Alas, poor beleaguered soul! And one may well say, “What imaginations those women had!” Tituba, the West Indian Aztec who appears in this social-religious explosion as the chief and original incendiary,--verily the root of all evil,--gave the following testimony: “Q. ‘Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?’ “A. ‘The man brought her to me, and made me pinch her.’ “Q. ‘Why did you go to Thomas Putnam’s last night and hurt his child?’ “A. ‘They pull and haul me, and make me go.’ “Q. ‘And what would they have you do?’ “A. ‘Kill her with a knife.’ “(Lieutenant Fuller and others said at this time, when the child saw these persons, and was tormented by them, that she did complain of a knife,--that they would have her cut her head off with a knife.) “Q. ‘How did you go?’ “A. ‘We ride upon sticks, and are there presently.’ “Q. ‘Do you go through the trees or over them?’ “A. ‘We see nothing, but are there presently.’ “Q. ‘Why did you not tell your master?’ “A. ‘I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told.’ “Q. ‘Would you not have hurt others, if you could?’ “A. ‘They said they would hurt others, but they could not.’ “Q. ‘What attendants hath Sarah Good?’ “A. ‘A yellow-bird, and she would have given me one.’ “Q. ‘What meat did she give it?’ “A. ‘It did suck her between her fingers.’”. This might serve as an epilogue to “Macbeth,” and the wonder is that an unlettered Indian should have had the wit to make such apt and subtle replies. It is also noteworthy that these strange proceedings took place after the expulsion of the royal governor, and previous to the provincial government of William III. If Sir Edmund Andros had remained, the tragedy might have been changed into a farce. After all, it appears that John Hathorne was not a lawyer, for he describes himself in his last will, dated June 27, 1717, as a merchant, and it is quite possible that his legal education was no better than that of the average English squire in Fielding’s time. It is evident, however, from the testimony given above, that he was a strong believer in the supernatural, and here if anywhere we find a relationship between him and his more celebrated descendant. Nathaniel Hawthorne was too clear-sighted to place confidence in the pretended revelations of trance mediums, and he was not in the least superstitious; but he was remarkably fond of reading ghost stories, and would have liked to believe them, if he could have done so in all sincerity. He sometimes felt as if he were a ghost himself, gliding noiselessly in the walks of men, and wondered that the sun should cast a shadow from him. However, we cannot imagine him as seated in jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal. His gentle nature would have recoiled from that, as it might from a serpent.