Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/86

 halted and stood still with his head bowed in an attitude of the deepest thought.

"I am an old man," he said to himself, "and have all the wealth I need, for it wearies me to count it. Why should an old man wish for a wife? I will take the straight road though Death should sit athwart it." Then he added, lifting his head with the light of unquenched youth still in his eyes, "It may be that Death and I shall come to grips in one more great adventure."

Then the youthful Old Cossáck rode onward for leagues and leagues until at last he entered a gloomy forest into which he advanced for some distance, and then met a band of forty thousand robbers who cast eighty thousand envious eyes (save one, for the chief had lost an eye in a battle) upon the goodly proportions and intelligent appearance of Cloudfall the shaggy bay steed. "In all our lives," they said one to another, "we have never seen such a horse. Halt then, good youth, halt, thou hero of Holy Russia!" And they would have forced him to halt but Ilya said:

"Ho, ye robber horde! Why kill an old man and rob him? I have no money in my wallet save five hundred roubles. The cross of gold upon my breast is worth only five hundred—to any one of your company—my cloak of sables about three thousand, my cap and my sandals about five hundred each, my bridle, set with precious stones, about a thousand. My saddle, bordered with eagle feathers,—I hunted that eagle over the blue sea on the way