"This was the one great act of sorcery that he had witnessed, and to which he now bore testimony before the most high God. After that, the woman obtained an unbounded power over the youth, who manifested an uncontrollable desire for her company; he had neglected his old friends and the most binding attachments; body and soul he had become the serf of her diabolical power." Here Samuel Parris paused. The perspiration rose in great drops to his forehead, his hands shook as he wiped the moisture away. "And is this all?" demanded the judge, while the audience broke the silence by hoarse murmurs, that stole through the windows, and grew louder as the people outside took them up. "Is this all?" "No," said the old man, and the white hair rose slowly from his temples, while shadows gathered about his mouth, "I, too, was in the hands of this woman of Endor--I, the servant of the Lord, who have broken the holy bread to God's people for more than fifty years. Here, in this consecrated building, while I stood with the sacred wine in my hands, after that just man, William Phipps, had drank of it in baptism, this woman appeared to me. Standing in the very spot where he had partaken of the sacrament, she appeared to me as an angel of light, for her eyes shone like stars, and a smile of tender humility beamed on her face--with those eyes, with that smile, and with a voice that might have dropped from the golden harps to which cherubs sing. She won me into a great sacrilege." Again the minister wiped his brow; the judge grew pale, and leaned forward breathlessly. The audience was still as death; you could hear the shivering of the naked tree boughs afar off in the forest, but nothing nearer. Amid this appalling hush, Barbara Stafford lifted her face to the witness, and a faint, pitying smile lay like a shadow on her lips. She seemed about to speak, but the judge lifted his hand. "A great sacrilege, brother Parris?" The minister cast a pleading look upon the judges at the bar and his brethren of the ministry, as if beseeching forbearance. "Yes! a great sacrilege. As I stood, with the unleavened bread before me and the sacred wine in my hand--stood alone in this holy building, for all else had departed--the prisoner, Barbara Stafford, by the sweet wiles which I speak of, won me to give the wine to her, that she might taste it; and so beguiled of the devil, I broke with her of the bread which is a symbol of the body of Christ. This, brethren, was my sin--I was beset of the evil one and fell!" A groan broke from the ministers that heard the confession. The judge bent his forehead to the palm of his hand, shading the pallor of his features. The foreman of the jury muttered a low prayer, and the jury whispered a solemn amen. Even the face of young Lovel took an expression of affright. The stillness that reigned in the body of the house was appalling. CHAPTER XLIV. PROGRESS OF THE TRIAL.