'Then will you take it?'
'Why shouldn't I take it?'
'We will settle the matter at my house to-night.'
'The sooner the better.'
'Well, since it is so,' Hamer added after a while, 'I will give you seventy-five roubles, and you shan't be left to die here. You and your wife can come to the school; you can spend the winter with us and I will give you the same pay as my own farm-labourers.'
Slimak winced at the word 'farm-labourer', but he said nothing.
'And your gospodarze,' concluded Hamer, 'are brutes. They will do nothing for you.'
Before sunset a sledge conveyed the unconscious woman to the settlement. Slimak remained, recovered his money from under the manure, collected a few possessions and milked the cows.
The dumb animals looked reproachfully at him and seemed to ask: 'Are you sure you have done the best you could, gospodarz?'
'What am I to do?' he returned, 'the place is unlucky, it is bewitched.
Perhaps the Germans can take the spell away, I can't.'