rice  climbed back again. In their paws they clasped pieces of some sort of
food which they quickly devoured.
     "Another sort of  spider!" groaned  Valya,  stopping rowing.  The  seed
stopped and lazily rocked in the waves.
     "And  on its  back  are its  young,"  said Karik. "We had better wait a
little. They have our permission to move on!"
     But at that moment another similar spider shot  out from behind one  of
the  islands.  It was the very same brown and  also  had stripes. There were
young ones moving on its back too.
     The spiders hurled themselves at each other.
     They were wolf spiders, beasts preying on the surface of the water.
     They jerked  each other savagely. The little  spiders were  thrown like
tops into  the  water.  Whilst the big spiders were fighting the little ones
skidded  about the  water in confusion, coming  together  into a cluster and
then separating in all directions.
     Then suddenly the battle finished.
     One of the spiders started to  sink in the water. The spreading ripples
reached the young ones and rocked them up and down.
     They bobbed on the waves just like ducklings without feathers.
     "Now  the  young ones will fight  each other," breathed Valya.  But the
young ones seemed hardly interested in the fight. They fussily charged about
the surface of the water, one following the other,  tumbled head over heels,
and then suddenly  they  all  made a  rush  for  the victorious  spider and,
jostling each other, nimbly climbed up on its back.
     Karik and Valya looked at each other.
     "What  do you  think of that!" exclaimed  Valya.  "Will  it  throw  the
strange young spiders off its back or not?"
     But the wolf spider did not even notice that it had twice the number of
passengers aboard.
     It rested calmly on the water  with its long legs apart  waiting whilst
the youngsters settled themselves down. When they were all, to the last one,
seated it moved off as if nothing had happened and quickly vanished amid the
labyrinth of  islands.  The children  rowed on further. "Interesting,"  said
Valya, thoughtfully. "What's interesting?"
     "It is interesting  what  those  little  spiders  were  eating."  Karik
shrugged his shoulders. "Some sort of rubbish !"
     Valya sighed. She was remembering that she had not eaten anything since
the day before - no breakfast, no lunch. So she said.
     "Maybe it  isn't  quite  rubbish. To begin  with, maybe it would  taste
nasty, but  then one would get  used to it - and it would be  all the  same.
Then one might get very fond of it."
     It was time for the evening meal.
     The children grew thoughtful.
     What would be happening at home now? Granny would undoubtedly be laying
the table. Mother had said yesterday:
     "Dinner to-morrow will be a special one. You mustn't be late."
     "What do you think there is for dinner at home to-day?" asked Valya.
     "I believe it is cold soup and onion and egg pie."
     Valya swallowed the water her mouth was making.
     "Or maybe it's hot  soup with pork or ham or sausages in it. Then for a
second course beefsteak with onions and roast potatoes. What would you  like
most to eat?"
     "I?"
     Valya thought a little and said:
     "I could eat a crust of bread and a little cheese."
     "I would prefer  a  beefsteak," said Karik,  "only  a  big one, like  a
plate. And masses of potatoes and a  green salad and afterwards  I believe I
should have little  difficulty with  a whole  pie and some  strawberry tart.
Then ..."
     Valya stopped rowing. She turned to Karik and asked:
     "But what are we going to have for dinner to-day?"
     "To-day it will not be convenient for us to have dinner."
     "But then what for supper?"
     "It is not really convenient for us to have supper to-day."
     "Then breakfast?"
     "We cannot have breakfast."
     "What will be convenient?"
     "Nothing," said  Karik,  grumpily. "The most convenient thing is not to
think about it."
     Valya sighed.
     "Come on, row! Let's get  to the shore as quickly as possible!" shouted
Karik. "We'll find something ashore."
     "It would be nice to find a strawberry. It would be ten times as big as
us. Certainly would be as big as a  haystack. Do you  know we only need  one
berry and we could make a hole in it and live in it.  Then we could just eat
the walls and the ceiling."
     "Don't  chatter." Karik frowned. "Row  up and we  shall see when we get
there."
     Valya became silent.
     With their arms and legs  swinging in time, the bud spurted towards the
shore with a bow wave in front and long widening tracks like whiskers in the
water stretching away behind.
     The shore grew nearer every minute.
     Higher and higher rose the forest out of the water, and it seemed as if
it was floating to meet the children.
     "Row as hard as you can !" shouted Karik.
     "I am going full speed ahead," panted Valya.
     The  bud flew forward like  an arrow. Within an hour a huge reed forest
had risen up  before the young travellers shutting out the sun. A heavy cold
shadow covered the water and the water itself in the shade by the forest was
chilly unlike that in the sun beyond.
     The bud sped on between huge bamboo-like trunks which rose straight out
of the water and disappeared into the sky itself.
     "Row gently!" commanded Karik.
     "But why?"
     "There is some animal here! Can you hear?"
     The children stopped rowing.
     Karik put his finger to his lips.
     Looking  at each  other  apprehensively the brother and sister silently
listened  to  the  unpleasant  sound which was  proceeding from  within  the
forest.
     The  curving trunks swayed, rubbed  one another and made loud  scraping
noises. In the dark recesses of the  forest which breathed coldness and damp
some animal  noisily splashed  about, something  else  jabbered  and  whined
menacingly.
     The forest stood like trees in a flooded -field.  Through the clearings
glistened the blue background beyond which the wall of  trees rose thick and
solid.
     On  the  surface  of  the  water  between  the   reed  trunks  strange,
quick-footed animals moved hither and thither and in  pursuit of these there
hurried other  animals bigger  and  more terrible.  When they overtook their
prey they pulled it to pieces and immediately devoured it.
     "Ye-e-es!" Karik whistled softly.
