Nevertheless, Vladimir had fully made up his mind to have himself baptized by an archbishop. It was his lifelong habit, when he wanted anything, to take it by force. He had taken two thirds of his dominions in that way, and, as we have seen, it was in that way that he got his wife Rogneda. So now that he wanted an archbishop, he determined to take one. Calling his army together, he declared war on the Greek emperors, and promising his soldiers all the pillage they wanted, he marched away towards Constantinople. The first serious obstacle he met with was the fortified city of Kherson, situated near the spot where Sebastopol stands in our day. Here the resistance was so obstinate that month after month was consumed in siege operations. At the end of six months Vladimir became seriously alarmed lest the garrison should be succored from without, in which case his hope of getting himself converted into a Christian must be abandoned altogether. While he was troubled on this score, however, one of his soldiers picked up an arrow that had been shot from the city, and found a letter attached to it. This letter informed the Grand Prince that the water-pipes of the city received their supplies at a point immediately in his rear, and with this news Vladimir's hope of becoming a Christian revived. He found the water-pipes and stopped them up, and the city surrendered. There were plenty of bishops and archbishops there, of course, and they were perfectly willing--as they had been from the first, for that matter--to baptize the unruly royal convert, but Vladimir was not content now with that. He sent a messenger to Constantinople to tell the emperors there that he wanted their sister, the Princess Anne, for a wife; and that if they refused, he would march against Constantinople itself. The Emperors Basil and Constantine consented, and although Vladimir had five wives already, he married Anne, and was baptized on the same day. Having now become a Christian, the Grand Prince determined that his Russians should do the same. He publicly stripped the god Perune of his gorgeous golden whiskers, and of his rich vestments, showing the people that Perune was only a log of wood. Then he had the deposed god whipped in public, and thrown into the river, with all the other gods. He next ordered all the people of his capital city to assemble on the banks of the Dnieper River, and, at a signal, made them all rush into the water, while a priest pronounced the baptismal service over the whole population of the city at once. It was the most wholesale baptism ever performed. [Illustration: VLADIMIR BESIEGING THE CITY CONTAINING HIS ARCHBISHOP.]