at times, as these tales came floating down to me, I
would find them so horrible as to be forced to cry out, 'Oh, Mamka,
Mamka, DON'T!...' To this hour I have no love for the bizarre, and
am but a poor hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories was
my mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and,
though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she
smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained to
exclaim at the odour."

"Yes, but what of the devils?"

"You must wait a minute or two."

Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in upon
the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuring
verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say:
"Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon you!"

If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured,
sing-song accents he continued:

"When Jesus Christ, God's Son, went forth into the wilderness to
collect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to temptation.
Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning sand in the middle
of the desert, He pondered upon one thing and another, and played with
a handful of pebbles which He had collected. Until presently from afar,
there descried Him the devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan--devils
of equal age with the Saviour.

"Drawing near unto Him, they said, 'Pray suffer us to sport with Thee.'
Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: 'Pray be seated.' Then all of
them did sit down in a circle, and proceed to business, which business
was to see whether or not any member of the party could so throw a
stone into the air as to prevent it from falling back upon the burning
sand.

.............................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given.]

"Christ Himself was the first to throw a stone; whereupon His stone
became changed into a six-winged dove, and fluttered away towards the
Temple of Jerusalem. And, next, the impotent devils strove to do the
same; until at length, when they saw that Christ could not in any wise
be tempted, Zmiulan, the senior of the devils, cried:

"'Oh Lord, we will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we avail not,
and, though we be devils, never shall do so!'

"'Aye, never shall ye!' Christ did agree. 'And, therefore, I will now
fulfil that which from the first I did conceive. T