     Valya understood him without further words.
     Looking at her brother, in fright she whispered:
     "We must go back? Now."
     "Back where?"  muttered Karik, and thinking a little. "We must get to a
shore where there are none of these brutes. Let's go and look for another."
     They betook themselves back into open water and drove the bud along the
edge of the reed forest now and then looking around and endeavouring all the
time to get further away from it.
     "Do you know what  !" said Valya. "I propose that this  bank be  called
'Nightmare Jungle'."
     "That's just stupid!" said Karik.
     "Why  stupid?" Valya was offended. "All  travellers  give names. I have
been reading about this in Jules Verne."
     Karik did not answer.  Looking at the reed forest past which they  were
moving, he whistled some very melancholy tune.
     "Or else,"  said  Valya, "it could be called  'The Forest of  Bloodsome
Mystery'."
     "All right, all right!" barked Karik, "watch your rowing!"
     The reed forest  gradually receded and soon had completely disappeared.
To the right  there now stretched  a desert-like  shore covered  with yellow
stones which glittered in the sun.
     It was  so hot that all living creatures seemed to have hidden and must
have been sheltering under leaves and stones, and the  children now rowed on
without meeting any sign of life.
     The way was clear.
     Karik grew happier.
     "Now  that shore," he said, pointing with his hand at  the stony waste,
"I would call the 'Cape of Good Hope'."
     "Why Gape? I don't see any Cape."
     "That is unimportant," answered  Karik,  steering  the  bud towards the
shore, "as we explore it we are sure to find a Cape sooner or later."
     "But I. . . ."
     "I am going to beach the bud!" yelled Karik, splashing water in Valya's
face. "Ready !"
     The children gave  one final  paddle  with  their arms  and  the  green
torpedo stranded on the stony shore.
     With the  violence of  the bump  the bud turned  over.  Karik and Valya
found themselves  suddenly in the  water, but quickly jumped up and catching
hold of the projecting yellow cliff scrambled ashore.
     The  rocks were hot from the sun. Valya sat down on one only to leap up
again.
     "What's the matter? Did  it bite you?"  grinned Karik.  "What  are  you
going to call that rock?"
     He put up his hand  to shield his eyes like the peak of a cap and gazed
around himself.
     "Do you know what . . . .?"
     "What?" replied Valya, timidly.
     "These rocks are just  sand. When we were big it seemed minute, but now
each grain of sand has become like a rock for us."
     "What then?"
     Karik sighed and said.
     "They say that in Africa they cook eggs by  burying them in the sand. I
am afraid we may get cooked without being buried!"
     He touched a rock with his hand and shook his head.
     "No, we cannot sit down here. We must go on further."
     The children returned to their green torpedo and the bud once again set
out on its travels.
     "I propose that this shore be called - " said Valya.
     " 'Hot Bottom'," interrupted Karik, and laughed loudly.
     Valya was cross.
     Knitting her brow, she sat paddling furiously with her arms and legs.
     Karik also became silent.
     How long the children drove  the torpedo along the bank they neither of
them could tell, but their arms and legs became very tired.
     "If only you knew how much I  wanted  something  to eat,"  Valya  said,
breaking the long silence.
     "I know," Karik sympathised. "The two sides  of my  tummy are  sticking
together."
     "It would be grand,"  said Valya, "if we could catch something and cook
it on those rocks."
     "What in particular?"
     "Oh, something - a butterfly - dragonfly."
     "Do you think they would taste all right?"
     "Of course! If you cooked them they'd taste all right."
     "But I could eat something raw," confessed Karik. "A butterfly, only we
could never kill it."
     Talking thus they reached a shore covered with grass forest.
     Up  from the  grass forest there  was  rising  the sultry  steam  of  a
summer's day. Here and there  stood gnarled trunks  of trees resembling  the
monster trees of the tropics - the  baobab tree  - which Karik and Valya had
seen at the pictures.
     "There will be berries here!" shouted  Valya. "I  know there are always
berries in a forest. Let's get ashore quickly."
     The bud came to rest  on the sloping shore. The  children jumped ashore
and, stumbling now and then, ran in to the forest.
     In the forest it was stiflingly hot.
     The trees smelt  of  swampy grass.  There was  no bark  on their  shiny
trunks.
     The  rays of the sun penetrating through the  thick vegetation made odd
yellow patches on the ground.
     The ground under foot was damp and sticky.
     "Now!" cried Valya,  pushing her way  through  the undergrowth  of  the
forest. "Who will be the first to find our dinner!"
     "All right!" said Karik, "look for it, but don't get too far away or we
shall lose each other."
     Shouting  and  hallooing to  one another the  children  made their  way
through the forest keeping a sharp look-out on all sides.
     On  the way they stopped here and  there and pushed great leaves on one
side  to see if  there were  berries underneath.  They climbed up the  grass
trees to look for berries. But nowhere could they find a berry.
     "What an awful forest!" Did it mean that they must die of hunger?
     Suddenly the children heard a dull noise.
     They stopped.
     Karik raised his hand.
     "Did you hear?"
     "Aha," Valya nodded. "It's water. Apparently it's the noise of a river.
Come on! There are sure to be berries by the river. That I know !"
     Valya ran on.
     Karik dashed after her.
     "Not so much  noise!" he  shouted. "It may not be a river but some sort
of frog breathing!"
     He caught hold of Valya's hand.
     The children made their way in the direction of the noise, listening at
each suspicious rumble.
     Piles  of fallen  trunks covered with a layer of dried mud barred their
way. Dry leaves stood up like walls and when the children were trying to get
round  one leaf it  fell on them,  and they only just managed to wriggle out
from underneath it.

