At that a great skulk in the crowd let fly a stone at the three which missed Pan Andrew but narrowly. “Magicians, wizards, witches,” hooted the crowd. “It is the man who is the worst,” shouted the self-named Ostrovski. “It is he who hath bewitched my brother and cut off his head and changed the head into a pumpkin. If he be honest, let him deliver that pumpkin over to me in the sight of all, that I may give Christian burial to my brother’s brains. . . . An’ he will not, let him face my charge. He is a wizard, yea, and one condemned by church and court and precept. At him! Kill him! But save me the pumpkin which is the head of my brother!” Absurd as these accusations seem to-day, they did not seem so in the fifteenth century. For men were then but beginning to see the folly of many superstitions and cruelties that had been prevalent since the Dark Ages; they believed that certain persons had malign powers such as could transform others into strange animals; they thought that by magic men could work out their spite upon others in horribly malicious ways; that food could be poisoned by charms and milk made sour. And to raise the cry of wizard against a man, no matter how peace-loving and innocent he might be, was enough to start rough and brutal men, yes, and women, too, into active persecution and unlawful deeds. This was the method that the stranger had adopted in order to get his revenge upon Pan Andrew, and not only revenge, but that which he sought even more keenly, the possession of the pumpkin that the country gentleman had refused to deliver to him early in the day. He had been about the city seeking out certain friends or followers in order to raise the cry of wizard, and then he had with them searched through the city until they came upon Pan Andrew and his wife. “The pumpkin, the pumpkin—it is my brother’s head,” he kept shouting. Pan Andrew, on his side, only smiled back derisively upon him, and gathered in the pumpkin where no man could seize it without taking as well a blow from his heavy sword, and the attackers, being more cowards than men, made no attempt to approach the wagon at the side that he was facing. Some armed with large stones were, however, sneaking around to get behind him, and others in front were preparing to send a volley of missiles upon him, when there rushed into the turmoil a man of venerable appearance, clad in a brown robe with large puffy sleeves and pointed hood. He was of moderate stature, firm of gait, and bore himself like a man in the prime of life. A priest he might have been, a brother of some order he seemed, but a scholar he was certainly, for there was that in his face and a droop to the shoulders that proclaimed him a man of letters. “Cease—cease—cowards all!” he shouted in a commanding tone of voice. “What persecution goes on here?” “The man and the woman and boy are workers in magic, wizards and a witch,” said the leader roughly. “Keep your hands off, for we are admonishing them.”