Read Ebook: The Soldier and Death A Russian Folk Tale Told in English by Arthur Ransome by Ransome Arthur

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Ebook has 155 lines and 8463 words, and 4 pages

They played on. The soldier won every game and all the gold, asked if they had any more money to lose, put his cards in his pocket and lit his pipe.

The devils looked at all the money they had lost. It seemed a pity to lose all that good silver and gold.

"Tear him to pieces, brothers," they cried, "tear him to pieces, eat him and have done!"

The soldier tapped his little pipe on the table.

"First make sure," says he, "who eats whom." And with that he whips out his sack, and, says he, to the devils, who were all gnashing their teeth and making ready to fall on him, "what do you call this?"

"It's a sack," said the devils.

"Is it?" says the soldier. "Then, by the word of God, get into it!"

And the next minute all those devils were tumbling over each other and getting into the sack, squeezing in one on the top of another until the last one had got inside. Then the soldier tied up the sack with a good double knot, hung it on a nail, and lay down to sleep.

In the morning the Tzar sent his servants.

"Go," says the Tzar, "and see what has happened to the soldier who spent the night in the empty palace. If the unclean spirits have made an end of him, then you must sweep up his bones and make all clean."

The servants came, all ready to lament for the brave soldier done to death by the unclean, and there was the soldier walking cheerfully from one room to another, smoking his little pipe.

"Well done, soldier! We never thought to see you alive. And how did you spend the night? How did you manage against the devils?"

"Devils?" says the soldier. "I wish all men I have played cards against had paid their debts so honestly. Have a look at the silver and gold I won from them. Look at the heaps of money lying on the floor."

The servants looked at the silver and gold and touched it to see if it was real. But there was no doubt about that. I wish I had more in my pocket of the same sort.

"Now, brothers," said the soldier, "off with you as quick as you can, go and fetch two blacksmiths here on the run. And let them bring with them an iron anvil and the two heaviest hammers in the forge."

The servants asked no questions, but hurried to the smithy, and the two blacksmiths came running, with anvil and hammers. Giants they were, the strongest men in all the town.

"Now," says the soldier, "take that sack from the nail and lay it on the anvil and let me see how the blacksmiths of this town can set about their work."

The blacksmiths took the sack from the nail.

"Devil take it, what a weight," they said to each other.

And little voices screamed out of the sack: "We are good folk. We are your own people."

"Are you?" said the blacksmiths; and they laid the sack on the anvil and swung the great hammers, up and down, up and down, as if they were beating out a lump of iron.

The devils fared badly in there, and worse and worse. The hammers came down as if they were going through devils, anvil, earth, and all. It was more than even devils could bear.

"Have mercy!" they screamed. "Have mercy, soldier! Let us out again into the world, and we'll never forget you world without end. And as for this palace.... No devil shall put the nail of the toe of his foot in it. We'll tell them all. Not one shall come within a hundred miles."

The soldier let the blacksmiths give a few more blows, just for luck. Then he stopped them, and untied the mouth of the sack. The moment he opened it, the devils shot out, and fled away to hell without looking right or left in their hurry.

But the soldier was no fool, and he grabbed one old devil by the leg. And the devil hung gibbering, trying to get away. The soldier cut the devil's hairy wrist to the bone, so that the blood flowed, took a pen, dipped it in the blood, and gave it to the devil. But he never let go of his leg.

"Write," says he, "that you will be my faithful servant."

The old devil screamed and wriggled, but the soldier gripped him tight. There was nothing to be done. He wrote and signed in his own blood a promise to serve the soldier faithfully wherever and whenever there should be need. Then the soldier let him go, and he went hopping and screaming after the others, and had disappeared in a moment.

And so the devils went rushing down to hell, aching in every bone of their hairy bodies. And they called all the other unclean spirits, old and young, big and little, and told what had happened to them. And they set sentinels all round hell, and guards at every gate, and ordered them to watch well, and, whatever they did, not on any account to let in the soldier with the flour sack.

