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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58980 ***
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+                            A WITCH IN TIME
+
+                           BY HERB WILLIAMS
+
+            _If historians have ever pondered that eerie
+           and magical transformation of Abigaile Goodyeare,
+            that "faire young maide" who aged so before the
+            disbelieving eyes of gallows witnesses, mayhaps
+                    herein lies the answer...._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+             Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+    _I saw this faire young maide, Abigaile Goodyeare, standing yonder
+    on ye gallows and shee saith againe and againe that she was no
+    witch, although the jury had founde her guilty of ... familiarity
+    with Satan, the grand enemie of God & man; and that by his
+    instigation and help ... afflicted and done harm to the bodyes and
+    estates of sundry of his Majesties subjects...._
+
+    --WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY AMERICA
+    VOLUME II, CHAPTER 4
+
+Nat Lyon looked nervously at the girl huddled in the corner of the time
+machine. There were white streaks down her face where recent tears had
+washed off the grime of several days spent in a primitive jail.
+
+Her almost jet black hair was a tangled mess, hanging in strings to
+her shoulders. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the odor filling
+the small compartment. There was romance in history, he thought, when
+viewed in the abstract, but not when one faced history in the person of
+a female who had languished several days in an unsanitary prison.
+
+"Pray, Sir," she asked slowly, and so softly he scarcely heard her,
+"Art thou the Lord? Or one of His Angels?"
+
+Nat started to laugh, but she looked so pitiful he checked himself.
+"No, I'm a human being, just like yourself--except that I've never been
+accused of witchcraft!"
+
+A look of fear crossed her face. "Verily, I testify unto thee that I am
+no witch, but have the fear of God before mine eyes." She was almost
+frantic in her statement. She cringed farther into the corner. Nat
+noticed the raw wounds on her wrists where the irons had chafed her.
+
+"Sure, sure, I believe you," Nat said sharply. "They won't hang you
+now!" Then he added glumly, "But they'll probably do worse to me if
+they find out what _I've_ done!"
+
+She looked up at him, wonder in her deep blue eyes, her long lashes
+blinking slowly. Even her bedraggled appearance and the dirt that
+literally covered her could not hide from Nat the beauty of her eyes.
+"Then perhaps thou art an emissary of the Evil One, though thou hast a
+kind look to thy features that seemeth not to come of the Devil."
+
+This time Nat laughed. He had read the ancient records known as _books_
+but hearing someone talk in archaic _book_ fashion was too much. "That
+was quite a speech, Pretty Eyes. But get it through your head that I'm
+a normal human who had a momentary lapse and did an abnormal thing. I
+used the paralysis ray on wide range, stopped the show and hauled you
+off the gallows. Right now we're in a time machine headed for ... I'm
+not sure where."
+
+The girl forgot her fear in momentary puzzlement. "Paralysis ray?" she
+repeated slowly, "Stop the show? Time machine?"
+
+"Oh, skip it," he said. "What we need right now is a chance to get you
+cleaned up--and I think I know just the place. There's a pretty beach
+in 18th century Mexico. It's warm, and there's a fresh water stream
+running into the ocean. You can wash off some of that prison grime."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun beat down on Nat's blonde head as he sat on a rock overlooking
+a river mouth and several miles of Mexican beach. Abby--he'd finally
+discovered that her name was Abigaile Goodyeare--was behind a clump of
+bushes beside the stream, vainly trying to wash her voluminous clothing.
+
+Now that the shock and humor had passed, Nat was deeply worried. He
+couldn't take Abby back to his own time and announce that he hadn't the
+heart to see her hanged, on the other hand, he simply could not take
+her back to 17th century New England to be hanged for witchcraft. If he
+dropped her off in any other time, they'd think she was insane.
+
+Nat had been making a routine historical survey, part of the work on
+his thesis about life in 17th century New England. And on his first
+venture into time, he had ended up committing one of the most serious
+crimes possible in his society--Time Meddling.
+
+Earlier in the day, just before leaving Earth University in the 25th
+century, tall, ascetic Anton Bor, Chief of the Time Inspection Corps,
+had impressed on him the penalties for Time Meddling. Fixing Nat with
+cold grey eyes, Bor had recited the familiar warning in calculated
+tones: "At no time, and under no circumstance, are people in past ages
+to know they are being observed."
+
+It was Nat's first solo adventure into time, and his indoctrination, as
+thorough as it was, had not prepared him for the shock he experienced a
+few hours later.
