Then Ilya rode against that mighty host as the swift eagle swoops down upon the swans and geese or the falcon darts upon the wild duck; and at the place against which Yermak had beaten in vain he made a breach in the line and began to hew a path through the host as the mower makes a way through the thick standing wheat. Then Cloudfall addressed him with the voice of a man:
“Ho, thou mighty hero of Holy Russia! with a heart of steel thou hast advanced against this mighty host, but even your great might may not overcome it, for that pestilent robber, Tsar Kalin, is served by many men of great renown and warrior-maids of heroic strength and feminine fierceness. Moreover, he is a wily leader, for he has dug three trenches across the open steppe and into these you will fall. I can lift you out of the first and likewise out of the second, but out of the third I may not lift you though I should succeed in rising from it myself. For I watched them digging the trenches while you were sleeping, and, indeed, I missed a great deal of the fine wheat while I served you in this manner.”
Such a counsel of despair was not pleasing to the heroic Ilya, who grasped his silken whip in his right hand and beat Cloudfall soundly upon the flanks. “Traitor and renegade,” he cried in heroic anger, “I feed thee on white wheat and give you water from crystal springs and yet you will forsake me in the deep ditches of the open steppe.” And he paid no heed to the warning of the intelligent animal, but rolling up the sleeve of his right arm advanced with unabated fury against the foe. In a few moments he came to the first trench, into which he fell forthwith and from which Cloudfall bore him forth in safety. On he rode, fighting all the way, until he came to a second ditch, and from that also he escaped in like manner. Then he advanced again, fighting all the way, until he came to the third ditch from which Cloudfall leapt nimbly. But he left Ilya behind. Thereupon the accursed Tatars leapt down into the trench and fell upon Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck. They bound his swift feet and his strong white hands and led him to where Tsar Kalin sat in his pavilion of fair white linen embroidered with gold.
“Ah, ho! Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck,” cried the pestilent leader of the Golden Horde. “How could you hope, you old dog, to prevail against my mighty host?” Then to his guards he said, “Unfetter his swift feet and unbind his strong white hands.” This was done at once, and then Tsar Kalin said in a voice of honey:
“Now sit down at my table, Ilya of Murom. Eat of my food and drink of my mead, put on an embroidered robe, and marry my daughter. Serve Prince Vladimir no longer but be vassal to me.”
Then Ilya’s eyes flashed fire like the fire of Falcon the Hunter, whose father he was. “If I had by me my good sword,” he said, “thou dog, Kalin the Tsar, it should woo thy neck. I will do none of these things, for my duty is to fight for the Christian temples which my darts have protected even against my own son Falcon the Hunter, for Prince Vladimir and Princess Apraxia and the city of Kiev.”
Then Ilya raised his eyes and listened and a voice sounded in his ears, “Lift up thy hands, Ilya.” He raised them heavenward and into his heroic arms came the strength of twenty heroes; and in that strength he fell upon Tsar Kalin and laid his lifeless body upon the floor of the fair pavilion. Snatching up the monarch’s sword he ran from the pavilion to turn it against his host, and company after company fell before him until his sword edge turned and the weapon was useless. Then he flung it aside in impatience, and picking up a Tatar by the ankles he used him as a club with which he cleared a path through the host of astonished warriors. “It is a stout club, this of mine,” he cried grimly as he dealt blows to right and left; “and it has a hard end to it with which to crack infidel pates.”
At last he won his way to the edge of the host, where he flung his human club from him with a last great effort, and seizing the horn which hung at his side he sounded a mighty blast; for the heroic efforts he had made had dimmed the clearness of his eyes, so that he could not distinguish either the white day or the black night. From far away Cloudfall heard the sound of that familiar horn and in two heroic leaps was once more at his master’s side. In a trice Ilya had mounted him and then he rode away to a lofty mountain upon the summit of which he stood and, raising his hand to his brow, gazed far away to the eastward. There he saw again the white pavilion of the heroes and the horses feeding on the fine wheat which was strewn for them. “I will send them a swift messenger,” said Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck.
As he fitted a fiery dart to his stout bow, Ilya conjured it saying, “Fly, little dart, to yonder pavilion. Tear through the roof and pierce the white breast of my brother-in-arms, Samson, that glorious hero of Holy Russia, and make a small scratch—not a wound which you would bestow upon one of the Golden Horde,—for the hero Samson sleepeth and taketh his ease while I stand here alone and have need of his help.”
The shaft made a stream of blue light through the air, and reaching the pavilion tore a flaming path through the roof, but too quickly for the linen to catch fire, and made a small scratch upon the white breast of Samson, rousing him from his heavy sleep. He opened his eyes, gazed upwards, and saw the rent in the roof of the pavilion. Then he was aware of a slight discomfort on his breast, looked down, saw the scratch, and leapt lightly to his nimble feet.