A monstrous serpent rolled into the room, and straightway got on to the bed and said: "I have been flying over the Russian land; I'm frightfully tired, and I want to go to sleep." The lovely damsel flattered him and said: "Everything is known to thee, O Tsar, and without thee I cannot interpret a very hard dream I have dreamed: wilt thou interpret it for me?"--"Well, out with it, quick!"--"I dreamt I was going along a road, and an oak tree cried to me, 'Ask the Tsar how long I am to stand here'!"--"It will stand till some one comes and kicks it with his foot, and then it will be rooted out and fall, and beneath it is a great quantity of gold and silver: Marko the Rich himself has not got as much."--"But then I dreamed that I came to a river, and the ferryman on the ferry-boat said to me: 'Shall I ferry here long'?"--"'Tis his own fault. Let him put the first who comes to him on the ferry-boat, and push him with the ferry-boat away from the shore, and he will change places with him, and ferry for evermore."--"And after that I came in my dreams to the sea, and crossed over it on a whale-fish, and it said to me: 'Ask the Tsar how long I am to be here!'"--"He must lie there till he has cast up the twelve ships of Marko the Rich, then he may go into the water, and his body will grow again." All this the serpent said, and then turned over on its other side and fell a-snoring so loudly that all the crystal windows in the palace rattled. Then the damsel let Vasily out of the coffer, opened the garden-gate for him, and showed him the way. Vasily thanked her, and began his return journey.