"The monster came slowly out of his lair, licking his bloody muzzle and striking his long tail against his haunches, and preparing to make one spring on the boy. (Don't cry, little snub-nose!) He did not gobble him up; for at that instant a gigantic snake darted out of a cleft in the rock, threw itself round the tiger, and, encircling neck and body, bit the monster in the throat. The tiger uttered an awful roar, and wrestled with the snake on the ground. Now began a battle for life and death between the two animals, until both together they fell down the rocky precipice. They had killed each other. The prince had to go home to his palace.
"On his way home he met a huntsman, his bow and quiver slung on his back.
"'That's an odd huntsman who hunts nowadays with bow and arrow,' thought the little prince, and looked straight into his eyes. It was the man with the green eyes!
"'So you can't find the way to the better land unless you love me, eh?' said he, and disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up.
"'We'll see,' thought the little prince. 'I heard once that there is a great sea, and that many people who went on that sea in ships found the way to that land. Perhaps I may succeed in finding that big sea.'
"So he commanded his Grand Vizier to fit out a great ship on the Black Sea for him; and in this they sailed to the country of the fire-worshippers, which had been the home of the prince's mother. The voyage out was propitious; but coming back they were caught in a terrific storm. It thundered and lightened, the sky grew quite dark, and as the lightning lit it up and the rifts of cloud opened, they could clearly see in the sky beyond the radiant angel host; and as the storm-winds made clefts in the sea they could see the sea-nymphs at the bottom.
"'At last!' thought the king's son. 'Whether from above or below, I shall find the way to the better land.'
"The waves ran so high they had already broken the ship's rudder; the man at the helm had been washed overboard; the ship was fast running on to a huge mass of rocks; there was no doubt but that it must inevitably go to pieces.
"At that moment the prince saw some one by the steering-gear, a stranger, who began steering the ship with an old-fashioned helm.
"'That's an odd sort of man who thinks to steer this great ship with that old-fashioned gear!'