And lo! the Tsarevich lingered and lingered there. And he saw twenty white doves flying towards a pond. They lighted on the ground and became twenty maidens lovely as the stars of heaven and as goodly as blood and milk. Amongst them the Tsar-Maiden was walking like a peacock, and said, "My beloved friends, 'tis hot; ye see how the sun burns like an oven. Let us bathe! No evil eye can see us here. So strong a guard stands on the shore that not even a fly could pass by them."--"A fly cannot pass them, eh! Look now what a big fly has passed them," said the Tsarevich Ivan, and he took off his little invisible cap and bowed low to the Tsar-Maiden. The Tsar-Maiden and her comrades, as maidens are wont to do, shrieked and moaned, thought of running away and didn't, made as though they wouldn't look and looked all the same, and winked and blinked with their eyes. "Tsar-Maiden, and ye, lovely damsels," said the Tsarevich Ivan, "wherefore do ye fear me? I am not a bear, I shall not bite you, I will take no one's heart against her will; but if my destined bride be here, then am I her destined bridegroom." Then the Tsar-Maiden turned as scarlet as the red poppy-flower, gave her white hand to the Tsarevich Ivan, and said, "Welcome, good youth! Whether thou be tsar or tsarevich, king or king's son, I know not; but if thou hast come hither as a gentle guest, thy reception shall be as beseemeth a dear friend. Many brutal wooers have come to me who would have taken my virginal heart by force, such a thing as was never heard of since the beginning of the world. Come into my white stone halls and into my crystal chambers!"