The foregoing illustrates the unfairness practised by the examining magistrate. He took for granted, as we shall find to have been the case in all instances, the guilt of the prisoner, and endeavored to entangle her by leading questions, thus involving her in contradiction. By the force of his own assumptions, he had compelled Sarah Good to admit the reality of the sufferings of the girls, and that they must be caused by some one. The amount of what she had said was, that, if caused by one or the other of them, "then it must be Osburn," for she was sure of her own innocence. This expression, to which she was driven in self-exculpation, was perverted by the reporter, Ezekiel Cheever, and by the magistrate, into an indirect confession and a direct accusation of Osburn. In the absence of Good, the magistrate told Osburn that Good had confessed and accused her. This was a misrepresentation of one, and a false and fraudulent trick upon the other. Considering the feeble condition of Sarah Osburn generally, the snares by which she[ii.23] was beset, the distressing and bewildering circumstances in which she was placed, and the infirm state of her reason, as evidenced in her statement of what she saw, or dreamed that she saw and heard,—not having a clear idea which,—her answers, as reported by the prosecutors, show that her broken and disordered mind was essentially truthful and innocent. Sarah Osburn was removed from the meeting-house, and Tituba brought in and examined, as follows:— "Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?—None. "Why do you hurt these children?—I do not hurt them. "Who is it then?—The Devil, for aught I know. "Did you never see the Devil?—The Devil came to me, and bid me serve him. "Who have you seen?—Four women sometimes hurt the children. "Who were they?—Goody Osburn and Sarah Good, and I do not know who the others were. Sarah Good and Osburn would have me hurt the children, but I would not. "(She further saith there was a tall man of Boston that she did see.) "When did you see them?—Last night, at Boston. "What did they say to you?—They said, 'Hurt the children.' "And did you hurt them?—No: there is four women and one man, they hurt the children, and then they lay all upon me; and they tell me, if I will not hurt the children, they will hurt me.[ii.24] "But did you not hurt them?—Yes; but I will hurt them no more. "Are you not sorry that you did hurt them?—Yes. "And why, then, do you hurt them?—They say, 'Hurt children, or we will do worse to you.' "What have you seen?—A man come to me, and say, 'Serve me.' "What service?—Hurt the children: and last night there was an appearance that said, 'Kill the children;' and, if I would not go on hurting the children, they would do worse to me. "What is this appearance you see?—Sometimes it is like a hog, and sometimes like a great dog. "(This appearance she saith she did see four times.)