+
+He had been completely unprepared for the scene that lay before his
+eyes as he came out of the thick woods into a clearing.
+
+A gallows had been erected on a mound in the center of the cleared
+space and a large crowd had gathered to watch what seemed to be an
+execution.
+
+Checking his invisibility shield, Nat moved closer.
+
+A tall, gaunt man, with a look of righteous wrath on his face was
+reading from a scroll. Except for his clothing, the man looked exactly
+like Anton Bor, Chief of the TIC. Nat shook his head in disbelief, but
+strained his ears to hear what the man was reading.
+
+"... she was found guilty of felonyes and witchcrafts whereof she stood
+indicted and sentence of death accordingly passed that she be hanged by
+the neck until she be dead...."
+
+Nat tore his eyes from the man with the scroll and looked at the
+_witch_.
+
+He gasped audibly at what he saw, so that several people nearby looked
+curiously around. Realizing his error, he stood completely still until
+the people he had disturbed turned their attention back to the gallows.
+
+Again he looked at the woman. She was no half insane old hag, a
+busybody who had meddled her way into a witchcraft trial, but a
+bewildered, fearful young woman who couldn't have been more than 18 or
+19 years old.
+
+Her hands were tied behind her back, pulling her bulky dress tight
+across her bosom. Her tangled, matted, black hair, the dirt on her
+face, her wrinkled disheveled clothing could not hide a great natural
+beauty.
+
+But what affected Nat most, was the look on her face. It was that of a
+frightened, helpless animal, cornered by a vicious, heartless predator.
+
+The self-righteous bearing of the tall man, the lack of sympathy and
+idle curiosity mirrored in the faces of the crowd infuriated Nat.
+
+Impulsively he had used his paralysis ray, an instrument that was
+designed only as a last resort when a time traveler needed to beat a
+quick retreat unnoticed. While the entire gathering was in a suspended
+state, he had carried Abby away from the gallows, and clocked away in
+the time machine.
+
+Now, completely confused, he was sitting worriedly in the warm sunshine
+of 18th century Mexico, wondering what to do.
+
+Abby's approach broke his reverie. She seemed almost lost in one of his
+spare one-piece coveralls. She was carrying her own garments, dripping
+wet, on her arm. In modesty she had put her own quaint shoes on again.
+
+Her dark hair curled wetly about her shoulders, and the exertion of
+bathing and washing her clothing had left a becoming flush on her
+cheeks.
+
+"Feel better, Abby?" he asked in a light-hearted manner he didn't feel.
+
+"Verily, thou art a strange one," she answered, lowering her eyes in
+an almost obsequious manner. "Though the way thou useth the diminutive
+of my name is pleasant to my ear."
+
+"Well, your pretty face is pleasant to my _eyes_, but it's certainly
+gotten me into a lot of trouble," Nat answered gruffly.
+
+She looked downcast. "Truly I'm contrite if I have caused thee
+trouble." The penitent look on her face melted Nat's irritability.
+
+"Let's eat," he said quickly. "You must be hungry. And while you eat,
+I'll try to explain what happened and maybe figure out what to do."
+
+A week passed, and Nat still was undecided. He was puzzled by a strange
+restlessness that nagged at him constantly.
+
+That is, he was puzzled until the first time he kissed her.
+
+The difference in their backgrounds was vast. They were separated by
+centuries of time. But now, thrown together, facing a common fear of
+the past and the future, there could be only one outcome.
+
+At the end of the first week, they were sitting on opposite sides of a
+beach fire. A soft breeze, blowing off the water, added a chill to the
+evening air. Abby rose to put another log on the fire. Nat stood up
+quickly to help her.
+
+"Let me lift that, Abby," he said with an air of protection. "It's
+pretty heavy."
+
+"Please, no," she answered in her quaint way. "'Tis nothing. I have
+lifted heavier burdens than this many times."
+
+He put his hand on her wrist. It was the first time he had touched her
+since he had carried her from the gallows. For the past week he had
+been so preoccupied he had hardly noticed her as she had gone quietly
+about their impromptu camp, cooking the wild game and fish he had
+caught with his paralysis ray.
+
+The feel of her soft, warm wrist in his hand thrilled him. His voice
+suddenly left him, as he consciously realized for the first time how
+beautiful she was. Her fresh innocence, her complexion, freshly tanned
+by the Southern sun, seemed to fill his entire being. He drew her
+close, kissed her full lips.
