"But I don't know where your father, the Tsar of the Snakes, lives," the
shepherd protested.

"I'll show you," the snake said. "I'll point out the direction with my
tail."

So in spite of his misgivings the shepherd at last agreed to the snake's
suggestion and, leaving his sheep in God's care, started up the
mountainside in the direction which the snake pointed out with his tail.

They reached finally a sort of pocket in the hills which was sandy and
rocky and exposed to the full force of the sun. The snake directed the
shepherd to the entrance of a cave which had a huge door composed
entirely of living snakes closely wound together. The shepherd's snake
said something in his breathy whistling voice and the door pulled itself
apart and allowed the shepherd to enter the cave.

"Now," whispered the snake, "when my father asks you what you want, tell
him you want the gift of understanding the language of the animals. He
will try to give you something else but don't you accept anything
else."

The Tsar of the Snakes was a huge creature clothed in a gorgeous skin of
red and yellow and black. They found him reclining on a golden table
with a crown of precious jewels on his head.

"My son!" he cried, when he saw the snake that was still wound about the
shepherd's neck, "where have you been? We have been grieving for you
thinking you had met some misfortune."

"But for this shepherd, my father," the snake said, "I should have been
burned to death. He rescued me."

Then he told the Tsar of the Snakes the whole story. The Tsar of the
Snakes listened carefully and when the Snake Prince was finished he
turned to the shepherd and said:

"Sir, I am deeply indebted to you for saving my son's life. Ask of me
anything I can grant and it is yours."

"Give me then," the shepherd said, "the gift of understanding the
language of the animals."

"Not that!" the Tsar of the Snakes cried. "It is too dangerous a gift!
If ever you confessed to some other human being that you had this gift
and repeated what some animal said you would die that instant. Ask
something else--anything else!"

"No," the shepherd insisted. "Give me that or nothing!"

When the Tsar of the Snakes saw that the shepherd was not to be
dissuaded, he said:

"Very well, then. What must be, must be. Come now very close to me and
put your mouth against my mouth. Do you breathe three times into my
mouth and I shall breathe three times into your mouth. Then you w