green earth, she saw
the tent standing, silver and gold in the sun. She dipped her oars,
and came nearer to see it the better. The nearer she came the fairer
seemed the tent, and at last she rowed to the shore and grounded her
little boat on the golden sand, and stepped out daintily and came up
to the tent. She was a little frightened, and now and again she
stopped and looked back to where the silver boat lay on the sand with
the blue sea beyond it. The young archer said not a word, but went on
regaling himself on the pleasant dishes he had set out there in the
tent.

At last the Princess Vasilissa came up to the tent and looked in.

The young archer rose and bowed before her. Says he,--

"Good-day to you, Princess! Be so kind as to come in and take bread
and salt with me, and taste my foreign wines."

And the Princess Vasilissa came into the tent and sat down with the
young archer, and ate sweetmeats with him, and drank his health in a
golden goblet of the wine the Tzar had given him. Now this wine was
heavy, and the last drop from the goblet had no sooner trickled down
her little slender throat than her eyes closed against her will, once,
twice, and again.

"Ah me!" says the Princess, "it is as if the night itself had perched
on my eyelids, and yet it is but noon."

And the golden goblet dropped to the ground from her little fingers,
and she leant back on a cushion and fell instantly asleep. If she had
been beautiful before, she was lovelier still when she lay in that
deep sleep in the shadow of the tent.

Quickly the young archer called to the horse of power. Lightly he
lifted the Princess in his strong young arms. Swiftly he leapt with
her into the saddle. Like a feather she lay in the hollow of his left
arm, and slept while the iron hoofs of the great horse thundered over
the ground.

They came to the Tzar's palace, and the young archer leapt from the
horse of power and carried the Princess into the palace. Great was the
joy of the Tzar; but it did not last for long.

"Go, sound the trumpets for our wedding," he said to his servants;
"let all the bells be rung."

The bells rang out and the trumpets sounded, and at the noise of the
horns and the ringing of the bells the Princess Vasilissa woke up and
looked about her.

"What is this ringing of bells," says she, "and this noise of
trumpets? And where, oh, where is the blue sea, and my little silver
boat with its golden oars?" And the Princess put her h