, if not, hold your tongue and let me alone."

The Wood Witch believed him, came down, approached the fire, and said:

"I am hungry."

"What shall I give you to eat? Take what you want of all I have."

"I should like to eat you," said the Wood Witch, "prepare for it."

"And I will devour you," replied Siminok.

He set the hounds upon her to tear her to pieces.

"Stop," cried the Wood Witch, "call off your dogs that they may not
tear me, and I'll give you back your brother with his horse, hounds,
and all."

Siminok called off the dogs.

The Wood Witch swallowed three times and up came Busujok, his horse,
and his dogs. Siminok now set his hounds upon her, and they tore her
into mince-meat. When Busujok recovered his senses, he wondered at
seeing Siminok there and said:

"Welcome, I'm glad to meet you so well and gay, Brother Siminok, but
I've been asleep a very long time."

"You might have slept soundly till the end of the world, if I had not
come?" he replied.

Then Siminok told him every thing that had happened from their parting
until that moment.

But Busujok suspected him; he thought that Siminok had won his wife's
love, and would not believe him when he told him the simple
truth--that such an idea had never entered his head.

Now that Busujok had once begun to be jealous of his bride, he acted
like a lunatic! So, being overpowered by evil thoughts, he made an
agreement with Siminok to bandage the eyes of their horses, mount
them, and let them carry their riders wherever they would.

This was done. When Busujok heard a groan he stopped his horse, untied
the bandage, and looked around him. Siminok was nowhere to be seen.
Just think! He had fallen into a spring, been drowned, and never came
out again!

Busujok returned home and questioned his wife; she told just the same
story as Siminok. Then, to be still more certain of the truth, he,
too, ordered the sword to jump down from the wall and scratch the one
who was wrong. The sword leaped down and wounded his middle finger.

The prince pined away, lamenting and weeping bitterly for the loss of
Siminok, and sorely repenting his undue haste, but all was vain,
nothing could be changed. So, in his grief and anguish, he resolved
not to live any longer without his brother, ordered his own eyes and
those of his horse to be bandaged, mounted it, and bade it hasten to
the forest where Siminok had perished. The horse went as fast as it
could, and plump! it tu