Suddenly George Dragon himself was among them—red-faced and wry-mouthed, but to-day thick-tongued also and stumbling. He looked about him wildly. “What’s all this chattering? Talking like monkeys!—Waked me up—but I won and he paid—good stuff—” He saw Aderhold and lurched toward him. When he was near he spoke and imagined that none else could hear him. “Don’t look so grimly upon me, Master Aderhold!” he said. “I’ve dropped not a word, as I told you I wouldn’t. ’Zooks! I’m not one to peach—” _Aderhold!_ With one sharp sound the name ran through the swarm. “Not Allen!—_Aderhold_....” There were those here from that port town and the surrounding country,—those who had heard that name before. A man cried out, “Aderhold! That was the sorcerer who was to be burned!” Another: “They escaped—The sorcerer and apostate and the witch Joan Heron—” “Ill Luck! Ill Luck!” cried the Bedlamite. “There she stands!” John Allen had risen from the coil of rope and stood against the slung boat. The throng swung its body that way, hung suspended one long moment, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, then with a roaring cry-flung itself across the space between. Aderhold reached her side, but the throng came, too, hurled him down and laid hands upon her. One clutched her shirt and jerkin and tore them across. She stood a woman revealed. “The witch! The witch!” they roared and struck her to the deck. The mate was not the man that was the captain, but he knew what the captain would do, and where he was able he copied. The few superior colonists were not superior to witch-fear, but they had a preference for orderly judgement and execution. Master Evans was of a timid and gentle nature and abhorred with his bodily eyes to see violence done. He believed devoutly that in the interests of holiness witches, infidels, and sorcerers must be put to death, but he would not willingly himself behold the act which his religion approved. There were others aboard amenable to discipline, and bold enough to escape panic over mere delay. The sorcerer and the witch were drawn from the hands of the more enraged. Their arms were bound across; they were thrust into the ship’s dungeon. With them went Humphrey Lantern, sober enough now—poor wry-mouthed man!... In the state cabin there was held a council. “Keep the wretches close under hatches until Virginia is reached,” said the cooler sense. “Then let the officers of the settlement hang them, on dry land and after solemn judgement. Or let them be prisoned in Jamestown until a ship is sailing home, taken back to England, and hanged there. If, as may well be the case, the Silver Queen hath been cursed for their sakes, surely now that they are ironed there below, and their doom certain in the end, the Almighty will lift the curse! At least, wait and see if the calm be not broken.” Within the cabin and without were malcontents, but the soberer counsel prevailed. The mate agreed to keep the crew from mutiny, the