“We will be down soon,” answered the third pool.
So the messengers waited and waited, and then again knocked. Then there was no answer and no reply, so they broke in the door, and all was empty. Then they went and sent word to the Sea Tsar that the young folk had run away. He was very angry, and he set a mighty hunt after them.
But Vasilísa the Wise, with Iván Tsarévich, was already very far ahead: they were leaping on swift horses without staying, without taking breath. “Now, Iván Tsarévich, bend your head down to the grey earth and listen. Is there no noise of a hunt from the Sea Tsar?”
Iván Tsarévich leapt down from his horse, put his ear to the ground, and said, “I hear the talk of people, and the tramp of horses.”
“This is the hunt after us,” said Vasilísa the Wise. And she at once turned the horses into a green meadow, Iván Tsarévich into an old shepherd, and herself into a brooding lamb.
The hunt passed by.
“Ho, old man, have you seen a doughty youth with a fair maiden galloping by?”
“No, good folk, I have not seen them,” said Iván Tsarévich. “It is forty years I have been pasturing on these fields; not one bird has ever flown by, not one wild beast has ever rambled by.”
So they returned home.
“Your Imperial Majesty, we saw no one on the road; we only saw a shepherd feeding a little sheep.”