back across the courtyard, and the servants made
ready to throw him into the cauldron.

"Are you sure that the water is boiling?" says the Princess Vasilissa.

"It bubbles and seethes," said the servants.

"Let me see for myself," says the Princess, and she went to the fire
and waved her hand above the cauldron. And some say there was
something in her hand, and some say there was not.

"It is boiling," says she, and the servants laid hands on the young
archer; but he threw them from him, and ran and leapt boldly before
them all into the very middle of the cauldron.

Twice he sank below the surface, borne round with the bubbles and foam
of the boiling water. Then he leapt from the cauldron and stood before
the Tzar and the Princess. He had become so beautiful a youth that all
who saw cried aloud in wonder.

"This is a miracle," says the Tzar. And the Tzar looked at the
beautiful young archer, and thought of himself--of his age, of his
bent back, and his gray beard, and his toothless gums. "I too will
become beautiful," thinks he, and he rose from his throne and
clambered into the cauldron, and was boiled to death in a moment.

And the end of the story? They buried the Tzar, and made the young
archer Tzar in his place. He married the Princess Vasilissa, and lived
many years with her in love and good fellowship. And he built a golden
stable for the horse of power, and never forgot what he owed to him.

THE HUNTER AND HIS WIFE.

It sometimes happened that the two children asked too many questions
even for old Peter, though he was the kindest old Russian peasant who
ever was a grandfather. Sometimes he was busy; sometimes he was tired,
and really could not think of the right answer; sometimes he did not
know the right answer. And once, when Vanya asked him why the sun was
hot, and his sister Maroosia went on and on asking if the sun was a
fire, who lit it? and if it was burning, why didn't it burn out? old
Peter grumbled that he would not answer any more.

For a moment the two children were quiet, and then Maroosia asked one
more question.

Old Peter looked up from the net he was mending. "Maroosia, my dear,"
he said, "you had better watch the tip of your tongue, or perhaps,
when you are grown up and have a husband, the same thing will happen
to you that happened to the wife of the huntsman who saw a snake in a
burning wood-pile."

"Oh, tell us what happened to her!" said Maroosia.

"That is another