Page:Slavonic Fairy Tales.djvu/141

 124 in a cellar built of white stones, and fastened with iron hoops. Ivan passed through the broken wall into the city. The people looked at him, and said,—

"He is a stranger from some foreign country."

They took him before their czar.

"Who are you?" asked the czar.

"I don't know."

"Where do you come from?"

"I don't know."

Ivan gave the same answer to all the questions they put to him: "I don't know."

The czar was angry at first, but after a little thought he arrived at the conclusion that Ivan only feigned to be a simpleton, and might be made useful. "Remain then unknown," said the czar to Ivan, and retained him in his service. Ivan served him faithfully; the czar gave him the keys of his treasury, with permission to enter six rooms but not a seventh.

Ivan was often in the treasury. One day, full of thought, he approached the seventh room. Suddenly he heard the neighing of a horse. He could not restrain himself; he opened the door locked with seven locks, and there at once perceived his own long lost horse. The horse was bound with twelve iron hoops and fastened to a pillar with chains; on the pillar were hanging the keys of the chains.