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It might very well have become, in Europe, as in Asia and Africa, a kind of ordeal, or method of searching for and trying malefactors. Men like Jacques Aymar might have played, on a larger scale, the part of Hopkins, the witch-finder. Aymar was, indeed, employed by some young men to point out, by help of the wand, the houses of ladies who had been more frail than faithful.
"Look on him who kneels before you," went on Indaba-zimbi, "and listen to my words, to the words of the witch-finder, the words of the rain-maker, Indaba-zimbi, whose fame is known to you. He seems to be a young man, does he not? I tell you, children of the Umtetwa, he is no man.
I remember a case in which a poor little child had bad convulsions. The 'Ojah, or witch-finder, in this case a fat, greasy, oleaginous knave, was sent for. Full of importance and blowing like a porpoise, he came and caused the child to be brought to him, under a tree near the village. I was passing at the time, and stopped out of curiosity.
Lois sat spinning with Faith. Both were silent, pondering over the stories that were abroad. Lois spoke first. 'Oh, Faith! this country is worse than ever England was, even in the days of Master Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder. I grow frightened of every one, I think. I even get afeard sometimes of Nattee! Faith coloured a little. Then she asked, 'Why?
This Umslopogaas said at a hazard, since, having denied me, he must declare a father, and dared not name the Black One who was gone. But in after years the saying was taken up in the land, and it was told that Umslopogaas was the son of Indabazimbi the Witch-finder, who had long ago fled the land; nor did he deny it.
No longer shall ye cry for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save he who offends against the laws. The 'eating up' of your kraals shall cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land.
Whitlocke in his Memorials of English Affairs, under the date of 1649, speaks of many witches being apprehended about Newcastle, upon the information of a person whom he calls the Witch-finder, who, as his experiments were nearly the same, though he is not named, we may reasonably suppose to be Hopkins; and in the following year about Boston in Lincolnshire.
At last out of the nala appeared the bonga, dark, enormous and shaggy; and approached the woman: Then the woman said "Brother-in-law Ramjit there is something that you must do for me; my nephew is ill; he must die on such and such a day; that day I must see the smoke of his funeral pyre; but you must save me from the witch-finder; let the blame fall not on me but on so and so; this is what I came to urge on you; that you protect me from discovery and then we shall always be friends."
But I scarce bethought me the impudent Schelm could have thought of you, lady." "Hush again. Forget the word! They are gone to Shields in search of the witch-finder, to pinch me, and probe me, and drown me, or burn me," cried Grisell, clasping her hands. "Oh! take me somewhere if you cannot safely hide me; I would not bring trouble on you!" "You need not fear," he answered.
Then, in the moment of wildest enthusiasm, the witch-finder darted forward and lightly touched with a switch some doomed man, sitting, it may be, quietly among the spectators, or capering with his fellow-soldiers. Instantly he was led away, and his place knew him no more.