Joseph Bayley sat stiff and straight in his saddle, like a soldier; his face was pale and stern, his eyes full of horror and defiance. “See you it?” Ann whispered again. “There! now it moves. What is it?” “I see it,” said Joseph, in a loud, bold voice. “An’ whatever it be, I will yield not to it; an’ neither will you, goodwife.” Ann reached around and caught at the reins. “Let us go back,” she moaned, faintly. “Oh, Joseph, let us not pass it. My spirit faints within me. I see its back among the laurel blooms. ’Tis the black beast they tell of. Let us turn back, Joseph, let us turn back!” “Be still, woman!” returned her husband, jerking the reins from her hand. “What think ye ’twould profit us to turn back to Salem village? I trow if there be one black beast here, there is a full herd of them there. There is naught left but to ride past it as best we may. Sit fast, an’ listen you not to it, whatever it promise you.” Joseph looked down the road towards the laurel bushes, his muscles now as tense as a bow. Ann hid her face on his shoulder. Suddenly he shouted, with a great voice like a herald: “Away with ye, ye cursed beast! away with ye! We are not of your kind; we are gospel folk. We have naught to do with you or your master. Away with ye!” The horse leaped forward. There was a great cracking among the laurel bushes at the right, a glossy black back and some white horns heaved over them, then some black flanks plunged heavily out of sight. “Oh!” shrieked Ann, “has it gone? Goodman, has it gone?” “The Lord hath delivered us from the snare of the enemy,” answered Joseph, solemnly. “What looked it like, Joseph, what looked it like?” “Like no beast that was saved in the ark.” “Had it fiery eyes?” asked Ann, trembling. “’Tis well you did not see them.” “Ride fast! oh, ride fast!” Ann pleaded, clutching hard at her husband’s cloak. “It may follow on our track.” The horse went down the road at a quick trot. Ann kept peering back and starting at every sound in the woods. “Do you mind the tale Samuel Endicott told last night?” she said, shuddering. “How on his voyage to Barbadoes he, sitting on the windlass on a bright moonshining night, was shook violently, and saw the appearance of that witch Goody Bradbury, with a white cap and a white neckcloth on her? It was a dreadful tale.” “It was naught to the sight of Mercy Lewis and Sergeant Thomas Putnam’s daughter Ann, when they were set upon and nigh choked to death by Goody Proctor. Know you that within a half-mile we must pass the Proctor house?”