"I saw them, my own! only it was long, ever so long ago. I was a young man when they rode by. It was just while I was building this church." So the second set of pursuers returned to the Water King, saying: "There is neither trace nor news of them, your Royal Majesty. All that we saw was an old priest and an ancient church." "Why did not ye seize them?" cried the Water King louder than before, and having put the pursuers to a cruel death, he galloped off himself in pursuit of the Prince and Vasilissa the Wise. This time Vasilissa turned the horses into a river of honey with _kissel_[147] banks, and changed the Prince into a Drake and herself into a grey duck. The Water King flung himself on the _kissel_ and honey-water, and ate and ate, and drank and drank until he burst! And so he gave up the ghost. The Prince and Vasilissa rode on, and at length they drew nigh to the home of the Prince's parents. Then said Vasilissa, "Go on in front, Prince, and report your arrival to your father and mother. But I will wait for you here by the wayside. Only remember these words of mine: kiss everyone else, only don't kiss your sister; if you do, you will forget me." The Prince reached home, began saluting every one, kissed his sister too--and no sooner had he kissed her than from that very moment he forgot all about his wife, just as if she had never entered into his mind. Three days did Vasilissa the Wise await him. On the fourth day she clad herself like a beggar, went into the capital, and took up her quarters in an old woman's house. But the Prince was preparing to marry a rich Princess, and orders were given to proclaim throughout the kingdom, that all Christian people were to come to congratulate the bride and bridegroom, each one bringing a wheaten pie as a present. Well, the old woman with whom Vasilissa lodged, prepared, like everyone else, to sift flour and make a pie. "Why are you making a pie, granny?" asked Vasilissa. "Is it why? you evidently don't know then. Our King is giving his son in marriage to a rich princess: one must go to the palace to serve up the dinner to the young couple." "Come now! I, too, will bake a pie and take it to the palace; may be the King will make me some present." "Bake away in God's name!" said the old woman. Vasilissa took flour, kneaded dough, and made a pie. And inside it she put some curds and a pair of live doves. Well, the old woman and Vasilissa the Wise reached the palace just at dinner-time. There a feast was in progress, one fit for all the world to see. Vasilissa's pie was set on the table, but no sooner was it cut in two than out of it flew the two doves. The hen bird seized a piece of curd, and her mate said to her: "Give me some curds, too, Dovey!" "No I won't," replied the other dove: "else you'd forget me, as the Prince has forgotten his Vasilissa the Wise."