Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/537

 He roared, vomited flames, and sprang upon the prince open-mouthed, intending to swallow him alive. The prince stepped nimbly on one side and seized him by the gullet, and hurled him with so much force against the opposite wall that the monster entered it like a cannon-ball, shedding a torrent of blood and, at the same time, giving up his life.

The young prince took the half-fainting princess in his arms; then he drew from three different springs the water which resuscitates, the water which revives, and the water which restores lost youthfulness. That done, he seized the bridle of the winged horse, which appeared to be petrified, and pointed toward the spot where the two dead and frozen princes lay. The horse threw up its head, reared, beat its wings, rose high into the air, and at length descended gently at the spot where the two dead princes were lying. The prince with the golden hand sprinkled their frozen bodies with the water which resuscitates. The chill of death was dissipated, and the hue of life returned to their faces. Next he sprinkled them with the water which reanimates. Their eyes opened, and they rose.

The prince with the hand of gold related to them all that had happened. They embraced each other tenderly. Taking them up with the princess on to his horse's back, he pointed to the place where the cabin of old Yaga stood upon its cock's claws. Tossing its head, the steed reared, spread its wings, and mounted to the clouds, clearing high forests in its course, and at length descended at the spot to which it had been directed.

The prince cried—

"Cabin, cabin, turn on your claws—your back to the forest, your front to me."

Immediately the cabin turned round creakingly, and presented its door in face of the prince. Old Yaga came out to meet him, and having received a phial full of the water of Jouvence, instantly sprinkled herself with its contents. All signs of age at once disappeared from her features, and, from being ugly, she became young and charming. So happy was she in the change, that she kist the hands of the princes, and said—

"Ask of me what you will; I can refuse you nothing."

At that moment, her two young and pretty daughters, fresh as rosebuds, looked out of their windows. The sight of them so pleased the two princes that they cried, in one voice—