When they had reached the entrance to the dark, thick wood, the two ruffians took them out of the coach, telling them they might now walk a little way and gather flowers; and, while the children were skipping about like lambs, the ruffians turned their backs on them, and began to consult about what they had to do.
"In good truth," says the one who had been sitting all the way between the children, "now I have seen their cherub faces, and heard their pretty speech, I have no heart to do the bloody deed; let us fling away the ugly knife, and send the children back to their uncle."
"That I will not," says the other; "what boots their pretty speech to us? And who will pay us for being so chicken-hearted?"
At last the ruffians fell into so great a passion about butchering the innocent little creatures, that he who wished to spare their lives suddenly opened the great knife he had brought to kill them, and stabbed the other to the heart, so that he fell down dead.
The one who had killed him was now greatly at a loss what to do with the children, for he wanted to get away as fast as he could, for fear of being found in the wood. He was not, however, long in determining that he must leave them in the wood, to the chance of some traveller passing by. "Look ye, my pretty ones," said he, "you must each take hold and come along with me." The poor children each took a hand and went on, the tears bursting from their eyes, and their little limbs trembling with fear.
Thus did he lead them about two miles further on in the wood, and told them to wait there till he came back with some cakes.
William took his sister Jane by the hand, and they wandered fearfully up and down the wood.
"Will the strange man come with some cakes, Billy?" says Jane.
"Presently, dear Jane," says William.