4. The Russian Servant

One cold winter day long ago a Russian nobleman and his wife were traveling across the plains of Russia in a sleigh drawn by six horses, and their two servants on horseback were riding beside them. Suddenly they heard the howling of a great pack of wolves that had been driven by cold and hunger from the mountains. The nobleman at once ordered one of the servants to ride on faster to the town and bring them other horses while he drove those he had more swiftly. The wolves came nearer and nearer. The other servant begged his master to allow him to loose his horse for the wolves to devour, hoping in this way to save time. But as soon as the servant sprang into the sleigh the frightened horse was torn into a thousand pieces by the fierce wolves, and they were back again more bloodthirsty than before. While the servant fought them off from the back of the sleigh the nobleman cut loose one after another of the horses, until he had but two left. Then the servant said, “I will spring among them and that will give you time to escape!” “No! no!” cried the nobleman. “See the lights of the city in the distance. We are almost safe!” But the wolves were again upon them and there seemed no other way, so the servant sprang from the sleigh, fought and drove back the wolves as far as he could to save all the time possible, but at last he was overcome by their great numbers and was devoured. A few moments later the Russian nobleman and his wife, with the two horses and the sleigh, passed in through the gate of the city in safety, conscious that they had been saved only by the great self-sacrifice of their faithful servant. For a long time after travelers on that road saw a cross, which the nobleman had erected on the spot where his servant had given up his life, and on the cross were these words: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

GRACE, PULLING AT ONE OAR, AND HER FATHER AT THE OTHER