+
+Because of her Puritan heritage, she exhibited surprise.
+
+"Verily, Nathanial Lyon, my people would frown on an embrace like
+this." Then she whispered, "But I find it most pleasant, because I have
+grown so very fond of thee." With that she threw her arms around him
+and pressed her lips to his.
+
+Time lost its meaning, and they stood for uncounted minutes. At last
+she shivered. "I feel a chill, dear Nat."
+
+"No wonder, darling," he whispered. "We've been standing here so long
+the fire has gone out."
+
+That night Nat made his decision. "I can't take you back to be hanged,
+Abby," he said tenderly. "But at the same time I can't go back to my
+own time, they'd do worse than that to me."
+
+"I understand not this time travel," Abby said thoughtfully. "If thou
+canst send this device to any time of thy choosing, couldst thou not
+spend months, or even years away and _still_ get back to your own time
+when thou art expected?"
+
+"That's it, Abby, that's it!" Nat shouted, jumping to his feet. "We'll
+stay away a lifetime. And when we take the machine back, they won't
+be able to do anything that matters because we'll have had our life
+together! Or better yet, we'll never go back at all!"
+
+Suddenly he sobered, dropped back to the ground beside her, taking her
+hands in his. "That is, if you'll marry me, Abby darling."
+
+"Why, Nathanial," she answered without a flicker of a smile. "That was
+all settled when first I yielded to thy embrace."
+
+Nat's mouth dropped open, then he laughed, as he remembered his studies
+of the customs and morals of Abby's time.
+
+"Abby, verily thou art priceless," he said delightedly in her own
+speech.
+
+She gave her opinion of him, silently ... with her lips.
+
+"Abby," Nat finally whispered, "I'm going to give you the best
+honeymoon a woman ever had."
+
+"Honeymoon? Of a truth, I know not of what thou speakest."
+
+Nat chuckled, then kissed the end of her pert nose. "You'll see, my
+love, you'll see. But first we have to make you Mrs. Nathanial Lyon.
+There was a time, right after the Third World War, when marriage
+was easy, with no questions asked. So right now, it's off to the
+disorganized world of the late 20th century."
+
+And so began one of the strangest honeymoons in the history of Earth's
+human race.
+
+Nat and Abby were unseen observers when Pericles ruled Greece. They
+visited the court of Charlemagne, walked through the streets of Rome
+at the height of its splendor, viewed the glories and wickedness of
+Babylon and Baghdad, watched the artisans of old Cathay.
+
+But fate chose their honeymoon as the time of their undoing.
+
+Nat had believed they would be safe for the rest of their lives. He
+knew that detection of the time machine was virtually impossible
+unless their full dimensional destination were known to the TIC ...
+assuming that he had been missed in the 25th century, which he believed
+unlikely. Sealed chronometers, installed by the TIC, would give him
+away if he ever returned the time machine to base. But premature
+discovery need be the only worry now.
+
+As he had explained to Abby, "The power plant in these things gives off
+traceable radiation, provided the tracer gets close enough. But right
+now, tracing us would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. All
+we've got to watch out for is another time machine with someone aboard
+who might have reason to be suspicious of us."
+
+And it happened just that way as they sat watching the original first
+night of a Shakespeare play. Another time machine controlled by an
+Arts student from Earth University appeared in an adjoining balcony.
+Nat flicked his machine to full power--too late! The student, an
+acquaintance of Nat's, had nodded in recognition.
+
+Clocking away, Nat couldn't avoid a glum comment. "Well, the TIC
+probably will be after us in full force now."
+
+Abby studied Nat's face. "Darling," she said, "Let's settle down. Why
+need we travel at all?"
+
+Her calm erased Nat's concern. "We'll do it!" he exclaimed, confident
+again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat parked his new model T Ford in the garage. He walked quickly into
+the kitchen, kissed his wife. It was no perfunctory peck so much the
+practice in the times in which they lived, but a tender, passionate
+embrace, as if it might be their last.
+
+"Nat, there's been someone around the house today. I'm worried," Abby
+finally said.
+
+The muscles in his stomach tightened. "Maybe they've traced us. What
+did he look like?"
+
+"He was tall, severe, in fact he could almost pass for old Jonathan
+Borden, the man who was in charge of my execution, the man who read the
+charges against me."
+
+"Anton Bor!" Nat said hoarsely. "The head man of the TIC!"
