Marko the Rich came home from the sea, and his wife with his daughter and son-in-law met him on the quay. Marko looked at Vasily, fell into a furious passion with his wife, and said to her: "How darest thou wed our daughter away without my consent?" But the wife replied: "I dared not disobey thy strict command!" and she gave the threatening letter to her husband. Marko read the letter, and saw that the handwriting was his own if the intention was not, and he thought to himself: "Good! thrice hast thou escaped ruin at my hands, but now I will send thee where not even the ravens shall pick thy bones." Marko lived for a month with his son-in-law and treated him and his daughter most kindly; from his face nobody could have thought that he nourished evil thoughts against him in his heart. One day Marko called Vasily to him and said to him: "Go to the land of Thrice-nine, in the Empire of Thrice-ten, to Tsar Zmy [62]; twelve years ago he built a palace on my land. Thou therefore take rent from him for all the twelve years, and get news from him concerning my twelve ships, which have been wrecked about his kingdom for the last three years, and have left no trace behind them." Vasily dared not gainsay his father-in-law, but prepared for his journey, took leave of his young wife, took a sack of sweetmeats as provision by the way, and set out. He went on and on, and whether it was long or short, far or near, matters not, but anyhow at last he heard a voice which said: "Vasily the Luckless, whither art thou going? is thy journey far?"--Vasily looked around him on all sides and answered: "Who called me? speak!"--"'Tis I, the old leafless oak, and I ask thee whither art thou going, and is thy journey far?"--"I am going to Tsar Zmy to collect arrears of rent for the last twelve years." And again the oak said to him: "If thou arrivest in time, think of me and ask him: here the old leafless oak has been standing all these three hundred years, and is withered and rotten to the very root--how much longer must he be tormented in this wide world?" Vasily listened attentively, and then went further. He came to a river and sat in the ferry-boat, but the old ferryman looked at him and said: "Is thy journey before thee a long one, Vasily the Luckless?"--Vasily told him. "Well," said the ferryman, "if thou art in time, remember me, and say to him I have been ferrying here all these thirty years; how much longer, I should like to know, shall I have to go backwards and forwards?"--"Good!" said Vasily, "I will say so."