Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/34

6 absent that three babes were born to his Tzaritza—such lovely little sons that their like cannot be told or described, but can only be imagined, and each had legs golden to the knee, arms silver to the elbow, and little stars in his hair set close together. And Tzaritza Marfa sent to her husband a fleet messenger to tell him of their birth.

Her sisters, however, kept back the messenger and sent another in his place with this message: "Thy Tzaritza, our sister, who boasted that she would bear thee Princes of gold and silver, hath borne thee now neither sons nor daughters, but instead, three wretched little kittens."

Then they bribed the nurses and attending women, took from the Tzaritza, while she slept, the three boy-babies, and put in their jeweled cradles, three kittens. As for the beautiful children, they gave them to a Baba-Yaga, and the cruel old witch put them into an underground room, in a forest, under a crooked oak-tree, whose entrance was closed by a great flat stone.

When the Tzar heard the words of the messenger, he was greatly angered. He sent orders to throw the kittens into the sea-ocean, and was minded also to kill his wife. This, however, he could not bear to do, so much did he love her. "I will forgive this fault," he said to himself. "Perchance she may yet give me sons fit for a Tzar."