Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/337



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CONCLUSION.

"Through all its varying scenes our tale has run— The story's ended, and the play is done; Let fall the curtain, and put out the light—  Then, 'exeunt omnes'—and to all 'good-night.'"

And now, having disposed of the more important dramatis personæ of our story, but little more remains to bring it to its conclusion.

The terrible delusion of witchcraft, upon which this narrative is founded, had a sudden rise, but it had a still more sudden termination; the monstrous evil had sprung up and swelled, until it burst by the innate force of its own virulence; it was like one of those vile poisonous fungi which spring up in a night, scattering sickness and death around, and disappear forever.

Perhaps the wretched girls who figured so