The Argosy — page 233: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

214 Caterina. nook; Vrow Stimms from her sick child’s bed; Vanessa from her flirting ; Hansel from his drinking ; all the neighbours to their doors. ‘ And if the girl knows what is happening to our men, how does she know it?” growled Van Rennen. “ Not in any lawful or Christian manner, I’ll be bound.” | “No, mynheer, no ; but by the help of Satan, the roaring lion that goeth about seeking whom he may devour. If the girl knows more than their mightinesses, the States-General, know about the Ovange, she knows it by aid of the foul fiend.” “<Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Where are those words written? JI ask ye that,” croaked an ancient man, bent double over his staff, with palsied head covered with a rusty skull cap—a man who had spent years in prison in his youth, and had narrowly escaped the stake for his’ devotion to the book from which he had just quoted. “You're right,” croaked another ancient voice, and Truda, who had slipped out when she removed her master’s dishes after dinner, crept noiselessly behind the speakers. ‘Ay, Father Stinsen, ay,” and it was the voice of hatred that spoke, “thou art right. It is writ in Holy Scripture, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But what witch? Not poor Teresa, our neighbours’ child. No, she is but the victim. The real witch is at my master’s side—the sorceress that robbed ‘me of my place in that house, and told me she was mistress, and I nothing but a servant. Ay, she sits there smiling like an angel, but for all that, and for all the respect she gets from their mightinesses because she is Captain Heemskerk’s wife, I know what I know—TI see what I see,” and she shook her head, and gnashed her broken teeth. There chanced to be a crack in the glass of the lantern that swung overhead, and at that instant a sudden gust extinguished the light, and the frightened people were left in gloom. A yell of terror burst from the superstitious crowd, and they stumbled against each other in their anxiety to reach the shelter of their roofs. Not a soul in the Haagstraat but felt that the Enemy of Mankind was in their midst. Teresa’s father had heard something of what was said, enough to fill him with terror, and he went home in a desperate state of mind, as usual disposed to vent his anger upon his wife. ‘“What’s this, Babette, what’s this?” he cried in a savage tone, alarm and rage mingled. ‘Why do they gossip about our girl? What has she been doing ?” “Doing, Hans? ‘Nothing under the sun but idling her time with the young mistress,” replied Vrow Steen, growing pale, and shrinking from his angry face which was poked close to hers. “Fool! That’s not what I mean. What has the child done to make people call her a witch?” He dropped his voice at the dreadful word. The mother shuddered. She had succeeded in hiding her fears from him up to comicbooks.com *