heartless jailors.

A few hours before the time set for execution, young Orcutt sailed into
the harbor, and before daybreak he was at the house. Here he learned for
the first time the awful calamity which had befallen his sweetheart in
his absence. At 7 o'clock he was allowed to enter the jail, with the
convicted girl's sister. At the prison door they were informed that the
wicked girl had died during the night. Knowing that there was no hope
under any circumstances of the sentence being remitted, the bereaved
ones regarded the news as good, and although they broke down with grief
at the shipwreck of their lives, they both realized that, to use the
devout words of the victim's sister, "The Lord had delivered her from
the hands of her enemies."

The record of brutality in connection with the witch agitation might be
continued almost without limit, for the number of victims was very
great. Visitors to Danvers to-day are often shown by local guides where
some of the tragedies of the persecution were committed. The
superstition was finally driven away by educational enlightenment, and
it seems astounding that it lasted as long as it did. Two hundred years
have nearly elapsed since the craze died out, and it is but charitable
to admit, that although many of the witnesses must have been corrupt and
perjured, the majority of those connected with the cases were thoroughly
in earnest, and that although they rejoiced at the undoing of the
ungodly, they regretted very much being made the instruments of that
undoing.