There was no gratitude in the mind of that Tzar.

Swiftly the servants brought wood and made a mighty fire, and on it they laid a huge cauldron of water, and built the fire round the walls of the cauldron.  The fire burned hot and the water steamed.  The fire burned hotter, and the water bubbled and seethed.  They made ready to take the young archer, to throw him into the cauldron.

“Oh, misery!” thought the young archer.  “Why did I ever take the golden feather that had fallen from the fire-bird’s burning breast?  Why did I not listen to the wise words of the horse of power?” And he remembered the horse of power, and he begged the Tzar,—­

“O lord Tzar, I do not complain.  I shall presently die in the heat of the water on the fire.  Suffer me, before I die, once more to see my horse.”

“Let him see his horse,” says the Princess.

“Very well,” says the Tzar.  “Say good-bye to your horse, for you will not ride him again.  But let your farewells be short, for we are waiting.”

The young archer crossed the courtyard and came to the horse of power, who was scraping the ground with his iron hoofs.

“Farewell, my horse of power,” says the young archer.  “I should have listened to your words of wisdom, for now the end is come, and we shall never more see the green trees pass above us and the ground disappear beneath us, as we race the wind between the earth and the sky.”

“Why so?” says the horse of power.

“The Tzar has ordered that I am to be boiled to death—­thrown into that cauldron that is seething on the great fire.”

“Fear not,” says the horse of power, “for the Princess Vasilissa has made him do this, and the end of these things is better than I thought.  Go back, and when they are ready to throw you in the cauldron, do you run boldly and leap yourself into the boiling water.”

The young archer went back across the courtyard, and the servants made ready to throw him into the cauldron.

“Are you sure that the water is boiling?” says the Princess Vasilissa.

“It bubbles and seethes,” said the servants.

“Let me see for myself,” says the Princess, and she went to the fire and waved her hand above the cauldron.  And some say there was something in her hand, and some say there was not.

“It is boiling,” says she, and the servants laid hands on the young archer; but he threw them from him, and ran and leapt boldly before them all into the very middle of the cauldron.

Twice he sank below the surface, borne round with the bubbles and foam of the boiling water.  Then he leapt from the cauldron and stood before the Tzar and the Princess.  He had become so beautiful a youth that all who saw cried aloud in wonder.

“This is a miracle,” says the Tzar.  And the Tzar looked at the beautiful young archer, and thought of himself—­of his age, of his bent back, and his gray beard, and his toothless gums.  “I too will become beautiful,” thinks he, and he rose from his throne and clambered into the cauldron, and was boiled to death in a moment.