slay him.'

The Prince agreed, and parted from them. Making his way very cautiously
to the cave, he waited till Bashtchelik had gone forth to the hunt, and
then entered and found his wife, and bade her glean from Bashtchelik the
secret of his strength. Then he returned to his place of concealment.

That evening, when Bashtchelik returned to the cave, the Princess
praised his great strength and flattered him mightily upon it.

'Tell me, I pray thee,' she said at last, 'wherein thy great strength
lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound; for'--with a laugh--'I
would fain bind thee with my hair.'

Bashtchelik laughed, well pleased at her words. 'Wouldst thou know it?'
said he. 'My strength is in my sword; were that taken from me I should
then be weak, and be as another man.'

The Princess then bowed down before his sword and did homage to it, and
sang a great song of joy that all power on earth was in the sword. But,
on hearing this, Bashtchelik laughed, and laughed again, saying,
'Foolish one! my real strength lies no more in my sword than in its
scabbard.'

'Then,' said she, 'thou hast mocked me. Tell me, I pray thee, wherein
thy strength lieth.'

'In my bow and arrows,' replied he. And at once the Princess bowed down
and did homage to his bow and arrows, singing their praise: how swift
their flight through the air, how true their aim, how deadly their
piercing points.

But Bashtchelik laughed again, and again, and again.

'Foolish one!' said he. 'My real strength lies not in my bow, nor in my
arrows. But, tell me, why do you seek to know the secret of my
strength?'

'Because I am a woman; and was there ever a woman who loved a man and
did not want to know his secret?'

'Ay--to know it, and to impart it to others.'

'Nay, nay; to know it is enough. Tell me, I pray thee, and tell me
truly, wherein the secret of thy great strength lieth.'

At this he was much distressed, and, thinking that the Princess believed
her husband dead, he hoped at last to win her love; and so he told her.

'Listen to me,' said he. 'Far away in a high tableland in the interior
of this country there is a mountain reaching up to the sky, and rooted
far down into the earth. In a spot of that mountain--in a den where a
serpent lies asleep--there is a fox, and in its heart there hides a
bird. That bird is the storehouse of my strength. One flutter of its
wings would scatter a whole army; one beat of its heart would shake the
whole