Aderhold turned and spoke to him. “Our names are Joan Heron and Gilbert Aderhold. We are not witch and sorcerer—nor yoke-fellows with Satan—nor blasphemers of good. But we were judged by our neighbours and by the law to be such, and we were condemned to death and put in prison. By the help of a gaoler who is dead we escaped. We managed to stow ourselves upon the Silver Queen. In the seas near the island where the Eagle found us, our names were discovered and the Silver Queen cast us adrift. By this fortune and by that we came first to a larger island and then to the islet from which the Eagle took us. That, so far as is needful to tell you, is our story. You have been good to us, knowing only what we showed. If you will believe, what we showed was ourselves.” Joan’s voice, a rich, clear, low voice, followed his. “I am no witch, and he is no sorcerer. I was a country girl and he a physician who helped many. Now we are a man and woman who fare forward, wishing no ill to any.” As she spoke she moved, unconsciously, a step nearer to the table. The agent of the Company recoiled, put out his hand against her closer approach. In his face was a white horror. He remembered the Hawthorn witch trial. That year he had chanced to be in company with the elder Carthew, and no detail but had been given him. The very words of a ballad made upon the witch Joan Heron came into mind—forgotten, he might have thought, long since, but now flashing out in letters of fire—hell fire. It had been a ballad sold and bought throughout England, and it spared no strange assertion, nor none that was gross. _The Witch Joan Heron._ The ballad rang in his ears. He saw its title. THE ABHORRED WITCH; or, THE MONSTROUS LIFE OF JOAN HERON.... A look of sickness passed over the agent’s face, no longer ruddy. He put his arm above his eyes. “Avaunt, witch!” he said. Joan stepped back. Her eyes sought Aderhold’s. He bent toward her, took her hands. She smiled and said in the Indian tongue they had learned upon that island. “Heart of my heart! The great sea is cold at first—” “Hark!” cried Master Clement. “She speaks the tongue she learned of Apollyon!”