last of the net was coming ashore, he saw
something in it, square and dark. He dragged it out, and found it was
a coffer. He opened the coffer, and it was full of precious
stones--green, red, gold--gleaming in the light of the moon. Diamonds
shone there like little bundles of sharp knives.

"There can be no harm in taking these stones," says Sadko, "whether I
dreamed or not."

He took the coffer on his shoulder, and bent under the weight of it,
strong though he was. He put it in a safe place. All night he sat and
watched by the nets, and played and sang, and planned what he would
do.

In the morning the fishermen came, laughing and merry after their
night in Novgorod, and they gave him a little fish for watching their
nets; and he made a fire on the shore, and cooked it and ate it as he
used to do.

"And that is my last meal as a poor man," says Sadko. "Ah me! who
knows if I shall be happier?"

Then he set the coffer on his shoulder and tramped away for Novgorod.

"Who is that?" they asked at the gates.

"Only Sadko the dulcimer player," he replied.

"Turned porter?" said they.

"One trade is as good as another," said Sadko, and he walked into the
city. He sold a few of the stones, two at a time, and with what he got
for them he set up a booth in the market. Small things led to great,
and he was soon one of the richest traders in Novgorod.

And now there was not a girl in the town who could look too sweetly at
Sadko. "He has golden hair," says one. "Blue eyes like the sea," says
another. "He could lift the world on his shoulders," says a third. A
little money, you see, opens everybody's eyes.

But Sadko was not changed by his good fortune. Still he walked and
played by the little river Volkhov. When work was done and the traders
gone, Sadko would take his dulcimer and play and sing on the banks of
the river. And still he said, "There is no girl in all Novgorod as
pretty as my little river." Every time he came back from his long
voyages--for he was trading far and near, like the greatest of
merchants--he went at once to the banks of the river to see how his
sweetheart fared. And always he brought some little present for her
and threw it into the waves.

For twelve years he lived unmarried in Novgorod, and every year made
voyages, buying and selling, and always growing richer and richer.
Many were the mothers in Novgorod who would have liked to see him
married to their daughters. Many were the pillows that