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212 Twardowski saw that he could not escape; so he laid the infant in the cradle, and disappeared with his terrible companion up the chimney. The flock of crows and owls screamed with joy. But Twardowski, although carried with great rapidity into the air, did not lose his consciousness or presence of mind. He was borne up so high that villages appeared no bigger than gnats, towns looked of the size of flies, and Cracow itself like two spiders. He looked down upon the earth, and sorrow filled his heart. There he had left all that was dear to him. When he had arrived at a height which neither the hawk nor the Carpathian eagle ever attained, he made a tremendous effort, and in a weak voice began to sing a hymn. It was a hymn to the Virgin Mary which he had composed when he was young and innocent. He knew nothing then of the Black Art, and used to sing the hymn daily. Although he sang with all the strength he possessed, his voice seemed lost in the air. But some shepherds who were tending their flocks on the mountain side, just beneath him, heard the hymn, and looked up, wondering, into the sky to learn whence came those sacred words; for his voice, instead of ascending and being lost in the air, descended to the earth, that human souls might hear it. Twardowski sang the hymn to the end, and found to his astonishment that his upward flight was arrested, and that he remained