feast was made ready, and
the bells rang, and flags waved above the palace.

The Tzar held out his hand to the Princess, and looked at her with his
old eyes. But she would not take his hand.

"No," says she; "I will marry nobody until the man who brought me here
has done penance in boiling water."

Instantly the Tzar turned to his servants and ordered them to make a
great fire, and to fill a great cauldron with water and set it on the
fire, and, when the water should be at its hottest, to take the young
archer and throw him into it, to do penance for having taken the
Princess Vasilissa away from the land of Never.

There was no gratitude in the mind of that Tzar.

Swiftly the servants brought wood and made a mighty fire, and on it
they laid a huge cauldron of water, and built the fire round the walls
of the cauldron. The fire burned hot and the water steamed. The fire
burned hotter, and the water bubbled and seethed. They made ready to
take the young archer, to throw him into the cauldron.

"Oh, misery!" thought the young archer. "Why did I ever take the
golden feather that had fallen from the fire-bird's burning breast?
Why did I not listen to the wise words of the horse of power?" And he
remembered the horse of power, and he begged the Tzar,--

"O lord Tzar, I do not complain. I shall presently die in the heat of
the water on the fire. Suffer me, before I die, once more to see my
horse."

"Let him see his horse," says the Princess.

"Very well," says the Tzar. "Say good-bye to your horse, for you will
not ride him again. But let your farewells be short, for we are
waiting."

The young archer crossed the courtyard and came to the horse of power,
who was scraping the ground with his iron hoofs.

"Farewell, my horse of power," says the young archer. "I should have
listened to your words of wisdom, for now the end is come, and we
shall never more see the green trees pass above us and the ground
disappear beneath us, as we race the wind between the earth and the
sky."

"Why so?" says the horse of power.

"The Tzar has ordered that I am to be boiled to death--thrown into
that cauldron that is seething on the great fire."

"Fear not," says the horse of power, "for the Princess Vasilissa has
made him do this, and the end of these things is better than I
thought. Go back, and when they are ready to throw you in the
cauldron, do you run boldly and leap yourself into the boiling water."

The young archer went