up and that they could get a pinnace and sail south to safety. So all three were taken together, but the fourth, Calico Jack, was never taken. Being duly indicted and tried, these fine rogues were found guilty of many homicides, robberies, and cruel acts of mayhem upon the high seas, so were condemned to hang. Justice was done upon their bodies, and in due time (after the corpses had hung in chains some weeks, serving as due warning to others, especially to seamen) these bodies were buried in mud, close to the place where they had died. _Sic transeunt maleficii mundi!_ CHAPTER VI 1 _A Trap is set for two Tender Souls._ Doll never thought the demon would wait until her death-bed to come to her. Every moonlight night and every sunny day she looked for him and thought, ‘Perhaps this day or this night he will come to me.’ She always wore even quite commonly her prettiest, most worldly clothes, and she kept her shaggy black hair as neat as she was able. She thought, ‘He sees me always, everything I do, everything I wear,’ and she kept herself comely for him. She guessed he even knew her thoughts, and so she dedicated them to him. In her own chamber she daily worshipped and prayed to Satan, as the fiend had taught her; that is, by foul blasphemies, such as the reversal of the Lord’s Prayer, etc. She even wrote little hymns to Satan and entuned them for him. She felt that she should be about some harm, such, for instance, as the bewitchment of the godly, but she received no command, so she did, for some time at least, no devilment. She was happy and grew sleek. The widow was already courted by three men, all reputable widowers and church members. Now that the windows were opened and Doll sang as she worked, and her own mind was taken up with her suitors, she did not fear her so much. Each went her own way. Doll had always shown a dawdling and trifling attitude towards honest labour. And in this offence Bilby had encouraged her. For he had had her out in the woods and the fields (where there was nothing a young female could do) with himself, instead of leaving her at home to serve Hannah, as would have been more proper.