The woman's business was evidently a paying one; the interior of her
house was conspicuously superior to the wretched hovels which surrounded
it, in the poorest and most squalid part of the town. Outside, indeed,
it differed little from its neighbors; in fact; it was intentionally
neglected, to mislead the authorities, for witchcraft and the practice of
magic arts were under the penalty of death. But the fittings of the
roofless centre-chamber in which she was wont to perform her incantations
and divinations argued no small outlay. On the walls were hangings with
occult figures; the pillars were painted with weird and grewsome
pictures; crucibles and cauldrons of various sizes were simmering over
braziers on little altars; on the shelves and tables stood cups, phials,
and vases, a wheel on which a wryneck hopped up and down, wax images of
men and women--some with needles through their hearts, a cage full of
bats, and glass jars containing spiders, frogs, leeches, beetles,
scorpions, centipedes and other foul creatures; and lengthways down the
room was stretched a short rope walk, used in a Thracian form of magic.
Perfumes and pungent vapors filled the air, and from behind a curtain
which hid the performers came a monotonous music of children's voices,
bells, and dull drumming.

Medea, so the wise woman was called, though scarcely past five and forty,
harmonized in appearance with this strange habitation, full as it was of
objects calculated to rouse repulsion, dread, and amazement. Her face
was pale, and her extraordinary height was increased by a mass of coal-
black hair, curled high over a comb at the very top of her head.

At the end of the first visit paid her by the two young women, who had
taken her by surprise, so that several things were lacking which on the
second occasion proved to be very effective in the exercise of her art,