* * * * *

What infernal object was subserved by the possession of the dead villain’s body, I have not learned.  But a very curious story, in which a vampire resuscitation of Crooke the sexton figures, may throw a light upon this part of the tale.

The result of Turnbull’s shot at the disappearing fiend certainly justifies old Andrew Moreton’s dictum, which is thus expressed in his curious “History of Apparitions”:  “I warn rash brands who, pretending not to fear the devil, are for using the ordinary violences with him, which affect one man from another—­or with an apparition, in which they may be sure to receive some mischief.  I knew one fired a gun at an apparition and the gun burst in a hundred pieces in his hand; another struck at an apparition with a sword, and broke his sword in pieces and wounded his hand grievously; and ’tis next to madness for anyone to go that way to work with any spirit, be it angel or be it devil.”