Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/136

120 "Look out! don't tell any one that I am here, or—you are a dead woman."

The girl promised, and ran up the stairs trembling from head to foot, and as white as a ghost. She told one of the girls what she had heard and seen, and that girl repeated it to another, so that very soon all the girls, with the exception of Alyonushka, knew of the robber, and at once prepared to leave.

"Where are you going?" asked Alyonushka in surprise. "I asked you to spend the day with me, and now you have not been here very long and you want to go away; you might wait for my father and mother's return."

But no, the girls said they were obliged to go. One said she had to fetch home the cows out of the fields; another said she had to get some wood, and so on, till at last they all went away, leaving Alyonushka to herself.

When the robber heard all the girls go, he came up into the room where Alyonushka sat.

"Good evening, my pretty girl!" he said.

"Good evening," replied the girl in surprise.

The man looked round him, but seeing nothing that he fancied, went into the back yard to look at some goods in the cellars there.

Alyonushka, guessing who he was and what it was he wanted, flew to the back door and locked it; leaving the window—which was very high from the ground—open, and putting out the light, she waited to see what would happen.

The robber, when he found the door locked, began