Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/137

Rh to knock, but finding that this was useless, he cried out,—

"Open the door! open the door! or I shall kill you."

"All right!" laughed Alyonushka, "but I am not going to open the door for you; if you want to come in, climb in at the window."

As she said this, she took up a hatchet, and went to the window where, in a very short time, the robber's head appeared; she sprang at it, and with one good blow she cut it off.

"I suppose," thought she, "that in a short time, the other robbers, his companions, will turn up. What am I to do then?"

Suddenly a thought struck her, and she wrapped the robber's head in a handkerchief, and then brought in his dead body, which she cut up in little bits and put into small bags. She had hardly done this when the other robbers arrived at the window of the hut, but saw nothing, on account of its being so dark inside.

"Have you got anything, brother?" asked one of them to Alyonushka, thinking she was the robber.

"Yes," returned Alyonushka, in the robber's voice, "here are his bags of gold, a ham, and some butter." So saying, she threw the bags, with the cut portions of the robber, and his head out to his companions.

"Well, come on then!" they cried to the supposed robber.

"Not yet," replied Alyonushka. "Go home, brothers, while I look about me, maybe there is more gold about. Go ahead!"