Chapter 9

It was wonderful, the mastery Satan had over time and distance.  For him they did not exist.  He called them human inventions, and said they were artificialities.  We often went to the most distant parts of the globe with him, and stayed weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction of a second, as a rule.  You could prove it by the clock.  One day when our people were in such awful distress because the witch commission were afraid to proceed against the astrologer and Father Peter’s household, or against any, indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost patience and took to witch-hunting on their own score, and began to chase a born lady who was known to have the habit of curing people by devilish arts, such as bathing them, washing them, and nourishing them instead of bleeding them and purging them through the ministrations of a barber-surgeon in the proper way.  She came flying down, with the howling and cursing mob after her, and tried to take refuge in houses, but the doors were shut in her face.  They chased her more than half an hour, we following to see it, and at last she was exhausted and fell, and they caught her.  They dragged her to a tree and threw a rope over the limb, and began to make a noose in it, some holding her, meantime, and she crying and begging, and her young daughter looking on and weeping, but afraid to say or do anything.

They hanged the lady, and I threw a stone at her, although in my heart I was sorry for her; but all were throwing stones and each was watching his neighbor, and if I had not done as the others did it would have been noticed and spoken of.  Satan burst out laughing.

All that were near by turned upon him, astonished and not pleased.  It was an ill time to laugh, for his free and scoffing ways and his supernatural music had brought him under suspicion all over the town and turned many privately against him.  The big blacksmith called attention to him now, raising his voice so that all should hear, and said: 

“What are you laughing at?  Answer!  Moreover, please explain to the company why you threw no stone.”

“Are you sure I did not throw a stone?”

“Yes.  You needn’t try to get out of it; I had my eye on you.”

“And I—­I noticed you!” shouted two others.

“Three witnesses,” said Satan:  “Mueller, the blacksmith; Klein, the butcher’s man; Pfeiffer, the weaver’s journeyman.  Three very ordinary liars.  Are there any more?”

“Never mind whether there are others or not, and never mind about what you consider us—­three’s enough to settle your matter for you.  You’ll prove that you threw a stone, or it shall go hard with you.”

“That’s so!” shouted the crowd, and surged up as closely as they could to the center of interest.

“And first you will answer that other question,” cried the blacksmith, pleased with himself for being mouthpiece to the public and hero of the occasion.  “What are you laughing at?”