San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-11-08

clutching armfuls of fagots,
came trudging from -the direction
of the huts.
"The hands that hold me shall
rot off at the wrist! The weaned
child shall sicken and dwindlei
Death on you-death on the born
and the unbornw
A woman, with disheveled, sun
bleached hair hanging on her
shoulders, shrieked piercingly,
clapped her hands to her sides and
fell to the ground. The faggot-
bearing children stopped in their
tracks. The grazing goats, who
nightly shared roof-shelter and
body-warmth with their masters,
raised their heads. With pan
icky, recoiling movement the clus-
ter of folk broke up, and Sidonia
standing petrified in the ex
quisite grip of the terror she had
run herself out of breath TO find
saw that from which the horrld
voice came.
II was no clawed and feathered
devil, horned and beaky, but lit
tie, tattered bag of woman, with
a wild head of ash-gray hair. She
was down on the ground, bent
double upon herself, her brittle
wrists grasped by couple of hairy
chested men whose corrugated
foreheads were dashed with sweat
and whose eyes were bloodshot.
Fire! Burn the witch before
she blasts us allp'-the scream of
woman who flung up her arms.
"Look! She's bewitched Meg
gimp
"Fire!'
"My girl has a ringworm as big
as platter since the witch looked
at herr
"She put barrenness on my pump
kin vinesw
"My man spoke to her, and
falling tree crushed him"
Burn her! Her eyes look
crosswaysw
Light the fire who's afraid?
The wood devils are stronger than
Satan-I'll kill a white cock fol
themr'
Bring firer'
"Firer'
Women beat their sun-browned
bodies with their clenched fists.
Knee-deep in the thinning bracken,
Sidonia looked on with the fixed
gaze of a sleep-walker.
A whimper came from the flesh
less crone.
"No-o-o! Not fire! I've done
nothing. | kiss the shoe of God.
Not fret burnsl OhLOh-
oop'
The Yaundering voice ended
with the ttemulous sound that a
kicked dog might have uttered.
Two inhuman ewes with a slight
cast in them, that had been blue
but were now reddish, peered left
and right. The eyebrows above
them were white and bristly.
A youth with a smoking faggot
came running from the hut-clus-
ter. Much scattered firing lay
about the stake. The holders of
the crone hauled her forward be-
tween them. Shrieks and screams
went up as though the mob of
witch-burners were themselves
licked by flames and the woman IN
a fit clawed at the sere grass.
"No-o-o! Not the fire it
burns! Oh-o-oLOh-o-ow
Something stirred in Sidonia
that did not seem to be herself
something winged. She moved
very quickly and found herself
right among the outcrying folk,
close to the stake.
"Stop!-you sha'n't burn her!
She can do nothing to hurt YOU
she's only mad. Are you stupid
as animals?"
1t didn't sound like her own
voice-it was so high and rapid.
A dead silence followed-eyery-
thing arrested in mid-movement.
Mouths that had been opened to
shout remained open. The smoke
from a hearth of embers in the
midst of the hut-cluster hung in
the air like a faint, blue-gray
cord. Then goat bleated in the
fringe of the forest.
cts a tree-maiden-I saw her
come out of the trunk of an oakw
"a wood-womanr'
Those nearest to Sidonia drew
back.
There was loud, braying laugh.
"Heri She didn't come from
no oak tree-no, sirs! She's Lame
Esa's girl-the witch's daughter"
A purple-faced pedler, with
frosty stubble of beard on jowl
and cheeks, shook jelly-wise with
mirth.. A long-haired dog, fantas-
tically eli. ped to resemble a little
lion with q nrofuSp mana Sat m,