"I feel just as if all my bones were already
broken to bits!"--"That is just how I felt when thou didst take aim at
me the second time," replied the eagle. "But now sit on my back once
more." The man did so, and the eagle flew with him as high as the
small fleecy clouds, and then he shook him off, and down he fell
headlong; but when he was but a hand's-breadth from the earth, the
eagle again flew beneath him and held him up, and said to him, "How
dost thou feel now?" And he replied, "I feel as if I no longer
belonged to this world!"--"That is just how I felt when thou didst aim
at me the third time," replied the eagle. "But now," continued the
bird, "thou art guilty no more. We are quits. I owe thee naught, and
thou owest naught to me; so sit on my back again, and I'll take thee
to my master."

They flew on and on, they flew till they came to the eagle's uncle.
And the eagle said to the archer, "Go to my house, and when they ask
thee, 'Hast thou not seen our poor child?' reply, 'Give me the magic
egg, and I'll bring him before your eyes!'" So he went to the house,
and there they said to him, "Hast thou heard of our poor child with
thine ears, or seen him with thine eyes, and hast thou come hither
willingly or unwillingly?"--And he answered, "I have come hither
willingly!"--Then they asked, "Hast thou smelt out anything of our
poor youngster? for it is three years now since he went to the wars,
and there's neither sight nor sound of him more!"--And he answered,
"Give me the magic egg, and I'll bring him straightway before your
eyes!"--Then they replied, "'Twere better we never saw him than that
we should give thee the magic egg!"--Then he went back to the eagle
and said to him, "They said, ''Twere better we never saw him than that
we should give thee the magic egg.'"--Then the eagle answered, "Let us
fly on farther!"

They flew on and on till they came to the eagle's brother, and the
archer said just the same to him as he had said to the eagle's uncle,
and still he didn't get the egg. Then they flew to the eagle's father,
and the eagle said to him, "Go up to the hut, and if they ask for me,
say that thou hast seen me and will bring me before their eyes."--So
he went up to the hut, and they said to him, "O Tsarevich, we hear
thee with our ears and see thee with our eyes, but hast thou come
hither of thine own free will or by the will of another?"--And the
archer answered, "I have come hither of my own free will!"--Then