Читать книгу Ye Lyttle Salem Maide. A Story of Witchcraft онлайн

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The sky, lately so blue, grew leaden gray. So dark it became, that but few could see to read the psalms. Thunder as yet distant could be heard, and the roaring of the wind in the tree-tops, and ever in the pauses of the storm, the ominous booming of the ocean.

The watchman came inside. The tithing-man closed and bolted the great door.

The minister prayed fervently for mercy. None present but believed that an assault of the demons upon God’s house was about to be made.

The rain began to fall heavily, beating in at places through the rafters. Flashes of lightning would illumine the church, now bringing into vivid relief the row of judges, now the scarlet-coated soldiers, or the golden head of a child and its terror-stricken mother, again playing on and about the pulpit where the impassioned minister, his face ghastly above his black vestments, called unceasingly upon the Lord for succour.

The building was shaken to its foundations. Still to an heroic degree the people maintained their self-control.