When he reaches the plain at the other side of the forest, he perceives, at some distance, a group of huts, and saying, “Surely no one will know me there,” he approaches them and asks for lodging, and is shown to a rude chamber, where, just as he is about to lie down, he spies some object crouching among the shadows, and moving toward it, behold, a peasant armed with a glittering sword. And the wretched Czar departs in haste, saying, “My enemies are my own subjects;” and he pauses not till he is far beyond the boundaries of his own realm. Now at last in a country ruled by another, thinking, “I am surely safe,” he throws himself down by the wayside, faint and footsore; but just as sweet sleep is stealing over him, listen—a rustling, and look—a highwayman standing near with lifted sword; and he wearily moans, and, rising, hastens away. At length he comes to a great city, and saying, “Surely none will know me or wish to harm me here,” he finds lodgings for the night, and lays himself down to rest, when lo! one approaches softly with lifted sword, and Rudolph, the Czar, recognizes the face of him he saw in the field beyond the palace garden. “Alas, he has followed me hither!” he cries, and hurriedly leaves the city. And so, wherever he goes, he dares not sleep, either from fear of assassins, or of highwaymen, or of wild beasts. And so he wanders, and ever wanders on. And one day as he drags himself along, seeking a place to rest, he stops to drink from a fountain beside the path, and as he kneels over the smooth, mirror-like waters, he discovers that his locks are very white, and that his garments are thread-bare and torn. Still onward and onward he journeys, sleep the one thing that he longs for. At last, as he emerges from the shadows of a dark defile between high mountains, he lifts his heavy, drooping eyelids, and beholds, spread out beyond, a valley far lovelier than any he has seen in all his journeyings. Slowly and gently it climbs up and into the purpling distance, with other valleys stepping down between the hills to meet it, and little hamlets nestling at the feet of those hills. And he says, “Surely in so peaceful a valley nothing can disturb me. I will get me to one of those villages and inquire for an inn, and there I will rest—there I will sleep, sleep, sleep.” But just where the defile opens into the valley he encounters an armed sentinel, who steps forward and asks for his pass. “I have no pass,” he answers. “Then thou canst not enter.” “But I am no common man. I am great, and famous, and much feared.” “That matters not. Thou hast no pass. I may not let thee enter.” “But hark you! I am Czar of all the Russias.” “Whatever or whoever thou art, thou hast no pass; therefore our King knows thee not; I may not let thee enter. Answer me no more.”