+
+Abby threw her arms around Nat, buried her head in his shoulder. Her
+arms held him with desperation. "Oh darling, we've been so happy these
+past five years. They can't separate us. I'd rather die first!"
+
+He tipped her head back, kissed the tears that had trickled down each
+cheek. "If they catch us, we'll probably both die. But at least we're
+ready for them."
+
+He was interrupted by a knock on the door. Through the front curtains
+he glimpsed a car in front of the house. A hasty look out the back
+revealed another one parked in the alley.
+
+"Quick, Abby, into the basement before they use a paralysis ray," he
+whispered. Aloud he shouted, "Just a moment!" to the person at the
+front door.
+
+With nervous fingers Nat unlocked a heavily reinforced door in the
+basement. He heard a crash upstairs as the front door was battered in.
+At almost the same instant he swung the door open and they stepped
+into the time machine. With movements they had practiced many times,
+he tripped the activating lever and the machine vanished, leaving the
+hiding place Nat had built around the machine after they had bought the
+house several years earlier.
+
+They weren't a moment too soon, for both felt the slight tingling of a
+paralysis ray. Their departure had occurred just at the split second
+when one of Bor's TIC men had pushed the firing stud. Even so, it
+clouded Nat's vision, slowed his reflexes.
+
+"Another second and they'd have had us, Abby," he said aloud, after he
+had returned to normal.
+
+She pressed her lips to his. "I hated to leave 1925, but we can start
+over again wherever you say," Abby whispered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The surf crashed and boomed on the coral reef. Nat lay in the shade of
+a cocoanut palm, watching the white clouds scudding by overhead.
+
+Abby came walking down the beach towards him, tanned a deep brown from
+head to foot, dressed as the Polynesians had dressed before Captain
+Cook had discovered them.
+
+"You're every bit as beautiful as the women described in the old tales
+of the South Sea Islands," Nat said as she sat down beside him.
+
+"And you're as big a flatterer as any sailor who ever told those
+stories," she answered, although she was pleased by his admiration. She
+lay back, stretched her hands over her head with a happy look on her
+face. "I'm 30 years old and don't compare to our young neighbors on the
+other islands."
+
+Nat rolled over, putting an arm across her waist, kissed her tenderly.
+"I'm the luckiest man in the world," he whispered.
+
+She looked up, her blue eyes serious. "You don't regret giving up all
+you had in your own time?"
+
+"I didn't know what true happiness was," he answered firmly. "People
+in the 25th century are automatons, hemmed in by rules, regulations,
+regimented by necessity because there are so many billions on the
+planet."
+
+He kissed her again, as the warm trade winds ruffled her dark hair--and
+they forgot about time.
+
+But they didn't have real peace of mind. Fear of the TIC and the
+tenaciousness of Anton Bor was always present.
+
+Nat and Abby had learned the language thoroughly through the time
+machine's hypno-translator, then picked an uninhabited little island
+in the atoll. After weeks of sun bathing, they had let themselves be
+discovered by the natives in their outrigger canoes.
+
+The natives quietly accepted Nat and Abby as slightly different, but
+members of their informal society, for it was inconceivable to them
+that any but their own kind could be living on one of the atolls.
+
+"This is a heavenly life," Abby sighed, stretching out on the sand one
+day. "Cocoanuts, breadfruit, seafood, all for the taking. I'll hate to
+leave it."
+
+"But I'm afraid we must," Nat said slowly, "And soon, too. We don't
+dare stay too long in one place."
+
+From the islands, Nat and Abby drifted on from century to century,
+usually stopping in post-war periods when both governments and
+populations were preoccupied with constructive social progress.
+
+It was during the American reconstruction period following World War
+III that they again were tracked down by the TIC.
+
+Nat was an engineer, rebuilding shattered Seattle, when one day he
+spotted a tall, angular mechanic, newly hired on the project--and
+unmistakably Anton Bor!
+
+Ten years before, Nat and Abby had cached the time machine a hundred
+miles away. Now, as they winged through the night in their private
+helicopter, Nat groaned at the futility of matching wits with
+scientists of century twenty-five.
+
+"I don't understand it, Abby! There's atomic radiation lingering here
+from the war. We're working on a reactor for the city's power plant,
+yet Bor and his TIC manage to track us down."
+
+"Perhaps, Dear Nat," Abby said, lapsing into her original old New
+England speech, as she often did when thinking deeply, "He followeth us
+by inductive methods rather than through his science."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Nat broke it to say, "We've been doing
+the obvious. Well then, our next stop _must_ be different!"
