"Of course!" angrily exclaimed the chair, "I'll warrant the knave never dreamed that Sanctus Ladislaus rex would drag him by the hair of his head out of limbo!—Let it be added to the rest of the miracles performed by Saint Ladislas!"
PART XI.
IN SATAN'S REALM.
CHAPTER I.
THE SATYRS.
Not until the shadows of night had settled around me did I learn into what an accursed region I had strayed. It was the notorious "kempenei"—the rendezvous of witches and all evil spirits.
When it became quite dark, the jack-o'-lanterns began to flit over the moor—as if the witches were dancing a minuet; and suddenly I heard a tumult of shrieks and yells, and looking upward I beheld the most repulsive lot of females it has ever been the lot of man to see.
They had hairy chins; and huge warts on their noses. They came rushing through the air, seated on the shoulders of pallid-faced male forms. Each hag hung her mount by the bridle around his neck to a limb of one of the dead trees, and clapped her heels three times together before she descended to the ground. Then the witches held a council, and each one detailed the evil she had perpetrated the past twenty-four hours. I heard one say boastfully:
"I sent an angry woman running after her cap, which her husband had thrown on the quicksands, and I let her sink to her death. The man escaped—"
Here her sister-witches fell on her and beat her with switches, because she had allowed a man to escape from her.