e Soldier got into the car and set off: at first he drove
slowly, but as soon as he was out of sight he let the horse go
full split. Away he galloped, but all the while he kept an eye on
the coffin. Snap went one hoop--and then another. The witch
began gnashing her teeth.

"Stop!" she cried, "you sha'n't escape! I shall eat you up
in another moment."

"No, dovey! Soldiers are crown property; no one is allowed
to eat them."

Here the last hoop snapped: on to the horse jumped the
Soldier, and through the _duga_, and then set off running backwards.
The witch leapt out of the coffin and tore away in pursuit.
Lighting on the Soldier's footsteps she followed them back
to the horse, ran right round it, saw the soldier wasn't there, and
set off again in pursuit of him. She ran and ran, lighted again
on his footsteps, and again came back to the horse. Utterly at
her wit's end, she did the same thing some ten times over. Suddenly
the cocks began crowing. There lay the witch stretched
out flat on the road! The Soldier picked her up, put her in the
coffin, slammed the lid down, and drove her to the graveyard.
When he got there he lowered the coffin into the grave, shovelled
the earth on top of it, and returned to the merchant's house.

"I've done it all," says he; "catch hold of your horse."

When the merchant saw the Soldier he stared at him with
wide-open eyes.

"Well, Soldier!" said he, "I know a good deal! and as to
my daughter, we needn't speak of her. She was awfully sharp,
she was! But, really, you know more than we do!"

"Come now, master merchant! pay me for my work."

So the merchant handed him over two hundred roubles. The
soldier took them, thanked him, and then went home, and gave
his family a feast.

[The next chapter will contain a number of vampire
stories which, in some respects, resemble these tales
of homicidal corpses. But most of them belong, I
think, to a separate group, due to a different myth or
superstition from that which has given rise to such
tales as those quoted above. The vampire is actuated
by a thirst which can be quenched only by blood, and
which impels it to go forth from the grave and
destroy. But the enchanted corpses which rise at
midnight, and attempt to rend their watchers, appear
to owe their ferocity to demoniacal possession. After
the death of