“Come, you forty thousand robbers! What will you take from me, the bold hero? I have not many chests of uncounted gold, I have no beautiful young wives, I have no fine clothes, I have nothing but a good horse, a good horse which cost three hundred; on the horse are trappings worth five hundred; on myself a hero’s gear worth a cool thousand.” When he drew his iron mace of three tons weight, he began to defy the robbers, and he killed the forty thousand robbers. Then the bold hero turned back, and when he reached the Burning Stone he altered the writing thus: “If thou goest by this road thou wilt not be killed.” And he said: “I shall go by the road to marriage.” So Ilyá took the second path and rode on for just three hundred miles. He rode on always through the plain, that open plain, through the open plain, the green meadow, through those open plains and through green meadows till he came to a wonderful and a strange thing. If we called it a town it would be too small; if we called it a village it would seem too large, but there stood a palace built of white stone. When Ilyá reached the broad palace yard there came a most beautiful young princess from the palace of white stone. She came to meet the brave hero and took him by his white hands, kissed him with her sweet lips, led him into the white stone palace, and made him sit down at the oaken table, where a feast was spread. Ilyá ate and drank in plenty, and stuffed himself the whole day long till evening, when he rose up from the oaken table and spoke to the princess and said: “O thou enchanting and beautiful lady, where are thy warm sleeping chambers? Where are the beds of carved wood? Where are the soft feather beds? I am an old man and weary, and I would fain sleep.” And the princess led him to a warm chamber, but the old man stood by the bed and shook his head and said: “Much have I travelled through Holy Russia, but so strange a thing have I never seen. It seems to me that that bed is a trap.” Suddenly he seized the princess by her white hands and threw her against the brick wall against which the bed stood. The bed of carved wood turned over and the princess fell down into a deep dungeon below. The old Cossack walked out of the palace, and outside he found the door of the deep dungeon. Then he took the golden keys, went on and unlocked the deep dungeon and set free many goodly youths and brave, and many strong and mighty heroes, but the beautiful and wicked enchantress was killed. And all the rich treasure which Ilyá found there in that white stone palace he bestowed on the good youths and brave, and on the strong and mighty heroes. But that white stone palace he gave to the flames. And then our bold hero rode back again, and when he came to the Burning Stone he again altered the graven letters and wrote: “By that way I went—I was not married.” “I go,” said he, “by the third path, where one will become rich.”