"Throw it away," she said, giving it back to Petro.

Petro threw it, and what wonder was this? the flower did not fall
straight to the earth, but for a long while twinkled like a fiery ball
through the darkness, and swam through the air like a boat: at last it
began to sink lower and lower, and fell so far away, that the little
star, hardly larger than a poppy-seed, was barely visible. "Here!"
croaked the old woman, in a dull voice: and Basavriuk, giving him a
spade, said: "Dig here, Petro: here you will see more gold than you or
Korzh ever dreamed of."

Petro spat on his hands, seized the spade, applied his foot, and turned
up the earth, a second, a third, a fourth time. . . . There was something
hard: the spade clinked, and would go no farther. Then his eyes began to
distinguish a small, iron-bound coffer. He tried to seize it; but the
chest began to sink into the earth, deeper, farther, and deeper still:
and behind him he heard a laugh, more like a serpent's hiss. "No, you
shall not see the gold until you procure human blood," said the witch,
and led up to him a child of six, covered with a white sheet, indicating
by a sign that he was to cut off his head. Petro was stunned. A trifle,
indeed, to cut off a man's, or even an innocent child's, head for no
reason whatever! In wrath he tore off the sheet enveloping his head, and
behold! before him stood Ivas. And the poor child crossed his little
hands, and hung his head. . . . Petro flew upon the witch with the knife
like a madman, and was on the point of laying hands on her. . . .

"What did you promise for the girl?" . . . thundered Basavriuk; and like a
shot he was on his back. The witch stamped her foot: a blue flame
flashed from the earth; it illumined it all inside, and it was as if