VI.
THE THREE WAYS.
One day Ilyá set off on his good horse for a ride. He rode a long way through the open plain till he came to the Burning Stone. Three lengths beyond the stone there were three paths leading this way and that from the Burning Stone, and upon the stone was written:
“Who goes by the first path will be killed.
Who goes by the second path will find marriage.
Who goes by the third path will become rich.”
He stopped to consider:
“By which path shall I go? Why should a bold hero want to be rich? Why should I want to marry? I will take the way to be killed.”
So he took that way and rode on for three hours, and he rode three hundred miles, and then he came to a hill, and at that hill, that high hill, brigands began to come up, and there came up forty thousand brigands. They began to defy our bold hero, and the brave Cossack spoke and hailed them: