Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/128

 time. Upon which clear proof of her malicious mendacity, the court merely bade the sinful and falsified witness "to tell them no more lies;" and after this plain exposure of her guilt, she was still used as a witness against the unhappy prisoners.

It has also been recorded that at the execution of this Sarah Good, Mr. Noyes, the Salem minister—whose zeal certainly outran his discretion—followed the wretched woman even to the gallows, vehemently urging her to confess, and calling out to her, "You are a witch, and you know you are a witch." But "the trodden worm will turn at last," and, conscious of her own innocence of the dreadful crime, and maddened to desperation by his false and cruel accusations at such a moment, standing upon the very verge of that world where there is no respect of persons, the miserable creature cried out in frenzy from the steps of the ladder, "You are a liar! I am no more of a witch than you are a wizard; and, as you take away my innocent life, may God give you blood to drink!"

When, nearly twenty-four years after, Mr.