She heard that the later arrivals had all been disappointed of the sight of Newell Knight in his fit.

Halsey had assumed authority, stating that it was indeed a case of possession, and that none but those who were strong in faith and in the power of prayer must come near the possessed.

The craving of the visitors for excitement was only fed by the sound of the young man's voice, heard at short intervals.
He cried aloud, sometimes shrieking that he was being taken into "the pit" and that Joseph Smith could alone deliver him, sometimes exclaiming in a strange voice that he was no longer Newell Knight but a demon, and sometimes only moaning and gibbering words that no one could understand.
Halsey came out to Susannah.

"Wouldst thou see him ?" he asked tenderly.
"The sight will distress thee, for it is truly terrible to see with the eye of flesh the power of hell, and yet I cannot forbid thee if thou wouldst come, for perchance the Lord may mean it for our edification." Susannah went with him into the inner room, hardly knowing why she went, but probably impelled by the instinctive desire to relieve suffering which was part of her womanhood.

The young man's father and mother, together with two or three Mormon converts, were kneeling upon the floor, saying prayers for the sufferer in more or less audible, more or less agonised tones.
The young man lay upon a pallet-bed, in what would have been called by the medical science of the time "convulsions." His eyeballs were rolled upwards in a manner most disfiguring to his face.