"The more mischief the better," rejoined another voice.
"Ay, mischief! mischief! mischief!" echoed the rest of the crew.
"You shall have enough of it to content you," rejoined Mother Demdike. "I have called you hither to be present at a sacrifice."
Hideous screams of laughter followed this announcement, and the voice that had spoken first asked—
"A sacrifice of whom?"
"An unbaptised babe, stolen from its sleeping mother's breast," rejoined another. "Mother Demdike has often played that trick before—ho! ho!"
"Peace!" thundered the hag—"It is no babe I am about to kill, but a full-grown maid—ay, and one of rarest beauty, too. What think ye of Alizon Device?"
"Thy grand-daughter!" cried several voices, in surprise.
"Alice Nutter's daughter—for such she is," rejoined the hag. "I have held her captive in Malkin Tower, and have subjected her to every trial and temptation I could devise, but I have failed in shaking her courage, or in winning her over to our master. All the horrors of the vault have been tried upon her in vain. Even the last terrible ordeal, which no one has hitherto sustained, proved ineffectual. She went through it unmoved."
"Heaven be praised!" murmured Richard.