"Sweet Marina," answered the young man, who was really in a very great hurry, "I will not. I have no desire to calm the fiery dragon and charm the poisonous serpent but to fight and kill them. Nor would rest without labour have any charms for me. Besides I know your guile, for you have brought nine brave Russian heroes to their end and now are minded to put an end to me." Then he turned abruptly from the apartment in spite of all the sweet glances of Marina, who was really very lovely, and went home again to his mother with his fiery dart in his hand. As soon as he was gone, Marina seized her dagger, and from the clay floor of the apartment she hacked out the footprints of Nikitich. Then she painted the pieces of earth with many devices in various colours and said her verses over them as she placed them in an oven to bake: "Burn ye footsteps of Nikitich, burn in this oven, burn, burn; and as his footsteps burn may his heart burn to return to me." Now as the witch spoke these words Nikitich felt a strange longing and uneasiness fall upon his spirit. He sat down at night by the fair white oaken table but he could eat no food; when he went to rest he could not sleep but lay tossing about and waiting with impatience for the coming of the white dawn. At the first bell for prayers he rose, dressed himself, went first to the cathedral service, and then took his way to a certain little lane in Kiev town where lived the Princess Marina. He entered the apartment of the Princess slowly and with downcast eyes; but she turned her white shoulders upon him and did not reply to his greeting. "Ah, sweet Marina," said the enchanted youth, "I have come to stay with you always, for since yesterday I have had no peace of mind apart from you." "I asked you yesterday to stay with me, Nikitich," said the enchantress, "and you would not. So now you are in my power. If I wish, I can turn you into a raven, a magpie, a pig, or a heroic ox with golden horns, silver hoofs, and a coat as sleek as velvet, or even into a loathsome frog. And if I change you into a frog no power on earth or in the sky or in the sea, or in the underworld can change you again so that your spiteful mother will know you." Then by a slight movement of her lily-white hand she turned the young man into a heroic ox with golden horns, silver hoofs, and a coat as sleek as velvet. And she drove him out into the open steppe to drink swamp water and to eat marsh grass and to be lord over the nine brown oxen which had once been Russian heroes, strong and mighty. Now as he roamed about the plain not far away from the dwellings of Kiev, he saw a flock of geese which belonged to his aunt; and wickedness entered into his heart, so that he trampled the whole gabbling flock to death down to the very last gosling. Then the goose-girls went to their mistress and with much shaking of dark locks and heaving of white shoulders they told their tale.