From his pocket the old yeoman carefully drew a small bottle filled with a black liquid, and, in his shaking hand, extended it to the judge nearest him.
Solemnly the judge took it and drew out the cork.
“It has the smell of milk,” he said, “but milk which has clabbered;” and he passed it to his neighbour.
“It has the look of clabbered milk,” assented the second judge.
“Beshrew me, but it is clabbered milk,” asserted the third judge; “methinks ’twould be wisdom to keep the bottle corked, lest the once good milk, now a malignant fluid, be spilled on one of us and a tiny drop do great evil.”
Thus the bottle was passed from one judicial nose to the other, and then given to the Beadle, who set it carefully on the table.
There may be seen to this day in Salem a bottle containing the pins which were drawn from the bodies of those who were victims of witches. But the bottle which stood beside it for over a century was at last thrown away, as it was empty save for a few grains of some powder or dust. Little did they who flung it away realize that that pinch of grayish dust was the remains of the milk, which Satan, according to Bartholomew Stiles, had bewitched, and which was a large factor in securing the condemnation of Deliverance Wentworth.
The next witness was the minister who had conducted the services on the afternoon of that late memorable Sabbath, when the Devil had sought to destroy the meeting-house during a thunder-storm.
He testified to having seen the prisoner raise her eyes, as she entered the church in disgrace ahead of the tithing-man, and instantly an invisible demon, obeying her summons, tore down that part of the roof whereon her glance rested.
This evidence, further testified to by other witnesses, was in itself sufficient to condemn her.