As the sun sank lower and lower, the other children had wandered home, shrieked for by their mothers from the far distance who waved to them and threatened them to secure obedience. And because he had no mother to call him, he had mocked the others and settled down to play alone.
He was sitting in the dust of the highway, drawing patterns on the ground, with his dragonfly crown still about his ears, when the sound of strange voices and the stamp of hoofs in the great silence made him glance up. As he understood what it was he gasped aloud in his horror. For there almost on top of him—not more than twenty feet away—was a huge foreign-devil, with a yellow beard and a great whip in his hand riding on a big horse; and beside him on another horse was a woman-devil, all in white save for her hat, and a veil which fell around her neck.
For once in his life his nimble wits entirely deserted him. He was so stricken that he could neither think nor act. They had caught him out in the country—completely alone; there was not a soul to succour him.
Overcome and already feeling the malign influence striking down his spine, by a supreme effort he managed to wriggle away until he was out of their immediate way. But they had seen him: that was enough! They were making merry at his discomfiture, before they did something worse. The man was pointing at him, the woman was laughing.
As he cowered in the dust unable to move any further, he saw out of the corners of his eyes the foreign-devil drop his hand, put it into his pocket, pull it out quickly, and swing it fiercely towards him. There was a flash in the golden sunlight—a blinding flash. He closed his eyes and covered his head completely with his arms to meet the shock crushing the wriggling dragon-flies by this action. When he opened them, he was surprised to find himself alone and alive. The man and the woman were trotting their horses very fast and were rapidly becoming smaller in the distance. But there on the ground, almost at his knees, was a bright object. With one leap he was on it and had clutched it in his hand.
It was a piece of silver, quite an immense piece, very bright and new, worth he did not know how many score of the copper-cash.
Miracle of miracles!
For a moment he stood like that turning the coin over and over in his hand, not willing to believe his good-fortune, doubting whether it was really his, biting it to prove its worth. Then, as he saw the figures on horse-back fade away, a fever of excitement possessed him and he dashed madly home. To every one he met he shouted the miracle which had come to him, the silver coin. A foreign-devil had thrown it to him, with one sweep of the hand, like that! He gave an elaborate pantomime so that they should precisely understand the setting and the manner it all had come to pass. He let every person feel the coin and ring it and bite it. It was genuine beyond doubt; a dozen told him that; but regarding its precise value opinions differed.
At last he reached the doorway of the parental hut. His father was sitting there, still stripped to the waist, cooling himself after his arduous labours, at the forge. To him also in excited accents he told exactly what had happened—not once but many times, showing how he had crouched in the dust, how the coin had been thrown, how he had picked it up and his immense surprise.
A wondering crowd gathered. He was a hero, the head and front of all local interest. Nobody had ever heard of a story like that. The coin passed from hand to hand, was felt and appraised as it had never been appraised before. It was a dollar, a silver dollar. Then some one offered to exchange it—to give full value in copper cash.