Then the skeletons vanished and large balls of fire raced about the room, and when he saw one of them making for his eye he really became frightened and covered that eye up also.
Now came clanging chains and hideous groans and weeping and wailing most horrible to hear. This so filled him with terror he shivered and his teeth chattered.
In his frenzy, for he was becoming very much excited, he tore off the covering and upon each corner of the bed hung a devilish green monster licking his jaws and eyeing him hungrily with glittering eyes.
He now became desperate and would have fled, but when he made the slightest movement to rise those monsters started toward him, and he hurried beneath the covers.
Then came terrible sounds, the like of which he had never heard, which were caused by the grating together of the teeth of the four monsters and the snapping of their eyes and the smacking of their lips, and he thought the building was on fire.
At last he was so overcome he sank into a stupor and was so found in the morning by the butler, who discovered that what was a man young and vigorous the night before was now an old man with white hair and sunken cheeks and wrinkled forehead, who prayed to be removed from the room that he might die in peace.
My forefather thereupon returning told him he could be removed only on the condition that he return all the gold and goods he had stolen and be a good citizen ever after.
This the man readily promised, and did as he promised he would.
Thus my ancestor not only ridded his kingdom of a pest but recovered his people their lost wealth, and he was much reverenced therefor.