“Why do you try to deceive me?”
However, he sent two knights, Alescha Popowitsch and Dobrinja
Nikititsch, to see if it was as Ilija said; and when they told the
prince that it was true, he was pleased, gave the young man some drink,
and desired to hear the robber’s whistle. Ilija, the Muromer, therefore
wrapped up the prince and the princess under his cloak, lined with
sable, put them under his arm, and then told the Robber Nightingale to
blow his whistle gently. He blew, however, so loud that he deafened all
the knights and they fell on the floor, and Ilija, the Muromer, was so
enraged that he killed him there and then.
Ilija became very friendly with Dobrinja Nikititsch, and, saddling their
good horses, they rode away together, and travelled for three months
without meeting with any adversary. Then they came up with a cripple.
His beggar’s cloak weighed fifty pounds, his hat nine pounds, and his
crutch was six feet long. Ilija, the Muromer, rode up to him and began
to try his courage, but the cripple addressing him said—
“Ah! Ilija, the Muromer, do you not know me? Do you not remember how we
learnt lessons in the same school? Will you fall on me, a poor cripple?
Do you know that there is great distress in the famous town of Kiev? A
powerful infidel knight, a godless idolater, has come there. His head is
as big as a beer-barrel, his eyebrows are a span apart, and his
shoulders are six feet across. He eats an ox at a meal, and drinks a
cask of beer at a time. The Prince is sore troubled at your absence.”
Then Ilija, the Muromer, put on the cripple’s cloak and rode off to
Kiev. He went to the palace, and cried with all his might—
“Ho, there! Prince of Kiev, give the cripple an alms.”