“Off you go; find some gold!” And the urchin went and hunted up gold from everywhere, turned an entire mine inside out and still found nothing: the soldier had played everything away.
The devils got angry at losing all their money, and began to assault the soldier, roaring out: “Smash him up, brothers! Eat him up!”
“We’ll see who’ll have the last word if it comes to eating,” said the soldier, shook the nosebag open, and asked, “What is this?”
“A nosebag,” said the devils.
“Well, in you all go, by God’s own spell!” And he collected them all together—so many you couldn’t count them all! Then the soldier buckled the bag tightly, hung it on a peg, and lay down to sleep.
In the morning the Tsar sent for all his folks. “Come up to me and inform me how does it stand with the soldier. If the unholy powers have destroyed him, bring me his little bones.”
So off they went and entered the palace, and there saw the soldier trudging up and down gaily in the rooms and smoking his pipe. “Well, how are you, discharged soldier? We never expected to see you again alive. How did you pass the night? What kind of bargain did you make with the devils?”
“What devils! Just come and look what a lot of gold and silver I won off them. Look, what piles of it!” And the Tsar’s servants looked and were amazed. And the soldier told them: “Bring me two smiths as fast as you can. Tell them to bring an iron anvil and a hammer.”
Off they went helter-skelter to the smiths, and the matter was soon arranged.
The smiths arrived with iron anvil and with heavy hammers.
“Now,” said the soldier, “take this nosebag and beat it hard after the ancient manner of smiths.”
So the smiths took the nosebag, and they began to whisper to each other: “How fearfully heavy it is! The devil must be in it.”
The devils shrieked in answer: “Yes, we are there, father—yes, we are there! Kinsmen, help us!”
So the smiths instantly laid the nosebag on the iron anvil, and they began to knock it about with their hammers as though they were hammering iron.
Very soon the devils saw that they could not possibly stand such treatment, and they began to shriek: “Mercy on us!—mercy on us! Let us out, discharged soldier, into the free world. Unto all eternity we will not forget you, and into this palace never a devil shall enter again. We will forbid everybody—all of them—and drive them all a hundred versts away.”
So the soldier bade the smiths stop, and as soon as he unbuckled the nosebag the devils rushed out, and flew off, without looking, into the depths of hell—into the abysses of hell. But the soldier was no fool; and as they were flying out he laid hold of one old devil—laid hold of him tight by his paw. “Come along,” he said; “give me some written undertaking that you will always serve me faithfully.”
The unholy spirit wrote him out this undertaking in his own blood, gave it him, and took to his heels.
All the devils ran away into the burning pitch, and got away as fast as they could with all their infernal strength, both the old ones and the young ones; and henceforth they established guards all round the burning pit and issued stern ordinances that the gates be constantly guarded, in order that the soldier and the nosebag might never draw near.
The soldier came to the Tsar, and he told him some kind of tale how he had delivered the palace from the infernal visitation.
“Thank you,” the Tsar answered. “Stay here and live with me. I will treat you as if you were my brother.”
So the soldier went and stayed with the Tsar, and had a sufficiency of all things, simply rolled in riches, and he thought it was time he should marry. So he married, and one year later God gave him a son. Then this boy fell into such a fearful illness—so terrible that there was nobody who could cure it—and it was beyond the skill of the physicians; there was no understanding of it. The soldier then thought of the old devil and of the undertaking he had given him, and how it had run in the undertaking: “I shall serve you eternally as a faithful servant.” And he thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?”
Suddenly the same old devil appeared in front of him and asked: “What does your worship desire?”
And the soldier answered: “My little boy is very ill. Do you know how to cure him?”
So the devil fumbled in his pocket, got out a glass, poured cold water into it, and put it over the head of the sick child, and told the soldier: “Come here, look into the water.” And the soldier looked at the water; and the devil asked him: “Well, what do you see?”
“I see Death standing at my son’s feet.”
“Well, he is standing at his feet; then he will survive. If Death stands at his head, then he cannot live another day.” So the devil took the glass with the water in it and poured it over the soldier’s son, and in that same minute the son became well.
“Give me this glass,” the soldier said, “and I shall never trouble you for anything more.” And the devil presented him with the glass, and the soldier returned him the undertaking.
Then the soldier became an enchanter, and set about curing the boyárs and the generals. He would go and look at the glass, and instantly he knew who had to die and who should recover. Now, the Tsar himself became ill, and the soldier was called in. So he poured cold water into the glass, put it at the Tsar’s head, and saw that Death was standing at the Tsar’s head.
The soldier said: “Your Imperial Majesty, there is nobody in the
