the funeral pyre smoking in the market-place. All the horror of the terrible witchcraft-trials rose to my memory. A pair of sparkling red eyes, and an attenuated weazened body, were enough to cause a poor old creature to be assumed to be a witch, guilty of every description of wicked and unholy arts and practices; to have legal process instituted against her, and to be led to the scaffold. The application of the rack, or other form of torture, confirmed the accusations against her, and decided the case." "Still," said Theodore, "it is very remarkable that so many of those supposititious witches of their own accord confessed their pact, and other relations, with the Evil One, without any coercion whatever. Two or three years ago it happened that a number of legal documents fell into my hands relating to trials for witchcraft; and I could scarce believe my eyes when I read in them confessions of things which made my flesh creep. They told of ointments, the use of which turned human beings into various animals; they spoke of riding on broomsticks, and, in fact, of all the devilish practices which we read of in old legends. Bat, first and foremost, and invariably, those supposititious witches always openly and shamelessly avowed, and boasted--usually of their own accord--as to their unchaste relations with the unclean and diabolical 'gallant' (as their term for him was). Now, how could such things be possible?" "Because," Lothair said, "belief in a diabolical compact actually brought such a compact about." "How do you mean? What do you say?" the two others cried together.