"When we got to the top of the hill, we saw, to our great consternation, that the evil foreboding of the gipsy was correct.
"On the highway below, by the side of the ditch, lay a big black mass, the carcase of a fallen horse, and fighting over what remained of it was a whole army of crows and ravens and five large _wolves_.
"We were about five hundred paces from the terrible beasts.
"They immediately perceived us, and, leaving the carcase, forthwith began scudding towards us, spurring each other on with their nasty short sharp yelps.
"'Alas, alas! It is all up with us now!' wailed the contra-bass. 'The wolves will eat us up.'
"Even in that hour of mortal peril the clarinetist was true to his gipsy humour. 'Then we shall have a very queer shape at the resurrection,' said he.
"I bade them leave off wailing, and hasten to clamber up into a willow-tree, whither the monsters could not follow us.
"It was an old pollard willow, the branches of which were cut off every year, so that only the crown of it remained, surrounded by young shoots. I, who had never learnt the art of tree-climbing, was hoisted up by the gipsies first of all, and then they hastily scrambled up after me.
"When we had got to the top of the tree we discovered that in the middle of it was a large hole--the whole inside of the tree was hollow, and could contain a man.
"'Leader,' said the contra-bass, 'your loss would be most serious, creep down into that hole.' I took him at his word, and glided down from the crown of the tree into the deep hollow trunk. First of all, however, I tied my long cotton neckerchief to a little branch, that I might be able to hoist myself up again in case of need, for the hole in the willow went right down to its very roots. At the side of the tree, too, close to an old branch, there was an orifice as large as one's fist, through which one could look as through an attic window.
"The five wolves were not long in arriving.
"They did not come quite near at first, but reconnoitred. Whenever one of them sneaked up a little nearer, the clarinet-player aimed at it with his instrument, which the wolf took for a musket. Then the beast would back a little and scratch up the snow with his hind legs. They say the creature is wont to do this when he sees a man stand on the defensive; he tries to blind him with snow.