Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/21

Rh be there again within this twelve months." And the prophecy was fulfilled. In less than half a year William was captured once more, this time by the Spaniards, and he was kept m confinement for twenty-five months. "Elizabeth Tompson", adds the record, "being examined upon these last speeches of her husband's oath, affirmeth them to be true."

William Tompson's sufferings inevitably bring us thoughts of a famous passage in Macbeth. The temptation to linger a moment over the comparison is not to be resisted. The witch in Shakspere had been flouted by the wife of the master of the Tiger. The ship has reached Aleppo in safety.

The horrid vagueness of these menacing words has misled many. "She threatens", runs the usual note, "in the shape of a rat, to gnaw through the hull of the Tiger and make her spring a leak." So one might imagine, were it not that the Weird Sister proceeds to interpret her own oracle in the plainest terms.

Nothing can be clearer than the witch's intentions. Arrived at Aleppo, she will take the shape of a rat in order to slip on board the Tiger unnoticed. This, and not to use her teeth, is the object of the transformation. Then she will bewitch the craft and lay a spell upon the captain. There is no question of scuttling the ship. The witch, as she tells us herself, controls the winds. She will make them contrary, so that the Tiger, though destined to reach port at last, shall be tossed about in storm and distress for nine times nine weeks, until the water is all gone and the provisions are exhausted. The master shall pine away with hunger and thirst and lack of sleep, until the full measure of vengeance is exacted. Then, and not till then, shall he come home to the fat, his wife, who denied the hag a chestnut and bade her begone for a foul witch. Alice Trevisard's revenge was equally swift and terrible—a fire at sea, an open boat, and a Spanish prison. Our document is of 1601,