New-England navigators, at that time and long afterwards, sailed almost wholly by the stars; and Powell probably had often related his own skill, which, as mate of a vessel, he would have been likely to acquire, in calculating his position, rate of sailing, and distances, on the boundless and trackless ocean, by his knowledge and observations of the heavenly bodies. He had said, perhaps, that, by gazing among the stars, he could, at any hour of the night, however long or far he had been tossed and driven on the ocean, tell exactly where his vessel was. Hence the charge of being an astrologist. Probably, like other sailors, Powell may have indulged in "long yarns" to the country people, of the wonders he had seen, "some in one country, and some in another." It is not unlikely, that, in foreign ports, he had witnessed exhibitions of necromancy and mesmerism, which, in various forms and under different names,[i.441] have always been practised. Possibly he may have boasted to be a medium himself, a scholar and adept in the mystic art, able to read and divine "the workings of spirits." At any rate, when it became known, that, at a glance, he attributed to the boy the cause of the mischief, and that it ceased on his taking him away from the house, the opinion became settled that he was a wizard. He was arrested forthwith, and brought to trial, as has been stated, for witchcraft. His astronomy, astrology, and spiritualism brought him in peril of his life. "The Testimony of William Morse: which saith, together with his wife, aged both about sixty-five years: that, Thursday night, being the twenty-seventh day of November, we heard a great noise without, round the house, of knocking the boards of the house, and, as we conceived, throwing of stones against the house. Whereupon myself and wife looked out and saw nobody, and the boy all this time with us; but we had stones and sticks thrown at us, that we were forced to retire into the house again. Afterwards we went to bed, and the boy with us; and then the like noise was upon the roof of the house. "2. The same night about midnight, the door being locked when we went to bed, we heard a great hog in the house grunt and make a noise, as we thought willing to get out; and, that we might not be disturbed in our sleep, I rose to let him out, and I found a hog in the house and the door unlocked: the door was firmly locked when we went to bed. "3. The next morning, a stick of links hanging in the chimney, they were thrown out of their place, and we[i.442] hanged them up again, and they were thrown down again, and some into the fire. "4. The night following, I had a great awl lying in the window, the which awl we saw fall down out of the chimney into the ashes by the fire.