Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/221

 the place where the overseer was putting his fingers positively between the teeth of the beast like a tamer who may do as he likes with the lion’s mouth.

But he could not even do that, and before he was able to collect himself the familiar dry sound of the rustling paper indicated that it was passing over the cylinders again, and the overseer cried: ‘Stop!’ He crept out, and a click at the cylinder indicated that the leverage had been put out of action; the men cried: ‘Ready,’ and the chief engineer, in virtue of his sole right, set the machinery going again. For a second it hummed like a spindle, and then roared afresh like a waterfall. And with its voice Satan was beginning to speak again; he laughed at Kuba’s cowardice, and seared his temples as with flames. As soon as Kuba thought of his home, he heard the crying of the twins, and then his murderous desire grew in him to such an extent that he could hardly wait for the paper-roll to be finished. But when the time came, he could not move.

So it came to pass that the fourth roll, the one with the torn cover, with death riding on it, went down the maw of the machine without injuring a hair on the overseer’s head; that