THE WOLF. 89

Russia, and of the desperate adventures travellers have met
with when attacked by them. The story of the Russian
peasant, who, to save his master’s family, leaped out of the
sledge and faced the pack alone, thus delaying the wolves
by his own self-sacrifice, while the sledge proceeded on its
journey, is one of these. In contrast to this is the story of
the Russian woman, given by Mr. Lloyd in the work already
quoted.
A Terrible A woman, accompanied by three of her children,
Alternative. was one day in a sledge, when they were pur-
sued by a number of wolves. She put the horse into a
gallop, and drove towards her home with the utmost speed.
She was not far from it; but the ferocious animals gained
upon her, and were on the point of rushing on to the sledge.
For the preservation of her own life and that of the remaining
children, the poor, frantic creature cast one of them to her
bloodthirsty pursuers. This stopped their career for a moment;
but, after devouring the poor child, they renewed the pursuit,
and a second time came up with the vehicle. The mother,
driven to desperation, resorted to the same horrible expedient,
and threw another of her offspring to her ferocious assailants.
The third child was also sacrificed in the same way, and
soon after the wretched being reached her home in safety.
Here she related what had happened, and endeavoured to
palliate her own conduct by describing the dreadful alterna-
tive to which she had been reduced. A peasant, however,
who was among the bystanders, and heard the recital, took
up an axe, and with one blow cleft her skull in two, saying
at the same time, “that a mother who could thus sacrifice
her children for the preservation of her own life, was no
longer fit to live.” The man was committed to prison, but
the Emperor subsequently granted him a pardon.
A Marvellous Equally terrible and more marvellous is the
Escape. story of the adventure of a Russian family which
took place as recently as the winter of 1894—5. A peasant