Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/233

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FINIST THE FALCON
191

Finist slept on and heard nothing, and so the whole long night passed away.

And with the dawn came the Tzar's daughter and sent the girl back to the kitchen, and she took away the enchanted pin so that Finist the Falcon should awaken.

When he came from his chamber, the Tzar's daughter said to him: "Hast thou rested well, and art thou refreshed?"

He answered: "I slept, but it seemed to me that someone was beside me all night, weeping and lamenting and beseeching me to awaken, yet I could not arouse myself, and because of that my head is heavy."

And she said: "Thou wert but dreaming! No one has been beside thee!" So Finist the Falcon called for his horse and betook himself to the open steppe a-hunting.

As it happened before, so it befell that day also, Finist the Falcon had no eyes for the girl who waited on him at table, and in the evening, sad and sorrowful, she went out to the blue sea-ocean, and sitting down on the soft sand, took out the golden hammer and the ten diamond nails and began to play with them. A little later the Tzar's daughter,