"Let him come!" Immediately appeared Obédalo--ate up everything, and wasn't content then! The Water King next set out two score tubs of all kinds of strong drinks, and ordered his son-in-law to see that they were all drained dry. "My Father!" begs the Prince again, "there's another old man of mine here, let him, too, drink your health." "Let him come!" Opivalo appeared, emptied all the forty tubs in a twinkling, and then asked for a drop more by way of stirrup-cup.[145] The Water King saw that there was nothing to be gained that way, so he gave orders to prepare a bath-room for the young couple--an iron bath-room--and to heat it as hot as possible. So the iron bath-room was made hot. Twelve loads of firewood were set alight, and the stove and the walls were made red-hot--impossible to come within five versts of it. "My Father!" says the Prince; "let an old fellow of ours have a scrub first, just to try the bath-room." "Let him do so!" Moroz Treskum went into the bath room, blew into one corner, blew in another--in a moment icicles were hanging there. After him the young couple also went into the bath-room, were lathered and scrubbed,[146] and then went home. After a time Vasilissa said to the Prince, "Let us get out of my father's power. He's tremendously angry with you; perhaps he'll be doing you some hurt." "Let us go," says the Prince. Straightway they saddled their horses and galloped off into the open plain. They rode and rode; many an hour went by. "Jump down from your horse, Prince, and lay your ear close to the earth," said Vasilissa. "Cannot you hear a sound as of pursuers?" The prince bent his ear to the ground, but he could hear nothing. Then Vasilissa herself lighted down from her good steed, laid herself flat on the earth, and said: "Ah Prince! I hear a great noise as of chasing after us." Then she turned the horses into a well, and herself into a bowl, and the Prince into an old, very old man. Up came the pursuers. "Heigh, old man!" say they, "haven't you seen a youth and a maiden pass by?" "I saw them, my friends! only it was a long while ago. I was a youngster at the time when they rode by." The pursuers returned to the Water King. "There is no trace of them," they said, "no news: all we saw was an old man beside a well, and a bowl floating on the water." "Why did not ye seize them?" cried the Water King, who thereupon put the pursuers to a cruel death, and sent another troop after the Prince and Vasilissa the Wise. The fugitives in the mean time had ridden far, far away. Vasilissa the Wise heard the noise made by the fresh set of pursuers, so she turned the Prince into an old priest, and she herself became an ancient church. Scarcely did its walls hold together, covered all over with moss. Presently up came the pursuers. "Heigh, old man! haven't you seen a youth and a maiden pass by?"