Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/210

 swift eagle swoops down upon the swans, and geese or the falcon darts upon the wild duck; and at the place against which Yermak had beaten in vain he made a breach in the line and began to hew a path through the host as the mower makes a way through the thick standing wheat. Then Cloudfall addressed him with the voice of a man:

"Ho, thou mighty hero of Holy Russia! with a heart of steel thou hast advanced against this mighty host, but even your great might may not overcome it, for that pestilent robber, Tsar Kalin, is served by many men of great renown and warrior-maids of heroic strength and feminine fierceness. Moreover, he is a wily leader, for he has dug three trenches across the open steppe and into these you will fall. I can lift you out of the first and likewise out of the second, but out of the third I may not lift you though I should succeed in rising from it myself. For I watched them digging the trenches while you were sleeping, and, indeed, I missed a great deal of the fine wheat while I served you in this manner."

Such a counsel of despair was not pleasing to the heroic Ilya, who grasped his silken whip in his right hand and beat Cloudfall soundly upon the flanks. "Traitor and renegade," he cried in heroic anger, "I feed thee on white wheat and give you water from crystal springs and yet you will forsake me in the deep ditches of the open steppe." And he paid no heed to the warning of the intelligent animal, but rolling up the sleeve of his right arm advanced with unabated fury against the foe. In a few moments