She fixed the flower in her dress, and imitating to the best of her knowledge the carriage of royalty, strutted up and down, saying "Am I not grand? Don't I look nice? Ivan—salute me!"
And Ivan was preparing to salute her in the proper military style, taught him by a great friend of his in the village, a soldier in the carabineers for whom he had an intense admiration, when his jaw suddenly fell and his eyes bulged.
"Whatever is the matter with you?" Olga asked.
"There's nothing the matter with me," Ivan cried, shrinking away from her; "but there is with you. Don't! don't make such faces—they frighten me," and turning round, he ran to the place where he had made his descent and tried to climb up.
Some minutes later the mother of the children, hearing piercing shrieks for help, flew to the pit, and, missing her footing, slipped over the brink, and falling some ten or more feet, broke one of her legs and otherwise bruised herself. For some seconds she was unconscious, and the first sight that met her eyes on coming to was Ivan kneeling on the ground, feebly endeavouring to hold at bay a gaunt grey wolf that had already bitten him about the legs and thigh, and was now trying hard to fix its wicked white fangs into his throat.
"Help me, mother!" Ivan gasped; "I'm getting exhausted. It's Olga."
"Olga!" the mother screamed, making frantic efforts to come to his assistance. "Olga! what do you mean?"
"It's all owing to a flower—a white flower," Ivan panted; "Olga would pluck it, and no sooner had she fixed it on her dress than she turned into a wolf! Quick, quick! I can't hold it off any longer."
Thus adjured the wretched woman made a terrific effort to rise, and failing in this, clenched her teeth, and, lying down, rolled over and over till she arrived at the spot where the struggle was taking place. By this time, however, the wolf had broken through Ivan's guard, and he was now on his back with his right arm in the grip of his ferocious enemy.
The mother had not a knife, but she had a long steel skewer she used for sticking into a tree as a means of fastening one end of her washing line. She wore it hanging to her girdle, and it was quite by a miracle it had not run into her when she fell.