Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/311

Rh Kharko any longer, but Mr. Khariton Tregubov. Only I'm not a fool. No temptation on earth will ever take me on to this dam at night."

And with that he began climbing the hill.

The miller stared from side to side. Who would help him now? Not a soul was in sight. Darkness was falling; a frog was croaking sleepily in the mud; a bittern was booming angrily in the reeds. The edge of the moon was peeping over the woods as if asking: "What will become of Philip the miller now?"

It looked at him, winked, and set behind the trees.

The devil stood on the dam holding his sides with laughter. His shouts of merriment shook the floury dust out of every cranny in the old mill; all the spirits of the forest and pond awoke and came flitting toward him, some floating like shadows out of the wood, some hanging like filmy clouds over the water. The pond stirred, streaks of swirling white vapour rose from it, and ripples ran in circles across its surface. The miller gave it one look, and his blood ran cold: a blue face with dull, staring eyes was glaring up at him out of the water, its long whiskers waving like the antennas of a water-beetle. Who could it be but his uncle, rising from the pond and coming straight toward the sycamore tree?

Yankel the Jew had long since crept silently out on to the dam, picked up the clothes which the devil had discarded, slipped across to the sycamore tree,