But I could not remain where I was, so I clambered down the buttress, and fled away." "Can this be ?" cried the abbot, who had listened in rapt wonderment to the narration.

"Two years after your immurement in the cell, the food having been for some time untouched, the wall was opened, and upon the pallet was found a decayed carcase in mouldering, monkish vestments." "It was a body taken from the charnel, and placed there by the demon," replied the monk.

"Of my long wanderings in other lands and beneath brighter skies I need not tell you; but neither absence nor lapse of years cooled my desire of vengeance, and when the appointed time drew nigh I returned to my own country, and came hither in a lowly garb, under the name of Nicholas Demdike." "Ha!" exclaimed the abbot.
"I went to Pendle Hill, as directed," pursued the monk, "and saw the Dark Shape there as I beheld it on the dormitory roof.

All things were then told me, and I learnt how the late rebellion should rise, and how it should be crushed.

I learnt also how my vengeance should be satisfied." Paslew groaned aloud.