Then he parted the thorn-bushes with a knotty stick, and before him stood a tiny farmhouse. Basavriuk smote it with his fist, and the wall trembled. A large black dog ran out to meet them, and with a whine transformed itself into a cat and flew straight at his eyes.
“Don`t be angry, don`t be angry, you old Satan!” said Basavriuk, employing such words as would have made a good man stop his ears. Behold, instead of a cat, an old woman all bent into a bow, with a face wrinkled like a baked apple, and a nose and chin like a pair of nutcrackers.
“A fine charmer!” thought Peter; and cold chills ran down his back. The witch tore the flower from his hand, stooped and muttered over it for a long time, sprinkling it with some kind of water. Sparks flew from her mouth, and foam appeared on her lips.
“Throw it away,” she said, giving it back to Peter.
Peter threw it, but what wonder was this? The flower did not fall straight to the earth, but for a long while twinkled like a fiery ball through the darkness, and swam through the air like a boat. At last it began to sink lower and lower, and fell so far away that the little star, hardly larger than a poppy-seed, was barely visible. “There!” croaked the old woman, in a dull voice; and Bosavriuk, giving him a spade, said, “Dig here Peter: you will find more gold than you or Korzh ever dreamed of.”
Seize spade
Peter spat on his hands, seized the spade, pressed his foot on it, and turned up the earth, a second, a third, a fourth time. The spade clinked against something hard, and would go no farther. Then his eyes began to distinguish a small, iron-bound coffer. He tried to seize it, but the chest began to sink into the earth, deeper, farther and deeper still: whilst behind him he heard a laugh like a serpent`s hiss.
“No, you shall not have the gold until you shed human blood,” said the witch, and she led up to him a child of six, covered with a white sheet, and indicated by a sign that he was to cut off his head.
Peter was stunned. A trifle, indeed, to cut off a man`s or even an innocent child`s, head for no reason whatever! In wrath he tore off the sheet enveloping the victim`s head, and behold! before him stood Ivas. The poor child crossed his little hands, and hung his head. Peter flew at the witch with the knife like a madman, and was on the point of laying hands on her.
Read More about Norman West part 22
