..
and I had a dream.
"The red glow of sunset was slowly fading. Around stretched huge,
slumbering, primeval forests, shadow-filled bogs, and wide green
marshes. Wolves howled mournfully through the woods and the valleys.
Carts were creaking; horses were neighing; men were shouting--this
wild race of the Ancient Russians was marching to collect tribute.
Down a forest roadway they went, from the Oka to the rivers Sozh and
Desna.
"A Prince pitched his camp on a hill: his son lay dying with the
slowly-sinking sunlight. They prayed to the gods to spare the
princeling. They burned youths and maidens at the stake. They cast
men into the river to appease the water-spirit. They invoked the
ancient Slavic god Perun. They called on Jesus and the Mother of God.
In vain! In the terrible, lurid light of that vernal evening the
princeling died.
"Then they slew his horse and his wife, and raised the tumulus.
"In the Prince's suite was an Arab scholar named Ibn-Sadif. He was as
thin as an arrow, pliant as a bow, as dark as pitch, with the eyes
and nose of an eagle under his white turban. He was a wanderer over
the earth, for, learned in all else, he still sought knowledge of men
and of countries. He had gone up by the Volga to the Kama and to the
Bulgarians. Now he was wending his way with the Russians to Kiev and
Tsargrad.
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