     At last Karik and Valya  came out at the  foot of a  high hillock. They
dashed  up to the  top of  this and there  suddenly felt  cold  air in their
faces.
     Right ahead water was flowing noisily.
     Parting  the undergrowth  with  their hands they saw in front of them a
stream.
     The stream was almost a river. Bubbling  and foaming it ran amongst the
stones twisting now to the right and  now to the left, leaping downwards  in
noisy waterfalls.
     "I see something," shouted Valya.
     She wrenched her hand out of her brother's grasp and knocking him aside
dashed off ahead.
     "Vally! Stop! Come back!"
     But Valya was already hidden amongst the trunks of the trees.
     "Come on! Come on!" Karik could  hear  her calling. "Hurry up! Here are
the berries. Such huge ones too. Do hurry, Karik!"
     Karik ran towards his sister's voice. "Vally!"
     "Here! Here!"
     Valya was standing under a tall tree and with her head  flung back, she
pointed upwards with her finger. Karik ran up beside her. "Berries? Eh?"
     "Yes ! there you are! Huge ones!"
     High above the ground there hung pressed to the trunk of the tree dusky
fruit as big as beer barrels. Full of juicy flesh, they hid in the shadow of
long narrow leaves. "Well!" Valya's eye flashed.
     "What do you mean, 'Well'? Up you go!" shouted Karik, and dashed to the
tree.
     With their arms and legs around  the trunk the children swarmed  up the
tree, not letting the dusky fruit out of their sight - first Karik and after
him Valya.
     The trunk swayed slightly and the leaves shook. Below at the  bottom of
a steep slope the river foamed noisily.
     Valya looked down.
     "Oh! suppose we fall - how awful!" she said.
     "Keep climbing," ordered Karik from above, "we won't fall."
     Nimbly  shifting  their  hands  and  feet,  they  at length reached the
tempting fruit.
     Karik stretched out his  hand, but suddenly all  went  dark before  his
eyes and his hands slipped.
     "What are you up to?" Valya managed to ask, and at that moment she felt
a deafening noise in her ears. Her head started to swim.
     With their arms waving and turning head over heels the children plunged
violently downwards straight into the swift and boisterous stream.
     The  strong current seized them  and sweeping them round a rock carried
them off towards the rumbling waterfall.


        CHAPTER VII


     The battle  in the  cave - It had ears in its  legs - The extraordinary
trees - The Professor becomes a pilot - An unexpected meeting



     THE  PROFESSOR  EDGED BACK TO THE SIDE OF THE HOLE.  AS HIS eyes became
used to the darkness he saw in  the  depth of a dark cavern a huge head with
long whiskers.
     "Good   gracious,  a  regular  hussar!  What   on  earth   is  it?"  he
gruff-gruffed, quite perplexed.
     A broad,  bulging shield  covered the head and  the front part  of  the
monster. From  under the shield  there poked out short but  very  broad legs
with teeth on them. The Professor could at once see that it was quite beyond
him to fight with this creature. It could kill him with a single blow of its
foot. For all that he resolved that he would defend himself.
     He pressed his back against the cold, damp side of the dungeon, keeping
the wasp sting in front of him.
     The creature began to stir. The great stiff body, which might have been
made of bone  rings, started  to move forwards. Earth  fell noisily from the
sides of the cavern.
     "Is it possible to attack it from behind?" flashed into the Professor's
mind.
     But the monster's back was well protected. Two webbed wings folded side
by side covered the huge carcass with a strong armour.
     "But whatever is it? What can it be?"
     The Professor stood on tiptoes, stretched his head and suddenly spotted
two spears  with  sharp  edges which  were dragging on  the  ground like two
tails. He gasped with fright.
     "An underground cricket! The mole-cricket!"
     The  mole-cricket noisily shifted itself  in the cavern. Raking  itself
forward on the earth it moved nearer and nearer the Professor.
     "Feeds  on  the  larvae   of  insects  and  earth  worms,"  recollected
Professor; "no doubt it would not object to eating me!"
     Looking  around  helplessly,  he  cautiously edged  away  from the dark
corner  of  the  cavern,  trying  to  keep  as  far  as  possible  from  the
mole-cricket.
     "Must get round it!" mused the Professor, moving along the wall towards
the rear of his enemy.
     The  mole-cricket turned. It raised  its  feelers  as  if  smelling  or
listening.
     The Professor held his breath.
     The  mole-cricket   dropped  its  feelers  and  clumsily  scraping  its
spade-like feet hurled itself at him.
     The Professor shot back into his former place. "No! it's not so easy to
deceive a mole-cricket underground.
     It feels just as much at home there as a fish does in water. No!
     No use running away! I must fight!"
     He stopped  and lifted  up the bottom of the spear, let  the point fall
forward and then steadied it ready for battle. He edged along with one elbow
pressed against the wall behind him.

     Then suddenly he felt his elbow was in space.
     He quickly turned  around. Immediately behind him gaped the entrance of
some sort of dark recess.
     The Professor took a deep breath.
     Where did this  tunnel lead  to?  Who had dug it?  Was  any new  danger
lurking here? But there was no time at that moment to think it out. . . .
     "To  hide, to get away, to dig deeper into the  earth," hammered in his
mind, and without thinking it all out, he plunged into the hole.
     Stumbling and hitting himself painfully against a rock, he threaded his
way in pitch darkness, feeling with his hands.
     The  hole  appeared  a lengthy one,  sometimes dropping downwards, then
rising upwards,  then turning  to  the right, then abruptly  twisting to the
left and all the time becoming narrower and narrower.
     It was  necessary for  him  to bend now and in  places to crawl  on all
fours dragging his spear after him.
