Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/138

 shining across the white world of the snowy steppe. He shot three times a hundred arrows and three times one, and though he found the three hundred shafts he did not find the three; and this appeared to him to be a very great wonder.

"The three arrows which I have lost," he said to himself, "are of priceless value. They were made of the graceful reeds and were covered with gold beaten finer than the parchment of the holy monks, and set with precious stones so that in their flight they shone like the rays of the sun at early dawn. The feathers were those of the blue-grey eagle, which is swifter in its flight than all the birds of the air, and flies across the deep blue sea to visit its eyrie on the tall burning white stone which flashes for a thousand miles. Its feathers are hard to come by, being more precious than satin or cut velvet, or silk from Samarcand."

Thinking deeply and somewhat depressed at his heavy loss, Diuk once more mounted Rough-Coat and gave him the rein for home. As he sped onward he overtook a company of one and thirty wandering pilgrims, and reining in his horse demanded:

"Ho, there, you greybeards, are you thieves or robbers or travellers, midnight prowlers or plunderers of churches?"

Then the psalm-singers replied:

"Young Diuk, we are neither thieves, nor robbers, prowlers nor plunderers of churches, but pilgrims on the long journey from Kiev town to India the Glorious."