540 THE CRYSTAL : A RECORD OF 1665. 



Survive! live! need I ask that which I can answer. I could not, 

 I would not live." 



" Well, Master Dinford, though you could ask but three questions, 

 and two have already been asked, yet, as what you now wish is but a 

 continuation of the preceding, you may put the question, reserving 

 still your final proof. Indeed, had you been patient, you would have 

 had, ere this, an answer to your present inquiry, as it is the nature of 

 this glass to exhibit a general event in all the details most interesting 

 to the seeker himself. But, Sir, let me warn you that serious con- 

 sequences may follow if you again cast the Crystal from you. The 

 spirit which through its instrumentality condescends to satisfy your 

 demands, though gentle as morning sun-beams, may be displeased." 



" Oh, fear it nut, Doctor. Nothing more can so strongly affect me 

 as that which I have already seen." 



The same ceremonies as before were repeated, the invocations ex- 

 cepted, which had only been used in tliejirst instance. 



On looking into the glass, the scene before me was a large field. 

 In one part of it was a great pit, filled nearly to the surface with dead 

 bodies; and, not far off, men were digging another, apparently to 

 receive a vast heap of corpses which lay at hand, thrown indis- 

 criminately on one another. This pile of death was infinitely more 

 shocking viewed laterally than superficially, as in the carts ; and the 

 heart rose high and chokingly in the throat to see, protruding from 

 the general face of this horrid hill, the brawn, hairy, and thick limbs 

 of the labourer and artisan, contrasted with the small, white, and 

 velvet ones of the youth and little child ; and the white heads of the 

 aged and venerable, or rough, grim, and masculine countenances, 

 terrible in death, intermingled with those of the tender and delicate 

 woman and the new-born child, whilst the bodies to which these 

 heads and limbs belonged, were concealed from view by the super- 

 incumbrance of other corpses. I did not at first comprehend how 

 this afforded an answer to my question ; but when I had heart to look 

 with some attention, I saw, among the many protruding heads my own! 



" Enough, Dr. Henwick ;" I said as I gave him the glass. " Now 

 for the proof." 



The fact which occurred to me as most fit to found a question of 

 proof upon, was indeed a most vile circumstance in my past life, and 

 which now pains me greatly to recollect. But as only one other 

 person was a party in it, who certainly could not have communicated 

 it to any breathing soul, it was the first that occurred to me at the 

 moment. Therefore I asked, " How was I engaged on the 28^A of 

 January, in t lie year 1663, at eight in the evening?" The pictured 

 reply represented the scene with such accuracy as made me altogether 

 loathe myself and with such minuteness of detail as even an eye- 

 witne ss could not, at such a distance of time, have supplied. 



" Doctor," I said, rising and returning the glass ; " Doctor, you 

 shall have your feast ; and I must admit, generally, my conviction of 

 your skill and power in the things you pretend to. Nevertheless, I 

 must endeavour to hope that the predictions of the glass are in this 

 particular instance untrue, and that the scenes I have witnessed will 

 n -ver be fulfilled." 