     But all this was a trifle.  The Professor  was ready to put up with all
these discomforts. He would readily have agreed  to  crawl all day long even
on his stomach.
     "If only I could get away from the cursed cricket. If I could only hide
- anywhere!" he muttered, shivering with fright.
     However, it appeared  that  it was impossible  to  get  away  from  the
mole-cricket.
     It  was relentlessly following in his tracks,  and the  Professor could
clearly hear the rising noises of the chase in progress behind him.
     When he had first dodged into the tunnel the mole-cricket stopped, felt
the  walls of  the cave with his  feelers  and then became dead  quiet as if
thinking, "where has this strange and agile worm hidden itself?"
     Those  feelers  had then again moved restlessly.  They felt  the floor,
walls, ceiling, and quickly discovered the entrance to the hole.
     The mole-cricket shoved its head into the hole, breathing heavily.
     "Is it here or not?"
     The creature stopped for a little, stamping its  legs, and  then thrust
its enormous body with great  decision  into the hole and, rapidly burrowing
through the earth, crawled along the tunnel.
     The  mole-cricket moved forward as rapidly as a hot knife cuts  butter,
pushing  its body  through the  crumbling  earth  and  boring  its  way with
unbelievable rapidity.
     The  Professor could  soon  hear  behind  him  by  his very back  jerky
breathing, and suddenly the wiry  feelers of the mole-cricket touched him on
the shoulder. Then again they felt his arms and slid across his face.
     The Professor yelled.  Turning round as quickly as  he  could he jabbed
the spear into the feelers and crawled away, twisting like a worm.
     The rough walls of the narrow tunnel scraped his  sides, shoulders  and
elbows.
     The tunnel had now become so tight that it was with great difficulty he
managed to move forward at all.
     What with the mouldiness and dampness it was suffocating.
     The Professor was bathed in  perspiration. His heart  thumped. His arms
and legs shook.
     The further he went the more difficult was it to make any headway along
this  tightening underground  pipe.  However, the Professor now noticed that
the mole-cricket was dropping behind and thus allowed him a ray of hope that
he might be safe.
     More and more  remote  became the sound of  the chase. The mole-cricket
stopped somewhere far back.
     "Saved! It has gone away!" the Professor breathed thickly.
     Pressing himself forward on his elbows and knees he slid along exerting
every effort and suddenly his head ran into the earth.
     Further than this it was  impossible to  go. The  tunnel had ended in a
blind-alley !
     The Professor started to shake bodily.
     "A certain death? But who will then save Karik and Valya?"
     With sweat dripping he felt here and there in  the dark, but everywhere
his hands met a solid earth wall.
     What could he do? He was sitting in the hole just as  if  he  was in  a
trap. Behind him the mole-cricket  was coming up, and in front of  him was a
blank wall.
     What could he do in such a hopeless situation?
     The Professor felt  as if ants were running over his body. His arms and
legs grew cold. His mouth became dry.
     "No! No!" he said, with decision, "we shall yet see who is who. You are
a  great strong  animal but I am a man.  I will  fight you and I will be the
conqueror."
     An hour ago he could have crushed the mole-cricket with a  finger,  but
now he would  have to gather all his strength for the  fray and he could not
say with any certainty how this battle would end.
     He  turned back and  pressing his back  against the earth  wall  of the
blind-alley held the spear in front of himself.
     "I'll  hit it right  on  the  nerve point under  the  eyes,"  said  the
Professor to himself loudly.
     At that moment a  thought  flashed into his head which made  his  flesh
creep.
     "How shall I get  out if I kill the cricket? It  will just cork  up the
hole with its great carcass. How could I move such a monster?"
     There was no time to think this out.
     Louder and louder grew the underground noise. The cricket was now quite
close.
     A minute passed and then another.
     "Get back! get back!" roared the Professor, waving the spear.
     The earth broke away with a rumble. Along the walls of the tunnel there
came scraping  noises.  The sinuous  feelers of the cricket were seeking for
him. In the darkness they felt  his head and shoulders. Twisting his body he
threw  these live, knotted cords off and started to rain blow after  blow on
the head of the monster with his spear.
     "There! Take that! and that, and that!", he shouted hoarsely.
     The cricket did not expect such an attack. Backing, it slid away.
     "Aha! Aha!" yelled the Professor, courageously throwing himself on  his
enemy.
     The cricket put out its feelers. The Professor  struck at them with his
naked fist, and scolding loudly hunted the creature back along the tunnel.
     He did not cease to hit the cricket on the head with  the spear, trying
to  stab  the nerve centre  with its sharp point. But suddenly the  creature
pulled  its head back under its shield  and the spear made no impression  on
this horny covering.
     The monster  stopped.  Obviously the  spear no  longer worried  it. The
Professor knew then - the battle was lost.
     Moving with  its  broad feet  the cricket now advanced  to  attack. The
Professor had to retreat.
     Waving  the spear he slowly backed to the end of  the tunnel  until  he
felt the solid wall behind him.
     "Now we're done!" he thought.
     He shut his eyes tiredly and ducking his head  dropped in a heap on the
floor.
     Suddenly he  heard  a noise above  his head.  The  ceiling  of the hole
cracked  as  if someone  was drilling through from above. Earth fell on  his
head.
     The ceiling fell down. A blinding light flashed for an instant into the
hole and the Professor saw far  away  a fragment of blue  sky, but almost at
once something like  a  huge pod  came  down  into  the  tunnel  from above,
shutting up the opening.
     "What is this?" shouted the Professor, and seized the pod in his hands.
     The pod trembled and commenced to go up again quickly.
