Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/133

Rh "Well," said the Wolf, "be it so. I will help thee. Sit upon my back and say whither I shall bear thee and wherefore."

So Tzarevich Ivan wiped away his tears and a third time mounted the Wolf's back. "Take me, Gray Wolf," he said, "across three times nine lands to the Tzarevna who is called Helen the Beautiful." And straightway the Wolf began running, a hundred times swifter than the swiftest horse, faster than one can tell in a tale, until he came to the country of the beautiful princess. At length he stopped at a golden railing surrounding a lovely garden.

"Get down now, Tzarevich Ivan," said the Wolf; "go back along the road by which we came, and wait for me in the open field under the green oak-tree." So Tzarevich Ivan did as he was bidden. But as for the Gray Wolf, he waited there.

Toward evening, when the sun was very low and its rays were no longer hot, the Tzar's daughter, Helen the Beautiful, went into the garden to walk with her nurse and the ladies-in-waiting of the Court. When she came near, suddenly the Gray Wolf leaped over the railing into the garden, seized her and ran off with her more swiftly than twenty horses. He ran to the open field, to the green oak-tree where Tzarevich Ivan was waiting, and set her