Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/83

 new-born pup, and, coolly severing the head of the blind and unresisting little victim, held the body above the flames, and let the blood drip over the hissing embers. Next the woman (forgive me, oh! ye of the softer sex) drew from the folds of her dress some rough wooden puppets, or effigies, bearing as much resemblance to human beings as do our modern clothes-pins; one by one she held them up silently before her husband's face, who regarded them gravely, and nodded to each one in succession, as if he had recognized or named it, and, as he did so, she thrust them one by one into the circling flames.

By this time it was nearly dark; a low, sobbing wind began to sweep among the branches, and the first great heavy drops of the approaching thunder-shower fell at distant intervals.

Then they both simultaneously threw themselves upon their knees, resting their foreheads upon the ground, while their hands were clasped, and extended upon the earth far beyond their heads—much as in pictures of the Syrian deserts we see pilgrims prostrating themselves before the terrible siroc