he wretched woman made a terrific effort to rise, and
failing in this, clenched her teeth, and, lying down, rolled over and
over till she arrived at the spot where the struggle was taking place.
By this time, however, the wolf had broken through Ivan's guard, and he
was now on his back with his right arm in the grip of his ferocious
enemy.

The mother had not a knife, but she had a long steel skewer she used for
sticking into a tree as a means of fastening one end of her washing
line. She wore it hanging to her girdle, and it was quite by a miracle
it had not run into her when she fell.

"Take care, mother," Ivan cried, as she raised it ready to strike;
"remember, it is Olga."

This indeed was an ugly fact that the woman in her anxiety to save the
boy had forgotten. What should she do? To merely wound the animal would
be to make it ten times more savage, in which case it would almost
inevitably destroy them both. To kill it would mean killing Olga. Which
did she love the most, the boy or the girl? Never was a mother placed in
such a dilemma. And she had no time to deliberate, not even a second.
God help her, she chose. And like ninety-nine out of a hundred mothers
would have done, she chose the boy; he--he at all costs must be saved.
She struck, struck with all the pent-up energy of despair, and in her
blind, mad zeal she struck again.

The first blow, penetrating the werwolf's eye, sank deep into its brain,
but the second blow missed--missed, and falling aslant, alighted on the
form beneath.

An hour later a villager on his way home, hearing extraordinary sounds
of mirth, went to the side of the pit and peeped over.

"Vera Kloska!" he screamed; "Heaven have mercy on us, what have you
there?"

"He! he! he!" came the answer. "He! he! he! My children! Don't they look
funny? Olga has such a pretty white flower in her buttonhole, and Ivan a
red stain on his forehead. They are deaf--they won't reply when I speak
to them. See if you can make them hear."

But the villager shook his head. "They'll never hear again in this
world, mad soul," he muttered. "You've murdered them."

* * * * *

Besides this white flower there is a yellow one, of the same shape and
size as a snapdragon; and a red one, something similar to an ox-eyed
daisy, both of which have the power of metamorphosing the plucker and
wearer into a werwolf. Both have the same peculiar vividness of colour,
the same thick, stic