The next day the Tsarevich again went up to the palace, and again all the Boyars and Grandees were assembled there; again there was a crash of music, and the doors of the inner chambers opened, and the thrice-wise Helena came forth strutting along like a pea-hen. Behind her came the maids of honour bearing a golden dish, and they all saw that upon this dish beneath the white cloth some living thing was moving about. Softly, very softly, the Tsarevna raised the cloth from the dish, took out the duck, and said to the Tsarevich: "Well, didst thou guess my riddle?"--"How could I help guessing it?" replied the Tsarevich, "there's nothing so very knowing in such a task as that," and forthwith he put his hand into his cap and drew out his dressed-up drake. All the Boyars and Grandees cried "Oh!" and with one voice exclaimed: "Well done, young hero Tsarevich! Thou art indeed worthy to take Helena the thrice-wise to wife." But Helena the thrice-wise knit her brows and said: "Stop a bit! Let him first fulfil my third task. If he be such a hero, let him fetch me three hairs from the head, and three hairs from the beard, of my grandfather, the Sea-king, and then I am ready to be his wife." The Tsarevich returned home gloomier than an autumn night: he would look at nothing and speak to nobody. "Don't fret, Tsarevich!" whispered Ivan the merchant's son in his ear, and he seized his invisible cap, and was in the palace in a trice, and saw the thrice-wise Helena sitting in her state-coach and preparing to drive to the blue sea. And our Ivan, in his invisible cap, took his seat in the very carriage, and the fiery horses of the Tsar carried them in hot haste to the blue sea.