And Torko-Chachak remained with the young fisherman in the green hut. But Balykchi did not go out fishing any more. He would pick up the rod and take two steps toward the river, then look back at the girl on the threshold, and his feet carried him back to her. He could not get enough of gazing at Silken Tassel.
And so the girl took a piece of birchbark and painted her face on it with the juice of flowers and berries. She nailed the birchbark to a stick and put the stick into the ground right by the water. Now the fisherman was not so lonely by the river. The painted Torko-Chachak looked at him as if she were alive.
One day Balykchi looked at the picture and did not notice when a large fish caught his bait. The rod slipped from his hand and knocked down the stick, and the birchbark fell into the water and floated away.
When the girl heard this, she wept and wailed, she rubbed her brows with her hands, she tangled her braids with her fingers. "Whoever finds the birchbark will come here! Hurry, hurry, Balykchi, and try to catch it! Turn your goatskin coat with the fur outside, get up on the blue ox, and ride as fast as he will go along the riverbank."
Balykchi put on his goatskin coat with the fur outside. He mounted the blue ox and galloped off along the riverbank. But the painted birchbark floated down and down, faster and faster. Balykchi could not catch it.
The water brought the birchbark to the mouth of the river. Here it got tangled in a willow branch and hung over the rapid current.
At the mouth of that river, the camp of rich and cruel Kara-Khan spread far and wide over endless fields and meadows. Innumerable herds of cattle, white and red, were grazing in the tall grass.
The shepherds noticed the white birchbark in the willows. They came down nearer and stared at it, enchanted. Their hats were blown off by the wind and floated down the current. Their herds wandered away and scattered in the woods.
"What is this?" thundered Kara-Khan, riding up to his shepherds. "Hey, lazy good-for-nothings! What holiday is this? Whose wedding are you celebrating?"
He raised his nine-tailed lash, but suddenly he saw the birchbark, and the lash dropped from his hand. |
