Yemilyan was about to show it to him, but the voyevode refused to look at it :

"It's nothing," said he.

"Yes, it's nothing," said Yemilyan; "but then one must beat on it, and the devil is in it."

Yemilyan came with the drum and beat on it.

As soon as he began to beat on it, all the voyevode's army came and joined Yemilyan. They saluted him and waited till he should give the word of command.

The voyevode began to shout to his bowmen from the window of his palace, forbidding them to follow Yemilyan. They refused to obey him, and followed Yemilyan. The voyevode perceived this, and ordered them to restore his wife to Yemilyan, and then asked him to give him the drum.

"I cannot," said Yemilyan. "I must beat it," said he, "and throw the scrapings into the river."

Yemilyan went with the drum to the river, and the bowmen followed him. Yemilyan beat the drum by the river, broke it into pieces, and flung them into the river. And all the bowmen scattered in all directions. But Yemilyan took his wife and brought her home. And from that time forth the voyevode ceased to bother him, and he lived long and happily ever after.1

1 This quaint little parable, in which military glory is symbolized as an empty drum, ends with a variation of the popular greeting: zhiť, pozhivať, dobro nazhivat', a khudo prozhivat', in which the verb zhit, to live, appears in various guises. It is twice printed in the latest edition of Count Tolstoï's works: in vol. xii. under the title, Skazka. Iz narodnuikh skazok, sozdannuikh na Volge f otdalennuiya ot nas vremena. Tale: From

the Folk Tales originating on the Volga in Far-distant Times."

THE END