Page:Slavonic Fairy Tales.djvu/292

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All About Twopence.
271

And his confederate in the corner answered,—

"Here we are; all ready to fight."

At the sound of these words, the robber who held the sword threw it down and fled; his companions left all their booty, which they had collected in heaps on the ground, jumped up and also fled away without daring to look behind. Having run away a long way off, the robbers stopped, and their captain cried out,—

"Stop! comrades, stop! We have walked over mountains and valleys, by day and by night; we have fought with men and attacked castles and palaces, and we have never been afraid so much of anybody as we have been this night of the dead. Is there not a brave man among us who would go and see what is going on in that church?"

Then one of the robbers said, "I won't do it." Another said, "I do not dare to do it." "And I," said a third, "would rather fight with ten living than one dead man."

At last there was found one robber who said that he would go back. Having returned, he approached carefully to a window in the church in order to see what was taking place inside it. In the church, meantime, the confederates divided all the robbers' money, clothes, and arms among themselves, but, in the end, could not agree about the twopence, and almost came to blows. All that