     The Professor realised just one thing :
     This pod was going  out  - back up to where it  was all sunny - and  he
must get out of the earth back to the sun with it.
     He held tightly on to  the pod with his arms and legs and suddenly like
a cork he flew out of the earth.
     The sun blinded him. He screwed up his eyes.
     "Saved ! Saved !" He was now laughing hysterically.
     But he had not succeeded in  letting go with his arms when some strange
force flung him upwards and then dropped him down again, then upwards again,
and once again down.
     The Professor bounced up like a ball and fell again.
     He simply must  get free of  this jumping  pod.  The Professor  let go.
Twisting in the  air he  dropped to the  ground  and rolled  head over heels
amongst the stones.
     The shock was so great that he lost consciousness for an instant.
     When he came to the first thing he saw was a great green animal. It was
standing not far from  him with long legs studded with sharp points - spurs.
On the ground lay a thick pod-like tail  considerably longer than the  green
animal itself.
     "Aha!" The Professor raised himself  on his elbows. "I see. It was that
tail I was holding on to. A most kindly tail! A magnificent tail."
     Hearing the voice of the Professor the creature turned a flattened head
with a huge mouth towards him and moved feelers of immeasurable length.
     "What family do you belong to, my saviour?" he now enquired politely.
     The  green  animal, covered  as  it were with shining enamel, moved its
feet.
     "Of course it's you  !" shouted  the Professor. "You heard me with your
feet? There you are! It's  quite clear. You  are a green  grasshopper. Well,
anyway, thank you my friend! Thanks for pulling me out of an awkward jam,  a
very awkward jam."
     The  grasshopper once again moved  its feet. The narrow listening slits
on  its front  legs  turned  towards  the Professor.  The  grasshopper could
clearly hear him.
     Then  the  meaning  of  his recent  experiences  became  clear  to  the
Professor.
     At this time of year the female grasshopper bores holes  in  the ground
in order  to  hide  its  eggs. In  spring the grubs of the  grasshopper  are
hatched out of these  eggs.  They make their way up on to the surface of the
earth and begin to feed on caterpillars, butterflies and flies.
     It was the good fortune of  the Professor that  a female grass-' hopper
had bored into the earth just above the very place to which the mole-cricket
had driven him.
     But  the grasshopper had not succeeded in laying eggs.  Having  touched
the egg-laying tail  of  the  insect the  Professor naturally gave the  poor
creature a great fright, and for that reason she had quickly pulled her tail
out of the ground.
     "Forgive me, please," he burbled cheerfully. "I am  sorry I interrupted
you."
     The  grasshopper jumped up, and spreading wings which glittered  in the
sun it vanished in the greenery of the grass forest.
     "Goodbye! Safe journey!" the Professor  shouted after it and  waved his
hand.
     He was now alone. He  stood there looking around and stroking  his grey
beard.
     "But where have you got me to, my  green steed?" he muttered. "Where is
the pond now? How do I get to it? Should I go left or right?"
     Around  him rustled  the forest. It  was only  now, however,  that  the
Professor noticed that this was not like the grass jungle.
     Here  the trees were not bamboo-like  but their  long  slightly-curving
stems stretched upwards like gigantic candles.
     The Professor  looked  up at  their  tops  and  blinked  his eyes  with
amazement.  There  at  a  dizzy-making  height enormous  white  hats  rocked
quietly.  Each tree stood like a long flagstaff on  the top of which a white
hat had been stuck.
     "What are these?" he wrinkled up his eyes.  He went closer to the stems
and  then stopped suddenly as if rooted to the spot. Before his very eyes  a
white feathery cloud had been ripped off the top of one of the trees and had
suddenly disappeared, It seemed to melt into the air.
     The Professor shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand it.
     The wind came up in a gust from  behind him and  immediately some  more
white tops became separated  from their stems and slowly floated away in the
air.
     From somewhere above  him  there  fell suddenly  at  his  feet a  heavy
elongated kernel.
     He bent over to look at it.
     From one end of the kernel  there projected a long thin whipcord at the
end of which a feathery parachute was quivering.
     "Ah that's what  it is !" the Professor exploded. "But, of  course,  it
is! . . . Why didn't I guess it at once?"
     He nimbly  ran  to the  very highest stem and  throwing  his head  back
examined it from top to roots.
     "There you are! Excellent! You are just what I want to-day."
     He  then tightened  his spider's web  costume, scraped his feet  on the
ground and jumping upwards clasped the stem of the tree.
     The stem was thick. He could only just get his arms and legs around it.
Immediately  he had done  this he felt the palms of his hands and  his knees
sticking to the stem.
     "Never mind. Never mind,"  he muttered. "Once I get half-way up  things
will be easier."
     Moving his arms and legs in turn with difficulty, breathing heavily and
bathed  in perspiration, the Professor climbed the stem like a fly on sticky
paper.
     To begin with,  the ascent was very difficult but  the higher up he got
the thinner became the stem and the easier it was to make progress. The wind
swayed the tree and with  the  tree the Professor also swayed, not daring to
look down at the ground.
     But here at last was the top of the tree - the white feathery crown.
     The Professor  put out his hand preparing to make his way from the stem
on to the crown of the tree, but suddenly something soft slid along his arm.
     He pressed himself to the stem. Around  him unexpectedly wings  started
to beat and the air hummed. Dancing winged creatures were moving just before
the Professor's eyes.
     He ducked his head with fright.
     "They  will eat  me!  I am sure they  will eat  me,  the ruffians!"  he
thought mournfully,  and then  taking another quick look at the creatures he
became calm at once.
     "Oo, what a coward I am !" he sighed with relief.
