“Off you go; find some gold!” And the urchin went and hunted up gold from everywhere, turned an entire mine inside out and still found nothing: the soldier had played everything away.
The devils got angry at losing all their money, and began to assault the soldier, roaring out: “Smash him up, brothers! Eat him up!”
“We’ll see who’ll have the last word if it comes to eating,” said the soldier, shook the nosebag open, and asked, “What is this?”
“A nosebag,” said the devils.
“Well, in you all go, by God’s own spell!” And he collected them all together—so many you couldn’t count them all! Then the soldier buckled the bag tightly, hung it on a peg, and lay down to sleep.
In the morning the Tsar sent for all his folks. “Come up to me and inform me how does it stand with the soldier. If the unholy powers have destroyed him, bring me his little bones.”
So off they went and entered the palace, and there saw the soldier trudging up and down gaily in the rooms and smoking his pipe. “Well, how are you, discharged soldier? We never expected to see you again alive. How did you pass the night? What kind of bargain did you make with the devils?”
“What devils! Just come and look what a lot of gold and silver I won off them. Look, what piles of it!” And the Tsar’s servants looked and were amazed. And the soldier told them: “Bring me two smiths as fast as you can. Tell them to bring an iron anvil and a hammer.”
Off they went helter-skelter to the smiths, and the matter was soon arranged.
The smiths arrived with iron anvil and with heavy hammers.