"As for the embroidered garments of my lady mother, the store in her presses and cupboards cannot be valued. At all times the sewing women are busy, stitching, stitching, stitching, and when one group grows weary, another takes up the work. My lady mother's under-robe is set with precious stones, while the bodice is of cloth of gold; her cap is covered with fair seed pearls with jewels of marvellous lustre and priceless value set in front, and as for myself I wear a dress one day, but woe unto my body-servant if I see it again. Your horses are fed on frozen oats, but ours are regaled on fine Turkish wheat. Beneath our palace are twelve deep cellars filled with ruddy gold, white silver, and fine seed pearls, and the contents of one cellar alone would be sufficient to buy up the whole of Kiev town and Chernigof as well." At last Vladimir was a little moved. "I wish that Churilo the Exquisite were here, for he would know how to reply to your boasting." Even as he spoke the white oaken doors of the banquet-hall were flung open, and Churilo the Exquisite entered with a graceful bow to North, South, East, and West, and especially to Prince Vladimir, but not at all to Diuk from India the Glorious. But that young man was not thereby abashed. "I have heard," he said, "even in far-away India, the fame of Churilo's beauty, and truly Rumour was no lying wench, for his face is like the rosebud for redness and his neck like the driven snow for whiteness. But Rumour lied when she praised his courtesy; for he has not learnt how to salute his betters." Then the face of Churilo grew redder than the full-blown rose, and he cried in anger: "Braggart and boaster, son of a slave. Let us lay a wager of roubles, a wager of thirty thousand. For the space of three years you and I shall live in Kiev, and upon every single day of the year each shall wear fresh clothes of the richest, and upon every single day ride a horse of a different hue. And the wager shall pass to him whom all men acclaim as the most glorious. This can I do to uphold the honour of the court of Prince Vladimir, the Fair Sun of Kiev." "It is easy for you to wager such a sum and to propose such a test," said Diuk somewhat wearily, "for you live at home where your clothes presses and your stables are full; but I am far from home and have only one travelling suit which is foul from the mire of the dirty ways of Kiev town. But I accept your wager." Then the young lord sat down at the oaken table and called for a parchment scroll on which he wrote a letter and a list, a letter and a list for his lady mother far away in India the Glorious. Having rolled the scroll and sealed it he went out into the court where Rough-Coat stood pawing the ground impatiently, and placed it in one of the saddle-bags. "Haste thee home," he said in the quivering ear of the faithful steed, "home to India the Glorious, and when you reach the palace of my lady mother neigh loudly so that all may hear."