After a third space of silence Ilya left the church and came into the courtyard, where his shaggy bay steed Cloudfall was awaiting him to take the heroic journey to the city of Prince Vladimir, the Royal Sun of Kiev. A few wondering peasants saw Ilya as he strode across the courtyard, but as soon as he was mounted upon Cloudfall they saw him no more, so swift was the movement of the shaggy bay steed. Their eyes tried to follow his flight--for it was no gallop--but they seemed to see only a smoke-wreath upon the open plain, or a swift movement like that of a swirl of snow across the wind-swept steppe. Over the grass skimmed Cloudfall, and over the lakes and rivers, while his long tail streamed behind him like that of a comet in the midnight sky; high above the lofty forests he soared, even above the oaks which had stood there since the days before history dawned, yet he kept lower than the drifting clouds; from mountain summit to mountain summit he sprang, and in leaping along the low hill-ranges he missed many of the tops in his flight; and wherever his hoofs fell, springs of water gushed forth from the rock, but when he alighted on the open plain smoke rose beneath his hoofs, wavered for a moment, and then ascended in a steady column towards the clouds. It was a ride or a flight to be remembered for all time, and Ilya himself was not forgetful of this. For he stopped his shaggy bay steed near a forest, felled two mighty trees with his mace, and erected a rough cross on which he carved with his keen sword the following inscription: "Ilya the Old Cossáck rides to Royal Kiev on his first heroic quest." Then he went again upon his wonderful way. Now when he drew near to the city of Chernigof, he saw before him a great host of Tatars, the enemies of Holy Russia, marshalled under three princes, each of whom commanded forty thousand men. From their crowd of warlike steeds there arose a cloud of steam so dense that it hid the sun by day and the moon by night. When Ilya saw this great host before him he remembered his vows, leapt quickly to the earth, and knelt at the right foot of Cloudfall. "Lend me your aid, my shaggy bay steed," he said, and the intelligent animal bowed his head in reply, after which he raised it and sniffed the air with quivering nostril. For a moment Ilya left his side to wrench from moist Mother Earth a ring-barked oak which he bound to the left stirrup of his shaggy bay steed. Then he tore up another tree by the roots, and mounting Cloudfall began to brandish it in his right hand. "Any man can vow a vow," he said grimly, "even before the high altar, but not every man can keep his vow when he has made it; and my vow was to shed no blood with my keen sword nor yet to use my fiery darts."