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Rh thou losest none to-day, or thy head shall be put upon my pole!"

He opened the stockade, but the moment they were out the mares switched their tails and set off running into the pathless woods. And again the Tzarevich sat down on a stone and wept until he went to sleep.

Scarce, however, had the little sun begun to set behind the trees than a great bee came buzzing and woke him, and said: "Hasten, Tzarevich Alexis; the mares are all in the stockade, and I have repaid thee for leaving my honey."

He thanked the bee and returned to the hut, where he found the Baba-Yaga again scolding her she-horses for returning.

"How could we help it?" they replied. "We obeyed thy command and ran deep into the trackless forest, but thousands of angry bees came flying from the whole world and stung us till our blood came, and pursued us even here."

"Well," she told them, "to-morrow go neither to the meadow nor to the forest, but swim far out into the sea-ocean."

Again Tzarevich Alexis slept soundly, and when the next morning came the witch sent him a third time to graze her mares, saying: "Beware I miss