5
Abortive attempts to save a SOUL and more infernal manifestations of the Demon Lover.
Now was her physical body in sore plight, for she was bound in irons heavier than a strong man might bear. The jailors feared her, and, although an eye was forever at the chink, they did as little for her as might be. The Court permitted only these to go to her: her jailors; the two ministers of God, labouring in Salem, and Mr. Increase Mather whose mind was at that time big with a demonology. He wished to study and examine her. It was three weeks before Mr. Zelley got a permit from Boston to visit her. He guessed by the cold, tardy manner in which his request was answered that he himself had fallen into ill-repute. This was true. His people thought him a warlock and feared and hated him.
When twenty years later, in the days of the great witch-hunting and hanging in Salem, Mr. Zelley himself came to be tried, John Ackes was commanded to tell the Court (if he could remember) of what it was the witch and the warlock had talked through those long hours they had sat side by side upon the witch’s straw bed. He testified (swearing to his truth upon the Bible) that they talked but little. Zelley’s head was forever in his hands. He did not see the witch-woman’s face—nor her eyes. He did not see how constantly she gaped at empty corners; how she smiled and nodded into space; how sometimes she would close her eyes and raise her mouth for the empty air to kiss. All this she did behind Mr. Zelley’s back. They asked John Ackes if Mr. Zelley made no attempt to save the woman’s soul. No, he only sat. Sometimes he talked a little to Doll and sometimes he talked to one whom he designated as ‘god.’ But he did not really pray at all—not as Mr. Mather prayed—him you could hear through stone walls and up and down the street. The crowd would gather outside the jail when Mr. Mather prayed. He was a most fearful and righteous suppliant before the Throne of God. After his prayers the wonder was no lightning came to destroy the young witch where she sat—grimacing and leering at spectres. When one considered Mr. Mather, one could not say that Zelley prayed at all.
However, it was true that Zelley would sometimes seem to beg Doll Bilby to turn to God before it was too late. She would always explain to him that she wanted no other God than Lucifer and no Heaven, for where her parents were and her foster father and her dear husband—there with them was her Paradise, not in Heaven with the cold angels singing psalms forever to an angry and awful God; not in Heaven where doubtless Hannah Bilby would be found and all her cruel neighbours—no, no, a thousand times no. Hell was her true home—her Paradise.
Sometimes he would read to her from a stout big book, and John Ackes swore he thought it was a Bible, although it was possible that the book was a book of magic—perhaps this was even probable. Still the stories he read to her from this book sounded to him like Bible stories. What would he read to her? He read to her of Mary of Magdala, how she laid her head upon our Saviour’s feet and wiped them with her hair. He read to her the holy promises of John. It was evident, said John Ackes, that Zelley was not for a long time conscious of the fiend which lurked forever in the witch’s cell.
Towards the end no one but Mr. Zelley dared go to her dungeon. They were all afraid. It was remembered and marked against him that, where other and more godly men felt fear, he felt no fear. At last even Mr. Zelley knew that he and the witch were never alone. There was another and more awful presence about.
Now he would look up quickly from his reading and catch her eyes as they sought those of some one or something close behind his own shoulder. When their eyes met, she would smile so softly and happily he knew that the invisible presence must be that of the one she loved. Mr. Zelley confessed that this consciousness of a third and unseen party in the cell sadly upset and confused him. He sweated, he could not read. One afternoon she gave him such close attention he decided that the fiend had left, so he closed his book and asked her abruptly if her demon lover had come back again. She was surprised that he asked this question. ‘Of course he is back,’ she said. ‘Now he will not leave me until the end.’ It was not he, she said, whom the Thumb twins saw at the trial, and Doll again wickedly said that perhaps that creature had been an angel. ‘My fiend never came near me as I stood all day on trial. Now he has sworn to stay with me. If I go to Gallows Hill, he will go with me. If I die here first, he will hold my hands.’
Zelley asked her if she could really see this demon. For instance, was he at that very moment in the room? Oh, yes. He sat yonder by the cupboard. His head, she said, rested upon his bosom. ‘Last night I had a fearful fit of terror. I thought I could not face the gallows. He held me in his arms and sang to me until sunrise. Now he sleeps.’
‘Is he now in seaman’s clothes and has he the likeness of proper man?’ (Mr. Zelley whispered. He feared to wake the demon.)