"Please do not tell anyone just now," protested the young man earnestly. "It may bring my good friend, Joseph Putnam, into trouble. And it would only make them all angrier than they are with Dulcibel."
"Dulcibel—that is a strange name. It is Italian—is it not."
"I judge so. It is a family name. I suppose there is Italian blood in the family. At least Mistress Dulcibel looks it."
"She does. She is very beautiful—of a kind of strange, fascinating beauty. I do not wonder she bewitched you. Was that serpent mark too from Italy?"
"I think it very likely."
"Perhaps she is descended from Cleopatra—and that is the mark left by the serpent on the famous queen's breast."
"I think it exceedingly probable," said Master Raymond. My readers will have observed before this, that he was an exceedingly polite and politic young man.
"Well, and so you want me to get Mistress Dulcibel, this witch descendant of that famous old witch, Cleopatra, out of prison?"
"I hoped that, from the well-known kindness of heart of your ladyship, you would be able to do something for us."
"You see the difficulty is simply here. I know that all these charges of witchcraft against such good, nice people as Captain Alden, Master and Mistress English, your betrothed Dulcibel, and a hundred others, are mere bigotry and superstition at the best, and sheer spite and maliciousness at the worst—but what can I do? Sir William owes his position to the Reverend Increase Mather—and, besides, not being a greatly learned man himself, is more impressed than he ought to be by the learning of the ministers and the lawyers. I tell him that a learned fool is the greatest fool alive; but still he is much puzzled. If he does not conform to the wishes of the ministers and the judges, who are able to lead the great majority of the people in any direction they choose, he will lose his position as Governor. Now, while this is not so much in itself, it will be a bar to his future advancement—for preferment does not often seek the men who fail, even when they fail from having superior wisdom and nobleness to the multitude."