s left hand and grasping his sword in his right.

But even so he got on no better, for he could see nothing but fire and
smoke.

'There is no help for it; I must go back and get a better horse,' said
he, and mounted again and rode homewards.

At the gate of the palace his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him
eagerly.

'Ah, Petru, my son, I knew you would have to come back,' she cried. 'You
did not set about the matter properly.'

'How ought I to have set about it?' asked Petru, half angrily, half
sadly.

'Look here, my boy,' replied old Birscha. 'You can never reach the
spring of the Fairy of the Dawn unless you ride the horse which your
father, the emperor, rode in his youth. Go and ask where it is to be
found, and then mount it and be off with you.'

Petru thanked her heartily for her advice, and went at once to make
inquiries about the horse.

'By the light of my eyes!' exclaimed the emperor when Petru had put his
question. 'Who has told you anything about that? It must have been that
old witch of a Birscha? Have you lost your wits? Fifty years have passed
since I was young, and who knows where the bones of my horse may be
rotting, or whether a scrap of his reins still lie in his stall? I have
forgotten all about him long ago.'

Petru turned away in anger, and went back to his old nurse.

'Do not be cast down,' she said with a smile; 'if that is how the affair
stands all will go well. Go and fetch the scrap of the reins; I shall
soon know what must be done.'

The place was full of saddles, bridles, and bits of leather. Petru
picked out the oldest, and blackest, and most decayed pair of reins,
and brought them to the old woman, who murmured something over them and
sprinkled them with incense, and held them out to the young man.

'Take the reins,' said she, 'and strike them violently against the
pillars of the house.'

Petru did what he was told, and scarcely had the reins touched the
pillars when something happened--HOW I have no idea--that made Petru
stare with surprise. A horse stood before him--a horse whose equal
in beauty the world had never seen; with a saddle on him of gold and
precious stones, and with such a dazzling bridle you hardly dared
to look at it, lest you should lose your sight. A splendid horse, a
splendid saddle, and a splendid bridle, all ready for the splendid young
prince!

'Jump on the back of the brown horse,' said the old woman, and she
turned round and went into the hou