Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/280

 stout barrier, for the chieftains of the Cossacks, in number about three thousand, made their lair upon the island of Kuminsk, robbing merchant vessels and destroying red ships with sails of fair white linen.

"I trust in my cudgel of the red elm," said Vasily. "Haste now, my bodyguard, and steer my red beauty by the straight way."

So they sailed onward, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, until they came to a lofty mountain which sloped down steeply to the water. Tired of his confinement Vasily ran in to the shore and ascended the steep hill with his brave bodyguard at his heels. Half-way up the ascent they found a human skull and human bones lying in the pathway. Vasily cast them aside with spurning foot, and from the hollow skull came a human voice. "Hey, Vasily the Turbulent, why do you spurn me? There was a time, O youth, when I was such as you are, and even yet I know how to defend myself. Upon this lofty mountain, in the days that are to come, shall lie the skull of Vasily the Turbulent."

The young man made a gesture of disgust and passed on, saying, "Surely a spirit unclean speaks from this hollow skull." At the top of the mountain he found a huge stone on which was carved the inscription: "He who shall comfort himself at this stone and divert himself by leaping along it shall break his turbulent head."

Vasily scoffed at the warning and began to divert himself by leaping across the great stone, his brave bodyguard following his example. But, somehow,