The Khan, obstinate and fixed in his resolution, considered what was to be done. It came into his head to dress himself in tattered clothes; and he sat down at the gate of the garden, as if he were a sick old man; and he begged alms of the passengers. The Tsarévich happened to take that day a walk in the garden; and, observing that a certain old man sat at the gate, sent to ask who the old man was. They returned with answer that he was a sick beggar; Khlor, like a boy possessed of much curiosity, asked leave to look at the sick beggar. The matrons, to pacify Khlor, told him that there was nothing to be seen; and that he might send the beggar alms. Khlor wished to give the money himself, and ran off. The attendants ran after him; but the faster they ran, the faster the child set out, and got without the gate. Having run up to the faint beggar, his foot catched a stone, and he fell upon his face. The beggar sprang up, took the child under his arm, and set a-running down the hill. A gilded rospúski (a kind of cart with four wheels) trimmed with velvet, stood there: he got on the rospúski, and galloped away with the Tsarévich into the desert. When the guardians had run up to the gate, they found neither beggar nor child; nor did they see any traces of them. Indeed there was no road at the place where the Khan went down the hill. Sitting on the rospúski, he held the Tsarévich before him with one hand, like a chicken by the wing; and with the other he waved his cap round his head, and cried three times, “Hurrah!” On hearing his voice, the guardians ran to the slope of the hill, but it was too late: they could not overtake them. The Khan carried Khlor in safety to his camp, and went into his kibítka, where the grandees met the Khan. The Khan appointed to Khlor his best starshiná.[137] This starshiná took him in his arms, and carried him into a richly ornamented kibítka, covered with Chinese stuffs and Persian carpets. He set the child on a cushion of cloth, and tried to pacify him; but Khlor cried and repented he had run away from his guardians. He was continually asking whither they were carrying him, for what reason, to what purpose, and where he was. The starshiná and the Kirgíz that were with him told him many stories. One said that it was so ordained by the course of the stars; another that it was better living than at home. They told him all but the truth. Seeing that nothing could pacify him, they tried to frighten him with nonsense; they told him they would turn him into a bat or a hawk,--that they would give him to the wolf or frog to be eaten. The Tsarévich was not fearful, and amid his tears laughed at such nonsense. The starshiná, seeing that the child had left off crying, ordered the table to be covered. They covered the table and served the supper. The Tsarévich ate a little: they then presented preserves and such fruit as they had. After supper they undressed him and put him to sleep.