     Stretching their long thin legs in the air the creatures went round the
tree.  Their  transparent wings  ornamented  with  fine  tracery were all  a
quiver.
     Their long tails brushed against the Professor's face and slid over his
body.
     "Mayflies!" he grinned. "Nothing more  than Mayflies!" and seizing  the
sappy leaves of the crown with his hands he calmly drew himself up on to the
head of the amazing tree. The Mayflies only at first glance appeared giants.
In actual  fact  they  were but  little bigger than the Professor. What made
them  appear  giant  size  was  that  behind   them  there  fluttered  long,
thread-like tails. On some of them these resembled a fork and  on others the
two legs of  a pair  of compasses.  These tails were  about twice as long as
their bodies.
     "See how they  dance!" observed the  Professor. "Does  it mean that  it
soon will be getting dark?"
     And paying no further attention to the winged dancers  he clambered  up
on to the very crown of the tree.
     There  was no  reason to fear the Mayflies. These insects have not even
got  a  mouth. Their life is so short  that they don't  have to worry  about
food. They come into  the light in  order to dance  the  one dance of  their
life-time.
     In a happy dancing ring  they.  circle tirelessly, waving their  little
wings and then when the summer dusk  commences they fly down to the  surface
of the water, lay their eggs  and never themselves do  they rise again  from
the water. At this time of year the bodies of Mayflies cover the  surface of
rivers with a reddish carpet.
     The  current carries away millions of  these  harmless beings, whirling
them along between steep or sloping banks. But  not a  single Mayfly reaches
the mouth of the river. They are all eaten on the way by fish or birds.
     Who could envy a Mayfly? After two years' growth,  it emerges and flies
around dancing for one single day,  and is then  eaten up! Fancy coming into
our world just for that!
     Surrounded by  a ring  of Mayflies the Professor stood on the  crown of
the tree which was like a dome. The whole of its swaying surface was covered
without  exception with  dark  glistening  kernels,  a pliant  stalk  with a
parachute at its tip rose upwards from each kernel. These rustled  above his
head like an orchard in spring.
     From time to  time one or  another of the kernels trembling and swaying
would break away  from the dome and hang for a minute above the tree. A gust
of wind would fill the parachute and the  kernel would float away in the air
following its feathery parachute and its stalk.
     The Professor  felt  the stalks  with  his  hands and set to  work.  He
selected ten or so of the biggest  parachutes and tore them off the kernels.
His  hands were  then filled with clusters of umbrellas with feathery clouds
at their  tips.  The parachutes were  straining upwards lifting him off  the
crown of the tree, and he had to exert every effort to keep his position.
     Then he quickly tore off another pair of parachutes and in high spirits
he jumped up and hung suspended  in the air. For  some time he hung with his
feet dangling, but as soon  as the  wind blew the parachutes rustled happily
above  his head.  A current of air  took hold of the Professor and bore  him
away over the forest.
     "Magnificent! Simply magnificent!" He  laughed as he swayed  in the air
like  a  pendulum. "I  certainly never expected to fly  on  the  down  of  a
dandelion."
     The strange trees with white hats now appeared  from the immense height
as ordinary dandelions. The forest seemed now like ordinary meadow grass.
     The Professor looked around himself in all directions. Everywhere there
stretched grass jungle or sandy wilderness.
     Far  away on a high mountain he suddenly spotted a  very tall column at
the top of which waved a huge red flag.
     "Aha! my landmark!" the Professor smiled contentedly. Even further away
and more to the right there stretched a wide blue expanse of water.
     "And there is the pond! Excellent! Now I know the direction."
     The wind shook the feathery  parachutes. Plunging  through the air  the
Professor flew over forests and fields watching keenly beneath him.
     Then  a gust of  wind  seized him and carried him  straight towards the
pond.
     "Ee! I'll be drowned if I am not careful," he frowned. "I must get down
before I am carried into the open sea."
     At that moment the Professor  was being carried over a sunny meadow. It
looked a good place in which to alight. He decided to land.
     Having  let go  several  of the parachutes he moved in a wandering slow
flight  above  the  ground gently descending. The grass was already  turning
back into  the  nightmare forest  and the narrow streamlet into a  broad and
noisy river.
     "Hop -  la!"  yelled the Professor, letting two more  parachutes  go at
once.
     He was  swinging in the air above  the  river looking downwards  for  a
suitable place to land when he suddenly saw Karik  and Valya floating in the
river.
     The waves  dashed them against a  rock and they spun around in the grip
of the current just like logs.
     "Hold on!"  yelled the Professor from above; letting the last parachute
go he plunged like a stone into the foaming water.


        CHAPTER VIII


     The  rescue - Some explanations  - Living windows  - The  herd of grass
cows - Sad recollections - An air tortoise attacks

     THE. STRONG CURRENT TOPPLED THE  PROFESSOR OFF HIS  FEET. He fell first
on one knee and  then on the other.  The water  beat him down and swept over
his head, but  he got up and venturing cautiously from rock  to rock managed
to make his way forward.
     Karik and Valya were lying just near him looking as if they  were dead.
Their eyes were closed, their arms dangled helplessly down  and  their  legs
trailed in the water.
     "Wait  a  minute!  Wait a  minute!"  muttered  the  Professor  heavily.
"Everything will be all right!" and he seized the children tightly.
     Here at  last was the bank. The  Professor  laid Karik and Valya on the
ground, squatted down and started to rub them with the palms of his hands.
     "Now then! Now then! What do we do next?" he muttered.
     He bent their arms and legs and raised them up and down. But all was in
vain. The children lay motionless with their eyes shut and  their white lips
clenched firmly.
     "What am I to do with you next?" he frowned.
     He wiped his forehead with his hand and suddenly his face lit up.
