On April 11th, the Deputy Governor held in the meeting-house in Salem Village a court for a preliminary examination of the prisoners. A scene at once ridiculous and tragic followed. When they were brought in, their alleged victims appeared overcome at their gaze, pretending to be bitten, pinched, scratched, choked, burned, or pricked by their invisible agency in revenge for refusing to subscribe to a covenant with the devil. Some were apparently stricken down by the glance of an eye from one of the culprits, others fainted, many writhed as in a fit. Tituba was beaten to make her confess. Others were tortured. Finally all the accused were thrown into irons. Numbers of accused persons, assured that it was their only chance for life, owned up to deeds of which they must have been entirely innocent. They had met the devil in the form of a small black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renounced their Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks. Such were the confessions of poor women who had never in their lives done any evil except possibly to tattle. [Illustration: Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton.] On June 2d, a special court was held in Salem for the definite trial. Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, a man of small mind and bigoted temper, was president. The business began by the condemnation and hanging of a helpless woman. A jury of women had found on her person a wart, which was pronounced to be unquestionably a "devil's teat," and her neighbors remembered that many hens had died, animals become lame, and carts upset by her dreadful "devilism." By September 23d, twenty persons had gone to the gallows, eight more were under sentence, and fifty-five had "confessed" and turned informers as their only hope. The "afflicted" had increased to fifty. Jails were crammed with persons under accusation, and fresh charges of alliance with devils were brought forward every day. [Illustration: Fac-simile of Sheriff's Return of an Execution.]