had been distracted many years, and take notice of what she said, as well as any of the afflicted persons.  ‘For,’ said Mary Warren, ’when I was afflicted, I thought I saw the apparitions of a hundred persons;’ for she said her head was distempered that she could not tell what she said.  And the said Mary told us, that, when she was well again, she could not say that she saw any of the apparitions at the time aforesaid.”  I will now give the substance of her examination, which commenced on the 19th of April.  Mr. Parris was, as usual, requested to take minutes of the proceedings, which have been preserved:—­

     “Examination of Mary Warren, at a Court held at Salem
     Village, by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, Esqrs.

     “(As soon as she was coming towards the bar, the afflicted
     fell into fits.)

     “Mary Warren, you stand here charged with sundry acts of
     witchcraft.  What do you say for yourself?  Are you guilty or
     not?—­I am innocent.

     “Hath she hurt you? (Speaking to the sufferers.)

     “(Some were dumb.  Betty Hubbard testified against her, and
     then said Hubbard fell into a violent fit.)

     “You were, a little while ago, an afflicted person; now you
     are an afflicter.  How comes this to pass?—­I look up to God,
     and take it to be a great mercy of God.

     “What! do you take it to be a great mercy to afflict others?

“(Now they were all but John Indian grievously afflicted, and Mrs. Pope also, who was not afflicted before hitherto this day; and, after a few moments, John Indian fell into a violent fit also.)”

“Well, here” (Mr. Parris, the reporter, goes on to say) “was one that just now was a tormenter in her apparition, and she owns that she had made a league with the Devil.”  The marvel was, that, having before been a sufferer, as one of the afflicted accusers, she had then, at that moment, appeared in the opposite character, and owned herself to have become a confederate with the Evil One.  Having established this conviction in the minds of the magistrates and spectators, the point was reached at which she completed the delusion by appearing to break away from her bondage to Satan, assume the functions of a confessing and abjuring witch, and retake her place, with tenfold effect, among the accusing witnesses.  The manner in which she rescued herself from the power of Satan exhibits a specimen of acting seldom surpassed.  The account proceeds thus:—­

“Now Mary Warren fell into a fit, and some of the afflicted cried out that she was going to confess; but Goody Corey, and Procter and his wife, came in, in their apparition, and struck her down, and said she should tell nothing.”

What is given here in Italics, as an “apparition,” was of course based upon the declarations of the accusing witnesses.  It was an art they often practised