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Rh "It is yet early: we have not yet had our sleep; come later on," one pool answered.

Then the ambassadors retired, and they waited one hour and another hour, and they knocked again: "This is not the time and season to sleep; this is the time and season to get up."

"Have a little patience, we will get up; we are dressing," the second pool answered.

And the third time the envoys came, saying that the Sea Tsar was angry: "Why are you so long making ready?"

"We will be down soon," answered the third pool.

So the messengers waited and waited, and then again knocked. Then there was no answer and no reply, so they broke in the door, and all was empty. Then they went and sent word to the Sea Tsar that the young folk had run away. He was very angry, and he set a mighty hunt after them.

But Vasilísa the Wise, with Iván Tsarévich, was already very far ahead: they were leaping on swift horses without staying, without taking breath. "Now, Iván Tsarévich, bend your head down to the grey earth and listen. Is there no noise of a hunt from the Sea Tsar?"

Iván Tsarévich leapt down from his horse, put his ear to the ground, and said, "I hear the talk of people, and the tramp of horses."

"This is the hunt after us," said Vasilísa the Wise. And she at once turned the horses into a green meadow, Iván Tsarévich into an old shepherd, and herself into a brooding lamb.

The hunt passed by.

"Ho, old man, have you seen a doughty youth with a fair maiden galloping by?"

"No, good folk, I have not seen them," said Iván Tsarévich. "It is forty years I have been pasturing