Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/283

 to the priests of the city as well as to the aged people, and embarked once more on his red ship with sails of fair white linen.

Now before they put off again the brave bodyguard went also to bathe in the sacred Jordan river, and as they did so an aged woman came down to them.

"Why do you bathe," she said, "in Jordan river? None must bathe therein save Vasily only, whom you shall lose on your way home. Do you not know that your master will be taken from your head as you go homewards?"

And the youths answered curtly:

"Be silent."

In a short time the sails were hoisted, and they put out once more on the broad bosom of the Caspian Sea, and came at last to the island of Kuminsk, where they sought out the Cossack chieftains and bowed down before them. But Vasily was somehow disinclined to talk of his travels or of his early days of violence and headiness. He gave to the chieftains a parchment scroll which he had brought from Jerusalem, in which were written many hard commandments that he enjoined the Cossack chiefs to follow. When these men invited him to a banquet Vasily declined, and taking leave of them very quietly for a man of such a turbulent heart, he set out once more across the Caspian Sea for Novgorod the Great.

When they had sailed for two weeks they came to the steep mountain, and being weary of confinement on the ship they landed to stretch their legs. The