Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/239

 asking her to carry with her as many linen sheets as she could comfortably bear. In a similar manner they led forth the Silver Tsaritza and the Copper Tsaritza, and these also brought linen sheets for the device which Ivan had designed.

When they came to the top of the precipice they tore the sheets into broad strips, knotted them together, and made a long linen rope of them; and by means of this stout rope, one end of which they fastened to the trunk of a lofty pine which had seen the dawn of history, they let themselves down to the plain below, first the Copper Tsaritza, then the Silver Tsaritza, then the Golden Tsaritza, Elena the Beautiful, and last of all Golden Tress, the Tsaritza of the Great White Tsar.

Now the two elder brothers of Ivan were standing below, waiting and watching, and when they saw the lovely ladies step daintily one after the other upon the earth they said to each other:

"Let us leave Ivan up there and let us take the three lovely maidens and our mother to our father, and tell him that we rescued them from Whirlwind the Whistler."

"Right and just," said Peter quickly, "I will take the Golden Tsaritza, Elena the Beautiful, for myself, and you, Vasily, take the Silver Tsaritza for yourself, and we will give the Copper Tsaritza to some general."

Meanwhile Golden Tress was looking steadily up the face of the precipice, waiting impatiently for Ivan to come down by the ladder of linen. But the