Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/276

232 and going to a balcony which overlooked the sea-ocean, she cried: "Harken, all ye fish and swimming things! Come to me!" And straightway there came swimming toward the shore, from every part of the water, all the fish of the sea-ocean, till the blue waves were not to be seen for the number of them. Then she cried: "O ye, my friends, who swim everywhere in all waters salt and fresh, have ye perchance heard of Schmat-Razum?" And they replied, all together: "No, we know nothing of him."

She bade them go back to their deep sea caves, and descending to the garden, cried: "Harken, all ye beasts and creeping things! Come hither!" And at once there came hastening from all sides every kind of beast and reptile till the ground was black with them. "O ye, my friends, who run and creep everywhere in all lands," she cried, "have ye ever heard of Schmat-Razum?" And all answered in one voice: "No, we have never heard of him."

She sent them away to their jungles and thickets, when an aged frog, who from lameness had arrived behind the others, hopped forward and said: "I have heard of Schmat-Razum, the servant of Muzhichek, the forest monster. His master lives on a mountain in a forest in the Tzardom of Tzar Zmey, and the forest I know well. But it is at