But before the terrific animals could obey the injunctions of their leader, Radion's tongue had freed itself, and with a fearful yell the unfortunate pastuch fell senseless upon the heather.

Then that mercenary liéshui king relieved Radion of his wallet, after which he retired quickly into the forest followed by his three slaves, carrying their heads under their arms, the weather being hot.

When Radion returned to the village at night, his face was as the countenance of those who have been through great tribulation; and when the herd awaited the sound of his horn next morning, and wandered aimlessly about the village street, headed by Vasilice redivivus (whom they were very glad to see back again among them), they were doomed to a sad disappointment; for it was discovered that their faithful pastuch had departed, leaving no address.

CHAPTER X
AN UNBAPTIZED SPIRIT

I have already referred to a pretty tradition still existing among the peasantry of the Slavonic families that the soul of a child who dies unbaptized must wander for seven years, beseeching, at the hands of each Christian person it sees, that precious privilege of which it has been deprived. If the little soul should fail, during its term of seven years, to find a Christian man or woman who will hear its cry and give it the baptism it craves, that soul must forfeit its soulship, and the being becomes a member of a lower race, assuming thenceforth the form and character of a river-spirit, and taking up its abode among the members of that frivolous and somewhat mischievous family.

There was grief in the house of Pavel Shirkof, a peasant of the village of Chudyesin, near Perm, beneath the shadow of the dark Urals. Pavel was unlike most of his kind, for his ideas of happiness were not as theirs, bounded by the narrow limits of the interior of the kabak or drinking-shop. Pavel was gifted with an earnestness of disposition rare enough among men of his standing; he took life seriously, and had been a good husband to his wife. He had married but a short year ago, and now, alas! the buxom girl of twelve months since lay, a young mother, sighing out the last moments of her stricken life. Unattended by doctor or nurse, far from all skilled assistance, and watched only by her terrified and ignorant though loving husband, the poor wife tossed upon her so-called bed, while her tiny child lay helpless and neglected upon a nest of old potato-sacks and coats and rags in the corner by the stove—a thing of feeble, struggling existence as near to its end had Pavel known it, as it was to its beginning, and this was but a matter of half-an-hour or so. The baby lay and wailed unnoticed, for her poor father had his dying wife to attend to, and the sick woman, but half conscious, had not as yet caught that sound so dear to every mother's ear—her own child's voice. But suddenly she paused in the restless side-to-side movements of her head upon the pillow, and appeared to listen.

"Pavel," she said, and her pale cheek flushed, "it is the child. Let me see it before I die. Hold it near me. Let me take it in my arms!" Pavel brought the little wailing thing and laid it in the mother's arms, which scarcely had strength to clasp themselves round their precious burden.

A beautiful smile went, like a sunset, over poor dying Doonya's face—the last gleam before nightfall; then she looked anxiously at the tiny bundle at her breast. "Pavel, my poor man," she said, "the child has death in its face; it will accompany me into the Unknown; we shall both leave you together, my soul. God comfort you at this time of tribulation! But now you shall do her the only service you can ever render her. Fetch the good priest from Volkova; take Shoora, the best horse, and the lightest cart, and fetch him quickly, my Pavel, for the child must be baptized."

But Pavel refused to leave his wife in her present condition. The child must wait, he said; and in case of emergency any one could pronounce the baptismal formula. He would do it himself. Meanwhile, what was the child to him, body or soul, in comparison with his beloved Doonya?