“Why?” says he, “have ye seen aught? The man that had this chamber before ye was a _fetiscero_,[72] a sorcerer, that is, a negro from Angola. I would not be telling ye how many good Christians in the city he had bewitched before the Holy Office gat hold of him. Sure he could make the rest of the _cofferies_ do anything he wanted for fear of their lives, and even when he was brought here he never ceased his evil deeds. They tortured him until all the chirurgions declared him a living marvel, but ’twas the devil likely looked after his own. They could not kill him that way, and he’d not confess neither, though three ordinary men should have died under it. They burned him at last, and to several respectable persons in the crowd it was granted to behold his evil spirit rising from the flames in the form of a parti-coloured crow, and forsaking its earthly abode. By reason of this miracle, his death was much spoken about, and the more that three months later, to the very day, my lord the then Grand Inquisidor died suddenly, and ’twas remembered that the _fetiscero_, in passing to his burning, had bade his lordship meet him that day three months. And at this evident proof that the Evil One desired to oppress all good Christians in Goa, and had obtained a measure of power over ’em, there was great processions took place, with litanies and intercessions of the saints, for to move ’em to protect the city, and the Holy Office renewed its activity in hunting out and destroying all _fetisceros_. And one of these was taken, that had been friend to that arch-sorcerer that was now dead, and this man confessed under the torture that his friend had been wont to visit upon him at his house while he seemed to be lying in this cell, and that they had by this means plotted much devilish work together. Then the _alcaide_ remembered how that _fetiscero_ had been wont to sit crouched in that corner opposite to ye there, sometimes neither moving nor speaking for days, but wrapped in a trance as if dead, save that his body was not cold,--and we could not doubt but the devil had given him power to leave the Holy House, though his body remained here. ’Tis said the spirits of such wicked persons are wont to haunt the spots they have affected in life, and that was why I thought that ye’d maybe seen him when ye asked me who had this cell before ye.” I moved somewhat uneasily, not over-pleased with this history, which Father Theodorus seeing, he went on eagerly, for all the world like a child with a ghost tale.