My captors placed me on the floor with no gentle hands, and went away. Some of the prisoners, however, lifted me up on a bench, so that I was more comfortable in body, though not so much so in mind.
It needed but a little thought to tell me how the matters that had lately transpired had come about. I knew that Sir George at the present time did not dare to urge the old charge of treason against me because of my present loyalty to the King and the Colony. He was afraid to fight, I believed, and, desiring revenge for my blow, and at the same time to see me removed from where I might meet Lucille, he had hit upon this plan to have me killed as a witch. And his plot was like to work well.
I recalled what Willis had told me of the state of people’s minds in regard to those suspected of witchcraft. I could realize what it meant now. Though had I not seen some of the things I did I would not have believed them.
I saw men and women in that gaol, who had been among the best liked of the townspeople. Colonists of wealth, delicate mothers and men of culture were there, herded together like sheep, and treated like common felons. It was enough to make me cry out for shame for my countrymen, who could be so deluded and deceived. I forgot my own plight to see so many waiting to be sacrificed, for what afterward proved to be a most terrible error. Aye, it was many years ere the black memory of Salem witchcraft of 1692 was forgotten.
Among the prisoners was Martha Cory, mother of my former Lieutenant. She cried when she saw me, and asked for tidings of her son. To my sorrow I could not give them, as Cory had been separated from me when we surrendered at Pemaquid, and I had not seen him since, though I told his mother I trusted he was safely exchanged.
George Reed was also a prisoner. He was a brother of one of my recruits who had fallen at the battle of St. Johns, and when I told the brother in gaol his sorrows were added to. Dorcas Goode was there, and Sarah Osborn, and Mary Warren; women whose sons or brothers had marched with me to the war. Some did not return, and if they but knew they might count themselves well off. Those were dark days, indeed, in Salem town.
Presently I called to the jailer, and, upon my promise that I would not try to escape, he loosened my bonds so I could walk and move about with some freedom. Now I was not minded to be executed as a witch, and I wanted all my strength, and nimbleness of limb, for whatever struggle there might be ahead. Greatly did I desire to be within sword’s length of Sir George Keith for a little while, and I resolved that I would give him but one chance to draw his weapon.
I went about among the prisoners, and soon engaged one of the guards in talk. From him, and from what I could piece out in my own mind, I learned how my arrest had been brought about. Sir George, after his meeting with me, had gone to the home of Justice Hathorne, and had sworn to a complaint as to my witch powers. It was easy to find others as witnesses to whom ordinary events by reason of the excitement in the Colony, had become much changed in meaning. So that in simple happenings such as the loss of a cow or a sheep, the witchcraft of some neighbor was discernible. Sir George had learned of Benjamin Proctor and John Bly, who each had lost a cow from some disease. He had suggested that I might be the witch who had worked evil spells upon the animals.
The two farmers, worrying over the loss of their cows, had eagerly seized on the explanation that I was the evil spirit responsible. Sir George had told how my strength was as the power of three men, though my body was not overly large. He had told of the great rock I had lifted after the mightiest man in the Colony had failed to budge it, and thus the charges against me had grown out of nothing.
The two farmers and Deliverance Hobbs, who was an old woman, scarce knowing what she said, were sure I was a person in league with the devil. So they had prayed the judge, through Sir George Keith, that I might be apprehended and brought to trial.