     The Professor had remembered an old long forgotten device for restoring
the  drowning. Quickly  jumping  up he seized Valya by  the legs, lifted her
upside down  and started to shake her violently. Water poured out of Valya's
mouth and nose. She groaned.
     "Groaning!" rejoiced the Professor. "Excellent! you will live."
     Laying the girl on the | ground, he set about Karik.
     "One, two!"
     A murky flood poured out of Karik's mouth.
     "And now you lie down too."
     Spitting and coughing the children opened their eyes.
     They looked around, not understanding a thing.  Immediately in front of
them stood the  Professor, the  Professor real  and alive. Huge and bearded,
just as they were accustomed to see him every day.
     They  were  so delighted that they  never  noticed  how  oddly  he  was
dressed. They just gazed at his face and saw his kindly smiling eyes and his
tousled grey beard.
     "The  Professor!"  exclaimed Valya.  She  flung  herself  towards  him,
sobbing with joy.
     "Now, now, now." coughed the Professor with embarrassment, stroking the
girl's head. "There is nothing to cry about now."
     Valya smeared  the tears  out of her eyes with her fists and started to
smile.
     "All that - all that water - came out of us. What a lot!"
     "Plenty  of  it,"  agreed  the  Professor.  "But  now,  my  dears,"  he
continued, "tell me who decided to make free with my study?"
     The children hung their heads.
     "Ah, you  are silent! You  have forgotten how to speak?"  The  children
sighed.
     Dripping wet  and  unhappy, they  stood in  front of the Professor  not
daring to  look up  at  him.  Karik lowered his head  so  much that his chin
rested on his chest which was covered with sticky mud, Valya turned away.
     "Well! Why are  you silent?" the Professor gruff-gruffed. Karik started
to  sniff  and  Valya  sighed  deeply.  The  Professor became sorry for  the
children.  He seized  them in his arms, squeezed them to himself and started
to laugh.
     "Ruffians! just  think  what  you have done. Ah,  what goats you are! I
nearly went out of my mind with you!"
     "We had  an  accident!" said Valya, twisting  her  damp  hair round her
fingers.
     Karik gazed at her in amazement. "What a liar I" he thought  but he did
not say anything.
     "Now, now.  Come on home, your mother will show you  what she thinks of
the accident and it won't be an accident if she whips you."
     "Mother never whips us!" said Karik, raising his head.
     The Professor pulled at his grey whiskers and said gloomily:
     "They beat me all right when I was small - with a strap or a cane: they
took the hide off me. Russia was a wild place then. Now everything is grand.
Come on to the mother who never beats you. Such  a mother must be seen to be
believed! Isn't that so?"
     "But where are we going?"
     "Where are we going? Why, home, of course!"
     "Home, Home!" Valya shouted cheerfully. Jumping up and down she clapped
her hands.
     "But  is it a long way  to our home, Professor?" asked Karik. "Shall we
get there in an hour?"
     "An hour? Dear, no!"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "We cannot  get home  even in ten hours.  We are practically six  miles
from home."
     "Oh,  that's fine!"  Valya  was jumping up and down.  "We can run  that
distance. We'll do it in an hour."
     "How?" coughed the Professor in confusion. "Once - that is  to say this
morning  - we, I  think, might have covered six  miles  in two hours. That's
true. But now it will take us several months."
     "How's that?" marvelled Karik.
     "Why?" Valya opened her eyes wide.
     "Just because we cannot now do more than a yard or one and a half yards
in  the  hour. You  forget that formerly each of our steps  was about half a
yard and now it is a very small part of a centimetre."
     "What? We are not as small as that?"
     Karik glanced hastily around.

     Strange trees  with green angular  trunks stood beside them.  Along the
bank of the river there was wandering some sort of winged being smaller than
a calf but bigger than a sheep. Through the air, as if on purpose to impress
them, an enormous  monster came hurtling above their heads. It was about the
size of a motor-bus with black wool on it.
     The children gazed  about  in  amazement. - What did  it all mean?  The
Professor was real  but  all around, as  before,  were  extraordinary unreal
things.
     "And  what has  happened?" Karik blinked his eyelids in confusion. "You
seem to be real, big. What are you, real or unreal?"
     The Professor smiled.
     "Both real and  unreal," he said. "But you  think it out  for yourself.
Surely I was bigger  than you formerly. I therefore have the right to remain
the same in the small world. Understand?"
     "I understand," replied Karik, undecidedly.
     But  the Professor  realised  from  Karik's  eyes  that  he  understood
precious little.
     "Imagine,"  he continued, "that the liquid I invented had been drunk by
you, I, an elephant, a horse, a mouse, and a  dog. All the whole  lot  of us
would be reduced  in size  to about one-thousandth part of what  we formerly
were, but to us human beings  the  elephant would  still appear as big as we
are accustomed to see  him in the zoological gardens, and  the mouse - well,
naturally, the mouse  will remain tiny, but it will be only a thousandth  of
the size of  an  ordinary  mouse.  But all of us  humans,  together with the
elephant, horse, dog and mouse,  could quite easily be put in the palm of an
ordinary man's hand."
     "I understand," Karik nodded his head.
     "But I don't understand," said Valya.
     "What don't you understand?"
     "I don't understand how you knew where we had got to.''
     "I'll  explain even that to  you  but  not now,"  said  the  Professor,
slapping Valya on the back. "We have a long way to go and we shall be a long
time going there. We shall be able  to talk about  everything on the journey
home. You will tell me  what you saw and what you understood and I will tell
you how I found you.  Now, first of all, my  dears,  on the way we may  lose
each other, and therefore each one of us must know how to find the way home.
