am your dear
mother."

"In the name of my master, the Prince, I command you to answer,"
shouted the Lieutenant, his voice growing more and more angry. The
Wallachian was still silent.

"I ask you whether in your wanderings through the forest you have
noticed anywhere a foreign beast. I mean a beast of prey, called
panther by the learned."

Sanga-moarta seemed to start with terror as if he had been wakened
from a sleep. Suddenly he turned his usually fixed eyes to the
questioner. Over his face came a feverish color, and fairly trembling,
he stammered out,

"I have seen it--I have seen it--I have seen it."

And with that he covered his eyes so that he should not look at the
dead.

"Where have you seen it?" asked the Lieutenant.

"Far--far from here," whispered the Wallachian. Then he became silent
again and buried his face in his hands.

"Name the place,--where?"

The Wallachian looked timidly about him, shivered as if a chill had
gone over him and whispered to the Lieutenant, with timidly rolling
eyes,

"In the neighborhood of Gregyina-Drakuluj."[3]

[Footnote 3: Devil's Garden.]

The priest and the judge crossed themselves three times, and the
latter raised his eyes most devoutly to a picture of Peter, hanging on
the wall, as if he would call on him for help.

"You seem to me a courageous youth since you dare go near the Devil's
garden," said the Lieutenant. "Will you show me the way?"

The Wallachian expressed by the pleasure in his face that he would
gladly show him the way.

"In the name of Saint Nicholas and all the archangels, do not go
there, my lord!" cried the priest. "Nobody who has ever wandered there
has returned. The godly do not turn their steps that way. This youth
has been led thither by his sins."

"I do not go there of my own accord," said Clement, scratching his
head. "Not that I am afraid of the name of the country, but I do not
like to climb around over mountains. However my office requires it and
I must fulfil my duty."

"Then at least fasten a consecrated boat on your cap," urged the
anxious shepherd of souls. "Or else take a picture of Saint Michael
with you so that the devils cannot come near you."

"Thank you, my good people. But you would do better if you would get
me a pair of sandals; I cannot go through the mountains in these
spurred boots. Your safeguards I can make no use of, for I am a
Unitarian."

At this reply the priest crossed himself and said with a sigh: