And a little voice, hardly to be heard, answered from the sack: "Alive, little father!"
So the soldier climbed up the tree, took down the sack, and carried it home over his shoulder. He said good-bye to his wife and his son, who was now a fine young lad. Then he went into his own room, opened the bag, lay down upon the bed, and begged Death to make an end of him.
And Death, in the form of a little old woman, crept trembling out of the sack, looking this way and that, for she was very much afraid. As soon as she saw the soldier she bolted through the door, and ran away as fast as her little old legs could carry her. "The devils can make an end of you if they like," she shrieked, "but you don't catch me taking a hand in it."
The soldier sat up on the bed and knew that he was alive and well. Troubled he was as to what to do next. Thinks he: "I'd better get straight along to hell, and let the devils throw me into the boiling pitch, and stew me until all my sins are stewed out of me."
So he said good-bye to everybody, took his sack in his hands and set off to hell by the best road he could find.
Well, he walked on and on, over hill and valley and through the deep forest, until he came at last to the kingdom of the unclean. There were the walls of hell and the gates of hell, and as he looked he saw that sentinels were standing at every gate.
As soon as he came near a gate the devil doing sentry go calls out:
"Who goes there?"
"A sinful soul come to you to be stewed in the boiling pitch."