till the pain aroused him. And suddenly, an hour after midnight, the garden became bright as if with the light of many fires, and the Glowing Bird came flying on its golden wings to alight on the lowest bough of the apple-tree.
Tzarevich Ivan crept nearer, and as it was about to pluck a golden apple in its beak he sprang toward it and seized its tail. The bird, however, beating with its golden wings, tore itself loose and flew away, leaving in his hand a single long feather. He wrapped this in a handkerchief, lay down on the ground and went to sleep.
In the morning Tzar Wyslaff summoned him to his presence, and said: "Well, my dear son, thou didst not, I suppose, see the Glowing Bird?"
Then Tzarevich Ivan unrolled the handkerchief, and the feather shone so that the whole place was bright with it. The Tzar could not sufficiently admire it, for when it was brought into a darkened room it gleamed as if a hundred candles had been lighted. He put it into his royal treasury as a thing which must be safely kept for ever, and set many watchmen about the garden hoping to snare the Glowing Bird, but it came no more for the golden apples.
Then Tzar Wyslaff, greatly desiring it, sent for