+
+They cruised silently toward the hiding place of their time machine
+until they saw the faint glow of a radioactive crater. A missile
+missing its target, had gouged a large hole in the mountainside. Nat
+had hidden the time machine in a cave as close as possible to the
+crater to lessen the chance of detection by the TIC or casual explorers.
+
+"Just in case they _have_ spotted our machine, and someone is waiting
+for us, we're going to take the last few miles on foot," Nat said,
+checking his paralysis gun.
+
+He set the heli down in a clearing and they started cautiously forward
+on foot, working their way up the mountainside, with all the tension of
+a hunter stalking game.
+
+A hundred yards from the cave entrance, they spotted a campfire. They
+approached stealthily, and finally were able to make out the shadowy
+form of an old man, apparently a war hermit who had set up a mountain
+retreat.
+
+At the very outset of the Third World War, the expression "take to the
+hills" had become a reality to many. Afterwards, when a prostrated
+world had begun painful reconstruction, lone men and women, and
+sometimes couples, continued to roam through the forests and deserts
+of Earth. Fugitives from fear in the beginning, many had held to the
+nomadic existence, liking their new individuality.
+
+"He may be a TIC agent in disguise," Nat whispered.
+
+"Why not use thy paralysis ray now?" Abby whispered back, "And not take
+chances."
+
+Nat nodded, and silently they crept forward. When they finally were in
+range, Nat raised his weapon and pressed the stud.
+
+The hermit didn't move a muscle. The dancing flames of the fire cast
+strange shadows over the camp site, reflecting off his shelter half,
+lighting the coffee pot sitting on a rock.
+
+Swiftly, without fear of detection, Nat and Abby strode forward,
+towards the cave and their escape.
+
+As they reached the entrance they heard a derisive laugh. Whirling
+sharply, they saw the "hermit" rising slowly to his feet, a late 20th
+century weapon in his hand.
+
+Horror stricken, Nat glanced at the paralysis ray in his own hand, the
+thought flashing across his mind that the tiny atomic battery had given
+out.
+
+"No, your weapon is still good! You just didn't count on our
+thoroughness!" the man laughed, using the vernacular of Nat's own time.
+"I've been waiting here a year, while Bor combed the whole area for
+you."
+
+"Lord, Abby!" Nat gasped hoarsely. "They've developed a neutralizing
+field, something they were experimenting with when I left."
+
+The agent laughed coarsely in agreement. "Just come away from the cave
+while I put in a call to Inspector Bor!"
+
+They moved towards the fire, and it was then that the agent got a good
+look at Abby.
+
+His eyes moved slowly from her head to her feet, taking in every detail
+of her full figure. "Some dish you have there Lyon. I'm beginning to
+understand why you checked out on us!"
+
+Nat was surprised at the agent's obvious lechery. Such animal reaction
+had been largely overcome by the 24th century.
+
+The agent snickered, recognizing Nat's surprise. "You asked for it,
+Lyon, when you tried to paralyze me! There's still a little problem to
+be solved in this matter of neutralizing a paralysis ray. Right now I'm
+morally drunk, haven't an inhibition in the world." He licked his lips.
+"Come here, girl. I want to see you close up--real close!"
+
+Abby had drawn back, horrified, but now she leaned toward Nat and
+started talking in the ancient Greek they had learned during their
+honeymoon. "Let me try to seduce him, Nat. Maybe we can get away before
+Bor gets here!"
+
+"What's she mumbling about?" the agent demanded suspiciously.
+
+"She's talking Greek," Nat explained. "She doesn't understand the
+Anglo-oriental combination we speak in the 25th century."
+
+The agent's eyes flitted back to Abby, noting her dark hair, her even
+features, moving hungrily over her figure again.
+
+"Come here!" he ordered huskily, motioning with his hands.
+
+Abby stepped hesitantly forward, a perfectly simulated look of
+puzzlement on her face. Nat stepped forward at the same time, hoping to
+get closer to the guard.
+
+"Stay where you are," the agent snarled, waving his weapon at Nat.
+
+Abby looked around at Nat with a cautioning expression on her face as
+the agent moved slowly towards her.
+
+Careful to keep the gun pointed at Nat, the agent put out a hand, slid
+his arm around her waist.
+
+Nat could tell by her quivering shoulders that Abby was revolted by the
+man's touch, although she managed a faint, inviting smile.