The soldier went to the Tzar and told him how he had dealt with the devils, and how henceforth no devil would set foot within a hundred miles of the palace.

"If that's so," says the Tzar, "we'll move at once, and go and live there, and you shall live with me and be honoured as my own brother." And with that there was a great to do shifting the bedding and tables and benches and all else from the old palace to the new, and the soldier set up house with the Tzar, living with him as his own brother, and wearing fine clothes with gold embroidery, and eating the same food as the Tzar, and as much of it as he liked. Money to spend he had, for he had won from the devils enough to last even a spending man a thousand years. And he had nothing to spend it on. Hens don't eat gold. No more do mice. And there the money lay in a corner till the soldier was tired of looking at it.

So the soldier thought he would marry. And he took a wife, and in a year's time God gave him a son, and he had nothing more to wish for except to see the son grow up and turn into a general.

But it so happened that the little boy fell ill, and what was the matter with him no one knew. He grew worse and worse from day to day, and the Tzar sent for every doctor in the country, but not one of them did him a half-pennyworth of good. The doctors grew richer and the boy grew no better but worse, as is often the way.

The soldier had almost given up hope of saving his son when he remembered the old devil who had signed a promise written in his own blood to serve the soldier faithfully wherever and whenever there should be need. He remembered this, and said to himself: "Where the devil has my old devil hidden himself all this time?"

And he had scarcely said this when suddenly there was the little old devil standing in front of him, dressed like a peasant in a little shirt and breeches, trembling with fright and asking: "How can I serve your Excellency?"

"See here," says the soldier. "My son is ill. Do you happen to know how to cure him?"

The little old devil took a glass from his pocket and filled it with cold water and set it on the sick child's forehead.

"Come here, your Excellency," says he, "and look into the glass of water."

The soldier came and looked in the glass.

"And what does your Excellency see?" asked the little old devil, who was so much afraid of the soldier that he trembled and could hardly speak.

"I see Death, like a little old woman, standing at my son's feet."

"Be easy," says the little old devil, "for if Death is standing at your son's feet he will be well again. But if Death were standing at his head then nothing could save him."

And with that the little old devil lifted the glass and splashed the cold water over the sick child, and the next minute there was the little boy crawling about and laughing and crowing as if he had never been sick in his life.

"Give me that glass," says the soldier, "and we'll cry quits."

The little old devil gave him the glass. And the soldier gave back the promise which the devil had signed in his own blood. As soon as the little old devil had that promise in his hand he gave one look at the soldier and fled away as if the blacksmiths had only that minute stopped beating him on the anvil.

And the soldier after that set up as a wise man and put all the doctors out of business, curing the boyars and generals. He would just look in his glass, and if Death stood at a sick man's feet, he threw the water over him and cured him. If Death stood at the sick man's head, he said: "It's all up with you," and the sick man died as sure as fate.

All went well until the Tzar himself fell ill and sent for the soldier to cure him.

The soldier went in, and the Tzar greeted him as his own brother, and prayed him to be quick, as he felt the sickness growing upon him as he lay. The soldier poured cold water in the glass, and set it on the Tzar's forehead, and looked and looked again, and saw Death standing at the Tzar's head.

"O Tzar," says the soldier, "it's all up with you. Death is waiting by your head, and you have but a few minutes left to live."

"What?" cries the Tzar, "you cure my boyars and generals and you will not cure me who am Tzar, and have treated you as my own born brother. If I've only a few minutes to live I've time enough to give orders for you to be beheaded."

The soldier thought and thought, and he begged Death: "O Death," says he, "give my life to the Tzar and kill me instead. Better to die so than to end by being shamefully beheaded!"

He looked once more in the glass, and saw that the little old woman Death had shifted from the Tzar's head and was now standing at his feet. He picked up the glass and splashed the water over the Tzar, and there was the Tzar as well and healthy as ever he had been.

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