h
among the horses to choose one. When morning dawned after a year, a
month, a week, and a day, Costan mounted his horse, took leave of his
youngest brother, and saying to him, "Come, if I am lost too," rode
off as Florea had done.

The dragon at the bridge was now still more terrible, his heads were
more frightful--and the hero fled still faster. Nothing more was heard
of the two brothers; Petru remained alone.

"I am going to follow my brothers," he said one day to his father.

"Then may God go with you," replied the emperor. "He alone knows
whether you will have better luck than your brothers."

So the monarch's youngest son also bade him farewell and set off for
the frontiers of the empire. On the bridge stood a dragon still larger
and more horrible, with jaws even more yawning and frightful. The
creature now had seven heads instead of three.

Petru stopped when he beheld this monster. "Get out of the way!" he
shouted. The dragon did not stir. Petru called a second and a third
time, then rushed forward with uplifted sword. Instantly the sky
darkened so that he saw nothing but fire--fire on the right, fire on
the left, fire before him, fire behind him. The dragon was spitting
fire from every one of its seven heads. The horse began to neigh and
rear, so that our hero could not strike with his sword.

"Hold! This won't do!" said Petru, dismounting and seizing the horse's
bridle with his left hand, while he held his sword in the right.

That plan would not do either. The hero saw nothing but fire and
smoke.

"I'll go home--to get a better horse," said Petru, and he mounted his
steed, and went away to come back again.

When he reached the place his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him
at the court-yard gate.

"Ah, my son Petru! I knew you would be obliged to come back again,
because you didn't set out right."

"How ought I to have gone?" asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.

"You see, my dear Petru," the old nurse began, "you can't reach the
fountain of the Fairy Aurora unless you ride the horse which your
father the emperor rode in his youth; go, ask where and whose that
horse is, then mount it and depart."

Petru thanked her for her directions, and then went off to inquire
about the horse.

"May the light grow black to you!" said the emperor. "Who told you to
ask me that? It must surely have been that witch of a Birscha. Are you
crazy? Fifty years have passed since I was young, who knows where th