+
+Nat was poised, ready to move in when the agent dropped his guard.
+Then he suddenly felt stark terror as he saw the man pull out a small
+paralysis gun.
+
+"I think I'll immobilize you, Lyon, while I get better acquainted with
+your girl friend," he rasped.
+
+Nat jumped, but the ray gun caught him in mid-air.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His thoughts as he regained consciousness later were an agony of
+confusion. Feeling the familiar sensation of a time machine in motion,
+he filled in the blank about what must have happened to Abby. Sick
+with resignation he opened his eyes, then sat up quickly, blinking in
+disbelief, for Abby was sitting at the controls of the machine.
+
+Her blouse was soiled and ripped, her hair mussed and Nat thought he
+saw blood on her skirt. But she was humming a tune as she checked the
+dials.
+
+"Abby," Nat cried. "Are you all right?"
+
+Her smile said more than words. "You seem to forget, my dear husband,"
+she said happily, coming over to him. "We tender New England pioneers
+learned a few things about self protection."
+
+"What happened?"
+
+Abby shuddered. "It wasn't pleasant, having that beast paw me, but my
+apparent willingness threw him off guard. About the time he started
+ripping my clothing off, I used the little dagger we picked up in
+Renaissance Italy." Suddenly a sob broke through her artificial gaiety
+and she was in Nat's arms, her control completely gone. Her body racked
+with sobs, tears streaming down her face.
+
+"They're getting closer each time, Abby," Nat said reflectively. "Next
+time they probably will get us."
+
+"But we're still together," Abby said fiercely. "And, if we're careful,
+they may never find us again."
+
+Years passed. Nat and Abby's youthful happiness flowered into the
+contentment of those who have lived their allotted years in wisdom. Nat
+had retired many years before, and he and Abby were content with simple
+pleasures.
+
+Evenings they sat together on the porch of their Florida cottage,
+enjoying the ocean breeze and each other's presence.
+
+It was on such an evening that their world came to an end.
+
+While they sat as usual, reminiscing, Nat wondered aloud if Anton Bor
+still lived. He scarcely had uttered the question before the grass on
+the lawn seemed to shimmer slightly, and a time machine materialized
+before their startled eyes. Its door burst open and three men sprang
+out with weapons ready.
+
+After them came the halting, decrepit figure of an ancient Anton Bor, a
+paralysis gun wavering unsteadily in his shriveled hands.
+
+The shock was so great that Nat and Abby sat completely unmoving and
+the full power of Bor's weapon caught them where they sat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat and Abby stood before the Judgement Tribunal in the 25th century.
+Mere punishment had long since passed out of existence. A law
+breaker had his case reviewed by a board of psychiatrists, lawyers,
+sociologists, even historians. A person's past was laid bare, in an
+effort to find out _why_ aberrant action had been taken.
+
+The board recommended remedial action that varied greatly from case to
+case.
+
+"We find you guilty," the spokesman finally stated, "of Time Meddling,
+an offence that can have the gravest consequences. In this case, our
+problem is two-fold. First, we must correct the original action.
+Second, we must do all in our power to discourage actions such as you
+have taken.
+
+"With this in mind, you, personally, will see corrective measures
+carried out. Anton Bor, who worked so self-sacrificingly over so many
+years to bring this case to a close, will supervise the correction."
+
+This time Nat was prepared. The scene was exactly as he remembered it.
+But now the gallows was empty, the spectators frozen statues.
+
+"The paralysis ray's effects last for a little more than five minutes,"
+Bor said with the coldness of a machine. "We have that much time to
+accomplish our job."
+
+Bound and helpless, Nat heard Bor bark a command.
+
+He saw an assistant pick up the paralysed form of his wife, dressed
+again in 17th century style, and walk out across the valley. He placed
+Abby on the gallows, put the rope around her neck and moved quickly
+back to the woods.
+
+"Now we'll watch it," Bor said with cold finality. "I think my ancestor
+out there, Jonathan Borden would be proud of me," he added with a trace
+of smugness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "_... as we watched, it seemed suddenly our vision blurred and
+    there was the smell of brimstone in the aire and when we could see
+    againe, there in the place of comely young Abigaile Goodyeare, was
+    a wrinkled gruesome crone, more like unto a spectre, with gray hair
+    and wrinkled visage, whose true age could only be guessed at._"
+
+    --WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY AMERICA
+    VOLUME II, CHAPTER 4
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Witch in Time, by Herb Williams
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58980 ***