* See John de Fordun's "Scotichronicon."
"True, true," continued Redhall, incoherently; "and by a devilishly devised compact with this familiar, she assigned her soul to Satan for the powers given——"
"Proof?" said the doubting rector of Ashkirk; "where is this contract?"
"In the archives of hell—therefore, how can we produce it?"
The judge sat down silenced, and a cold smile flitted over the face of Redhall, whose usually impassible front the Cumæan sybil herself could not have read; but he looked anxiously at the abbot of Cambuskenneth.
"Would that I knew what is passing in thy bald head, thou shaven dotard!" thought he.
"Familiar spirits are usually black," said the president; "the vile imposter, Mahomet, had one in the shape of a black cock, which, when it crew, set all the cocks in the world crowing; and the Lord Hugh of Zester had a black demon named Gudeshovel, who dug for him his goblin hall beneath the surface of the earth. The unhappy prisoner having persisted in denying her guilt, I require a slight application of the torture, and an examination for the devil's mark, that the ends of justice may be duly satisfied."
Redhall, who had been but half prepared for this, felt his heart die within him, and he made a convulsive start.
"The torture! the torture! Oh, rather let me die! Holy abbot—my lords—I ask you not for pardon, because I am innocent. I think not of vengeance, because I am a woman—and though an earl's daughter and an earl's sistar, a poor and helpless one—but I implore death, because ye have dishonoured me by these accusations and by these bonds—cruelly and falsely dishonoured me. Put me to death, but not to the torture; for oh, I am weak, very weak, and will tell you anything. Let me die! let me die! Oh, save me, Sir Adam Otterburn—oh yes, everything—thou who hast done it all, save me from these frightful men!"
As Birrel and Sanders Screw approached the shrinking girl, with their stolid visages and huge hands, though half suffocated by sobs, she gave a low, wild cry of agony and horror, and closing her eyes, became perfectly passive. The judges looked on unmoved; a thrill pervaded the hearts of the people, and Redhall felt the perspiration trickle over his brow, though his blood ran cold through his veins.