Then they were shut up, each by herself, in the dark, and put on black bread and water, for ten days and nights; and by that time they were haggard and wild, and their eyes were dry and they did not cry any more, but only sat and mumbled, and would not take the food. Then one of them confessed, and said they had often ridden through the air on broomsticks to the witches' sabbath, and in a bleak place high up in the mountains had danced and drunk and caroused with several hundred other witches and with Satan, and all had conducted themselves in a scandalous way and had reviled the priests and blasphemed God. That is what she said – not in narrative form, for she was not able to remember any of the details without having them called to her mind one after the other; but the commission did that, for they knew just what questions to ask, they being all written down by the Pope for the use of witch-commissions two centuries before. They asked »Did you do so and so?« and she always said yes, and looked weary and tired and took no interest in it. And so when the other ten heard that this one had confessed, they confessed too, and answered yes to the questions. Then they were burnt at the stake all together, which was just and right; and everybody went from all the countryside to see it. I went, too; but when I saw that one of them was a bonny sweet girl I used to play with, and looked so pitiful there chained to the stake and her mother crying over her and devouring her with kisses and clinging around her neck and saying »Oh, my God! oh, my God!« it was too dreadful and I went away.

It was bitter cold weather when Gottfried's grandmother was burnt. It was charged that she had cured bad headaches by kneading the person's head and neck with her fingers – as she said – but really by the devil's help, as everybody knew. They were going to examine her, but she stopped them, and confessed straight off that her power was from the devil. So they appointed to burn her next morning early, in our market square. The officer who was to prepare the fire was there first, and prepared it. She was there next, – brought by the constables, who left her and went to fetch another witch. Her family did not come with her. They might be reviled, maybe stoned, if the people were excited. I came, and gave her an apple. She was squatting at the fire, warming herself, and waiting; and her old lips and hands were blue with the cold. A stranger came next. He was a traveler, passing through; and he spoke to her gently, and seeing nobody but me there to hear, said he was sorry for her. And he asked her if what she had confessed was true, and she said no. He looked surprised, and still more sorry, then, and asked her –

»Then why did you confess?«

»I am old and very poor,« she said, »and I work for my living. There was no way but to confess. If I hadn't, they might have set me free. That would ruin me; for no one would forget that I had been suspected of being a witch, and so I would get no more work, and wherever I went they would set the dogs on me. In a little while I should starve. The fire is best, it is soon over. You have been good to me, you two, and I thank you.«

She snuggled closer to the fire, and put out her hands to warm them, the snow-flakes descending soft and still on her old gray head and making it white and whiter. The crowd was gathering, now, and an egg came flying, and struck her in the eye, and broke and ran down her face. There was a laugh, at that.

I told Satan all about the eleven girls and the old woman, once, but it did not affect him. He only said it was the human race, and what the human race did was of no consequence. And he said he had seen it made; and it was not made of clay, it was made of mud – part of it was, anyway.