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8 "Obey me," snarled the Baba-Yaga, "or meet a worse fate this instant!"

The servant, trembling for his life, returned with the old witch, who, as soon as she came in to the Tzaritza Marfa, took from her, while she slept, the two lovely babes, put in their place under the sable coverlet two blind puppies, and carried the children to the underground room in the forest. Having done this, she told the two sisters, who, hastening to the Palace, bribed the serving-women and despatched a messenger to the Tzar to say: "Our sister, thy Tzaritza, who boasted that she would bear thee Tzareviches of silver and gold, hath borne thee now neither sons nor daughters, but instead two miserable little puppies."

When the messenger brought him this message, the Tzar's anger waxed hot. He ordered the puppies to be thrown into the sea-ocean, and would have slain his wife but for his great love. However, after his anger had softened, he said to himself: "This second fault also I will pass over. Perchance even yet she will bear me sons fit for a Tzar." And, returning to his capital, he lived happily with her as before.

It happened at length that the Tzar went to a distant Tzardom to pay a visit of ceremony, and