coach and had not marked him. May be this was true! And I am therefore
inclined to think that it was Satan himself who did it to mock at us; for
mark, for God's sake, what happened to us on the Streckelberg! Alas!
through the delusions of the foul fiend, we could not find the spot where
we had dug for the amber. For when we came to where we thought it must be,
a huge hill of sand had been heaped up as by a whirlwind, and the
fir-twigs which my child had covered over it were gone. She was near
falling in a swound when she saw this, and wrung her hands and cried out
with her Saviour, "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me!"

Howbeit, the constable and the coachman were ordered to dig, but not one
bit of amber was to be found, even so big as a grain of corn, whereupon
_Dom. Consul_ shook his head and violently upbraided my child. And when I
answered that Satan himself, as it seemed, had filled up the hollow in
order to bring us altogether into his power, the constable was ordered to
fetch a long stake out of the coppice which we might thrust still deeper
into the sand. But no hard _objectum_ was anywhere to be felt,
notwithstanding the Sheriff, _Dom. Consul_, and myself in my anguish did
try everywhere with the stake.

Hereupon my child besought her judges to go with her to Coserow, where she
still had much amber in her coffer which she had found here, and that if
it were the gift of the devil it would all be changed, since it was well
known that all the presents the devil makes to witches straightway turn to
mud and ashes.

But, God be merciful to us, God be merciful to us! when we returned to
Coserow, amid the wonderment of all the village, and my daughter went to
her coffer, the things therein were all tossed about, and the amber gone.
Hereupon she shrieked so loud that it would have softened a stone, and