"She is sleeping as sweetly as an infant," answered an old Cossack.
"I gave her a sleeping dose," said the witch.
"Slowly, carefully!" said Bogun, fixing his eyes on the sleeper; "don't wake her! The moon is looking straight into her face, my dear one!"
"It shines quietly, it will not wake her," whispered one of the Cossacks.
The party moved on. Soon they arrived at the Enemy's Mound. It was a low hill lying close to the river and sloping like a round shield on the earth. The moon covered the place entirely with its beams, lighting up the white stones scattered over the whole extent of it. In some spots they lay singly; in others they formed heaps, as it were fragments of buildings, ruined castles, and churches. Here and there stone slabs stuck up, planted endwise in the earth like gravestones in a cemetery. The whole mound was like a great ruin, and perhaps in other ages, long before the days of the Yagellons, human life flourished upon it; now not only the mound but the whole neighborhood as far as Rashkoff was an empty waste, in which wild beasts alone found refuge, and in the night evil spirits held their dances.
The party had scarcely reached half the height of the mound, when the light breeze which had been blowing hitherto changed into a regular whirlwind, which began to encircle the mound with a certain gloomy, ominous whistling; and then it appeared to the Cossacks that among those ruins were heard heavy sighs, issuing as it were from straitened breasts, sad groans, laughter, wailing, and puling of infants. The whole mound began to be alive, to call with various voices. From behind the stones lofty dark figures seemed to look, shadows of strange forms glided along quietly among the slabs. Far off in the darkness gleamed lights like the eyes of wolves. Finally, from the other end of the mound, from among the thickest heaps and piles, was heard a low guttural howling, to which other howling responded at once.
"Vampires!" whispered a young Cossack, turning to the old essaul.
"No, werewolves," answered the old essaul, in a still lower voice.
"O Lord, have mercy on us!" said others in terror, removing their caps and crossing themselves devoutly.
The horses began to point their ears forward and snort. Horpyna, riding at the head of the party, muttered unintelligible words, as it were a sort of Satanic Pater-noster. When they had arrived at the other end of the mound, she turned and said,--