One of the magistrates spoke: “No woman ever yet was beautiful and clever both at one time. If she be the one, she cannot be the other. This young woman, being both, is clearly a witch!”
“She’s a witch—worse than the other!” screamed another of the witnesses. “Condemn her! Condemn her!”
“Oh, Grandther,” cried Garde, “take me away from these terrible men!”
Randolph now came sneaking forth, out of the shadow.
“This is that same young woman,” he cried, “who lost the colony its charter!”
“The charter!” screamed David Donner, instantly a maniac. “The charter! She lost us the charter! Witch! The charter! Condemn her! Kill her! The charter! She! She! She! Kill her!—Where is she? The charter! The charter! The charter!”
With his two bony, palsied hands raised high above his head, like fearful talons, with his white hair awry over his brow, with his eyes blazing with maniacal fire, the old man had suddenly stood up and now he came staggering forward, screaming in a blood-chilling voice and making such an apparition of horror that the men fell backward from his path.
“Oh Grandther! Grandther!” cried Garde, holding forth her arms and going toward him, to catch him as she saw him come stumbling toward her.
“Witch!” screamed the old man shrilly. “Kill her! Kill her! I never coerced her! The charter! Witch! Witch! The charter!”
He suddenly choked. He clutched at his heart in a wild, spasmodic manner, and with froth bursting from his lips, he fell headlong to the floor and was dead.