“Truly it was fine to run there, like on carpets, till we came to the swamp.  ‘You must now jump from rock to rock,’ said I, and I ran ahead.  We came near the opposite side.  There was only one more jump.  Because I was larger, and my feet longer I managed to jump over, but I knew that Stephen could not jump over.  There were bunches of grass and I advised him to run over them.  He listened to me, came over two or three, but the third one began to move under him and he jumped back on the rock.

“‘Stay there,’ I called to him.  ’Not far from here lives the forester; I will run for him and he will help you.’  I ran as fast as I could but not to the forester’s house.

“‘Petrik, do not leave me.  I am afraid,’ called Stephen after me, and right after that followed a cry: 

“‘Mother mine!’

“Thus I have heard him day and night, as in the past years, so even till today, and I shall perhaps in the hour of death and in the whole of eternity.  I was still a small boy, but a bad one, and at that moment hard as a rock.  ‘Surely he will fall in and will drown,’ I consoled myself.  ’Nobody will give him any more apples, and people will love me and me only.’  No old criminal could have felt worse than I felt then.  I began to run still faster till my legs broke down under me and my breath failed.  Yes; I ran through the woods alone, forsaken, as once Cain did when he killed his brother and ran away from the face of God.  Suddenly a great pain gripped me that could not be expressed, because the voice that whispered to me before, ’Drown him in that swamp,’ now whispered to me, ’You dare not go home.  What will you say when they ask you about Stephen?’ Tired and hungry as I was I threw myself on the ground and started to cry bitterly till I fell asleep.

“At day-break the drivers passed by with their wagons for lumber.  They found me and, recognizing me, laid me sleeping on a wagon and took me as far as our hut.  There they awakened me, laid me down, and half-sleeping I didn’t realize at once what had happened the day before.  I ran to the hall and opened the door.

“The rays of the rising sun struck our bedroom first—­the same that day.  It lit up the bed of my father, and ...”  Bacha stopped and tears ran down his cheek.

“And what, Bacha?  Oh, what, Bacha?” with bitter cries both boys exclaimed.  The tears were already running down Ondrejko’s pale face.

“There on the bed in the rays of the sun like a holy picture, rested our Stephen, sleeping.  Mother sat beside the bed.  There was a humming in my ears and blackness before my eyes, and if father had not jumped and caught me I would have fallen over.  It was long before they brought me back to consciousness.”

“So he didn’t drown?” both boys were astonished and rejoicing.

“Didn’t he fall into that swamp?”

“He fell in it, children.  Oh, he fell in, and there was no man who could have saved him.  But we had a large dog called Whitie who went around always with us, as Fido with you.  When we left home we left him behind, but he followed us, and the Lord God Himself sent him in that moment when the stone under Stephen gave way, and he lost his balance and fell.  Whitie caught him by the hair and dragged him to the shore, and whined and barked till the forester came.