“You deny them?”

“All!”

“Proceed,” said Charmolue to Pierrat.

Pierrat turned the screw, the boot tightened, and the victim uttered one of those horrible screams which have no written equivalent in any human language.

“Stop!” said Charmolue to Pierrat. “Do you confess?” said he to the girl.

“All,” cried the wretched girl. “I confess! I confess! Mercy!”

She had overestimated her forces in braving the torture. Poor child! life had hitherto been so joyous, so pleasant, so sweet, the first pang of agony had overcome her!

“Humanity obliges me to tell you,” observed the King’s attorney, “that in confessing, you have only death to look forward to.”

“I hope but for that!” said she, and fell back again on the leather bed, a lifeless heap, hanging doubled over the strap buckled round her waist.

“Hold up, my pretty!” said Maître Pierrat, raising her. “You look like the golden sheep that hangs round the neck of Monsieur of Burgundy.”

Jacques Charmolue raised his voice. “Clerk, write this down. Gipsy girl, you confess your participation in the love-feasts, Sabbaths, and orgies of hell, in company with evil spirits, witches, and ghouls? Answer!”

“Yes,” she breathed faintly.

“You admit having seen the ram which Beelzebub causes to appear in the clouds as a signal for the Sabbath, and which is only visible to witches?”

“Yes.”

“You confess to having adored the heads of Bophomet, those abominable idols of the Templars?”

“Yes.”

“To having had familiar intercourse with the devil under the form of a pet goat, included in the prosecution?”

“Yes.”

“Finally, you admit and confess to having, on the night of the twenty-ninth of March last, with the assistance of the demon and of the phantom commonly called the spectre-monk, wounded and assassinated a captain named Phœbus de Châteaupers?”

She raised her glazed eyes to the magistrate and answered mechanically, without a quiver of emotion, “Yes.” It was evident that her whole being was crushed.

“Take that down,” said Charmolue to the clerk. Then, turning to the torturer, “Let the prisoner be unbound and taken back to the court.”

When the prisoner was “unbooted,” the procurator of the Ecclesiastical Court examined her foot, still paralyzed with pain. “Come,” said he, “there’s no great harm done. You cried out in time. You could still dance, ma belle!”