"I have no fear of you, Mr. Martin," cried Charles Stevens, turning on the tall, swarthy southerner a glance which made him quail. "Your profession is brutality. You are a stranger to mercy; yet I will defy you. I fear you not, and, if you seek my life, you had better take heed for your own."
Charles boldly walked away, leaving the discomfited Virginian to fume and rage alone. The shades of night were falling fast over the village of Salem, as Charles hurried homeward, and he was amazed as he came in sight of the house, to see a great throng of people going away from the door. The young man quickened his pace, hardly knowing whether he was asleep or awake. A negro slave came running toward him crying:
"Massa! Massa! Massa!"
"What has happened?" asked Charles.
"Um tuk um away! Dey tuk um off!"
"Who?"
"Yo mudder."
"My mother! Oh, God!" Charles Stevens ran swift as a roe buck toward the crowd, which had now almost reached the jail.
"What does this mean?" he demanded of John Bly, whom he met near the jail.
"Your mother is a witch," Bly answered.