Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/46

16 and throws the chaff a hundred versts away. By it must be a column of gold on which climbs a cat, telling tales and singing songs."

At once the ax and hammer disappeared, and, next morning, when he went to his balcony, the Tzarevich saw that the garden, the mill, the golden column, and the clever cat had all been brought as he had commanded.

He caused his servants, the ax and hammer, to build by the column a crystal summer-house, in which the cat should live, and each day the Tzaritza and Tzarevich Guidon amused themselves by listening to its songs and stories.

Time passed, and again the ship returned from her voyage, and the merchants wondered to see the new marvels. They landed, and the Tzaritza, meeting them, bade them enter and taste of her hospitality. She gave them honey to eat and milk to drink, and treated them so handsomely that they scarce knew themselves for pleasure. "O tradesmen," she asked them, "what do ye barter, and whither sail ye from here?"

"We have bartered carpets and stallions from the Don around the whole world," they answered. "Now we sail to the eastward, to the Tzardom of Tzar Saltan the Mighty."