Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/321

 I must." Then she went off to her cottage and the restored men took their way to the city of the Terrible Tsar for Nikita had another bright idea. In a field outside the palace they found the Terrible Tsar herding pigs, whereupon Nikita began to blow on the whistle and the pigs began to dance, for their ancestors had come from the herd of the wicked Baba-Yaga. Yelena the Haughty Beauty saw what was happening from the window, but she did not laugh, for she was not a woman of that kind. She only rose in all her haughty beauty and gave a stern command to her servants to take a bunch of rods and beat the pig-herd and the two strangers who were standing near him. At once the guards ran out and brought them to the castle to give them the punishment they deserved for their lack of gravity. This was just what Nikita desired, for he ran forward and seizing Yelena by her lily-white hands in a grasp no man or woman could ever resist, he cried:

"Now, Terrible Tsar, what shall I do with the Terrible Tsaritza?"

"Send her home," said the poor worried monarch, "out of my sight." So they sent her away to her own castle, where she spent all her time in admiring her beauty in the mirror until she died of dulness. But Nikita was made chief minister, and Timothy a general, and the Terrible Tsar did whatever they wished him to do from that day forward.