The bewitched delivered up their accounts with difficulty, falling into testimony-stopping trances, yelping that the forty-two-year-old minister bit them. They had the teeth marks to prove it! They displayed their wounds for court officials, who inspected Burroughs's mouth. The imprints matched perfectly. Choking and thrashing stalled the proceedings; the court could do nothing but wait for the girls to recover. During one such delay Stoughton appealed to the defendant. What, the chief justice asked his prisoner, did he think throttled them? Burroughs replied plainly; he assumed it was the devil. "How comes the Devil then to be so loath to have any testimony born against you?" challenged Stoughton, a brainteaser of a question and one that left Burroughs without an answer. He was equally bewildered when ghosts began to flit about the overcrowded room. They unsettled more than did the specters; some who were not bewitched saw them too. Directly before Burroughs, a girl recoiled from a horrible sight; she stared, she explained, at his dead wives. Their faces bloodred, the ghosts demanded justice. Stoughton called in several other bewitched children. Each described the apparitions. What, Stoughton inquired, did Burroughs make of this? The minister was appalled but could himself see nothing.