"You did well, Alyosha," said Ilya with a fatherly smile about his lips, "for a man is no man who is not able to defend his own. And as for you, Nikitich, how does it stand with your case?" "I could do nothing in honour but fight," was the reply. "For the inscription on the lock denied life to those who entered this pavilion. It was but an invitation to an adventurer from the court of Vladimir." "You did well, Nikitich," said Ilya with a deep laugh in his eyes, "to defend yourself against such odds, for a hero is no hero who is not able to defend his own." Then he paused and looked at both of the combatants, who presented a sorry spectacle. After that he looked round about the wrecked pavilion which had been intended as a place of entertainment for heroes and bold warrior maids. "It will be well, Nikitich," he said quietly, "if you stay to be invited to the next feast that is laid in this pavilion, and well for you, Alyosha, if you do not tempt brave men by forbidding them. Come now, calm your heroic turbulent hearts and swear brotherhood with exchange of crosses." Then the two heroes swore eternal friendship with the exchange of crosses, and they all set out for the court of Vladimir, who when he saw them and heard their story laughed in his beard. "It is not wise, Nikitich," he said, "to expect to win a bride in each day's adventure." Then they went in to supper, and Ilya of Murom sat in the great corner that night and it was he who told the tale. HOW THE COURT OF VLADIMIR RECEIVED A VISITOR FROM INDIA THE GLORIOUS From far beyond the deep blue sea, from India the Glorious, came Lord Diuk the son of Stephen. Like a white hawk his ship skimmed lightly across the heaving waters, and like a white ermine coursing he rode across the boundless open plain. As he rode jauntily onward his bow-case and his quiver beat against his hips, and like a flaming arrow from that same bow was the speed of his good steed, Rough-Coat. His helmet and his armour were of gleaming silver, his shirt of mail, close fitting, was of ruddy gold woven in chains as fine as silk from Samarcand. When he came to a river he asked for no bridge or ford, for Rough-Coat leapt from shore to shore at a single bound. Now as Lord Diuk rode onward he hunted, and the foxes, martens, eagles, geese, white swans and downy ducks knew and told each other by their cries that a practised hunter was abroad. When an arrow sped from his bow a shaft of light seemed to rend the heavens, and where the flaming darts fell to earth a radiance streamed as from the pale cold moon shining across the white world of the snowy steppe. He shot three times a hundred arrows and three times one, and though he found the three hundred shafts he did not find the three; and this appeared to him to be a very great wonder.