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286 violent passion and calling his wife aside, demanded how she had dared disobey his express command.

She replied that she had but carried out his written instruction and when he had examined the letter he had sent her, he was compelled to admit that it was in his own handwriting. He swallowed his rage, therefore, for the time, and began to plan how he might destroy his son-in-law without fail.

They lived together one month, they lived together two, and three, when one day Marko the Rich called Wassily the Unlucky to him and bade him prepare to journey at once across three times nine countries to the thirtieth realm. "In this realm," he said, "is the Tzardom of Tzar Zmey. Go to him and bid him pay thee, for me, the sum he owes for rent during the past twelve years, since he has built his Palace on land which is mine. When this is accomplished, inquire concerning twelve of my ships which were lost upon his coasts some three years since and from which no tidings have come. See to it that thou start by sunrise to-morrow."

Anasthasia, when she heard, wept bitterly and tried to dissuade her father, but in vain. So next morning Wassily the Unlucky said a prayer to God, bade his wife farewell and with a store of biscuits