“Ha! I agree. What a joke it would be! Then I should try my power——”
“You’re getting a fine bargain, I can tell you!”
At that moment the cock in the village crowed once more, and although his voice was so sleepy that again no other bird answered him out of the silent night, Khapun shuddered.
“Here, what am I standing here gaping at you for while you tell me tales? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Come along!”
He flapped his wings, flew a few feet along the dam, and once more fell upon poor Yankel like a hawk, burying his claws in the back of his shirt, and preparing to take flight.
Alas, how piteously old Yankel screamed, stretching out his arms toward the village and his native hut, calling his wife and children by name!
“Oi, my Sarah! Oi, Shlemka, Iteley, Movshey! Oi, Mr. Miller, Mr. Miller! Please, please save me! Say the three words! I see you; there you are, standing under the sycamore tree. Have pity on a poor Jew! He has a living soul like you!”
Very, very piteous were poor Yankel’s lamentations! Icy fingers seemed to clutch the miller’s heart and squeeze it until it ached. The devil seemed to be waiting for something, his wings fluttered like the wings of a young bustard that has not learnt to fly. He hovered silently over the dam with Yankel in his talons.
“What a wretch that devil is!” thought the miller, hiding farther under the trees. “He is only tormenting the poor Jew. If the cocks should crow again——”
Hardly had that thought entered his head than the devil laughed till the wood rang, and suddenly sprang aloft into the sky. The miller peered upward, but in a few seconds the devil appeared no larger than a sparrow. Then he glimmered for a moment like a fly, then like a gnat, and at last disappeared.