Come  with me,  I  have  something to explain  to  you before  we start  our
journey."
     "But we don't  want to lose each other!" said Valya, holding on  to the
Professor's hand.
     "Very good. But all the same.  . . . In any case . . . because anything
might happen."
     The Professor held both the children by the hand  and with  rapid steps
climbed up a hillock.
     The children scurried along  beside the grand old man. "Do you see?" he
suddenly asked, stretching  out his hand. Far away over the thick  growth of
the  grass  jungle raising itself up  in the sky like a huge chimney was  an
enormous post. At the top of it waving in the blue sky there hung an immense
stretch of red cloth.
     The post stood  in the  midst  of the forest, but one  could see  it as
clearly as a solitary pine tree on the steppe.
     "There  is  my  flagstaff!" said the Professor.  "I stuck  it  up as  a
landmark."
     "What for?"
     "Now listen. . . . Wherever we may get to  we can always take a look at
our landmark. All we have to do is to climb up to the top of the grass and .
. . .
     "Of course, naturally," shouted the children.
     "Well, the  rest is quite  simple. Below, just  near the mast, I left a
small plywood box. It is completely wrapped  up in order  to protect it from
the rain and sun. But so that we could get into it I cut a small hole in one
of its sides."
     "Why should we want to get into it?"
     "When we reach the box we shall climb into it and there we shall find a
little  case with white powder. That, my dears, is the  enlarging powder. It
would be sufficient  for each of  us to swallow a handful of this powder  to
turn us once again into big ordinary people, now do you understand?"
     "Oo!" Valya suddenly  interrupted, "but suppose someone  takes  the box
away?"
     The  Professor was confused.  He himself  had  not  thought  of such  a
possibility. But it was important not to let the children think this.
     Stroking his  beard  he said confidently, "Rubbish!  Who in  the  world
would  want  an  old plywood box. In any case very few  people  ever come to
these parts. And . . . and whilst  it is very pleasant chatting here we must
not  waste our breath. Let's start  our journey, my dears! Forward! Come on!
Heads up! Give me your hand, Karik! and yours, Valya."
     "Where are we going now?"
     "There!" the Professor waved his hand. "Set course to the plywood box!"
he ordered.
     Raising his  head high, he started  to  march  towards the forest.  The
children lagged behind him and started whispering excitedly about something.
     The Professor heard.
     "You tell!"
     "Why me? Tell him yourself."
     "What's all this?" he asked, stopping.
     "Well, how are we going to sleep  and what about dinner and breakfast?"
asked Valya.
     He shrugged his shoulders.
     "What  trifles! We shall sleep like our forebears slept  - in trees, in
huts, in  caves, and certainly  it will be much  better  than  sleeping in a
stuffy  room. You must think we  are going  camping. Haven't  you ever  done
that?'
     "But what are we going to eat?"
     "Well,  there is no end of food here. You  could have dinner, breakfast
and supper ten times a day if you wanted it."
     "But look what happened to us," said Valya. "We wanted to  eat a  berry
to-day and someone hit us and threw us into the river."
     "Hit you?" the Professor was astonished.
     "Well, yes."
     And Valya recounted  how they  had tried to get a berry off a tree  and
had not got it but had fallen off into the stormy river.
     "You ate these berries?" asked the Professor with alarm.
     "No! we didn't succeed!"
     He sighed with relief.
     "Just as well. Most  probably these were  the berries of  the poisonous
daphne or as most people call this plant, 'Wolf's Tongue.' "
     "But we did not eat it."
     "That does  not matter. You breathed in  the  poisonous  vapour of  the
daphne and for that reason lost consciousness."
     "Do  you  know, Professor,"  interrupted  Karik, "we are quite ready to
spend the night on a branch or anywhere else you like, but. . . ."
     "But what?"
     Karik swallowed the water which was forming in his mouth and said:
     "Well, we haven't had anything to eat  since yesterday and . . . and we
simply can't go on, we must. . . ."
     "Good gracious me," fussed  the Professor, "fancy  my  not thinking  of
that  at once. Certainly,  my  dears,  certainly!  Before we set off on  our
journey we'll all have a jolly good meal. What about some milk?"
     "Ordinary milk?"
     "M-m, it's certainly not quite ordinary, but it's milk."
     "Let's have it!" Karik stretched out his hand.
     "Only let's have lots," said Valya.
     "Quick march," ordered the Professor.
     Sticking his beard out he started off ahead, examining the grass trees,
looking for something. At last  he stopped  under the  shade of a grassy oak
tree which had  such immense leaves that on anyone of them there would  have
been  plenty  of room  for  a  football match.  Yes and  room  over  for the
spectators.
     "Here,"  the  Professor  pointed  upwards,  "here is  a  herd  of  cows
grazing."
     "Cows up a tree?"
     "M-yes . . . it's something like an alpine dairy farm. Now who is going
to be first up?"
     "Bu - but don't these cows bite?"
     "No, they don't  bite nor  do they butt. They have neither |  teeth nor
horns, my dears."
     Karik and Valya immediately flung themselves at the tree. The Professor
followed them.
     Clutching at the soft green branches they clambered up
     - helping each other and quickly reached the top of the mighty tree.
     In front  of  them shining in the sun were  broad glistening leaves  as
much like green meadows as anything else.
     The  travellers  clambered out  on to one of the leaves  and started to
walk about it, treading with their bare feet on the soft fleshy surface. But
after taking a few steps the children stopped hesitatingly.
     "What's up?" asked the Professor, and he also stopped.
     Valya stretched out a trembling finger. "What is  this?" she pointed to
the surface of the leaf.
     "Yes, whatever is it?" asked Karik, starting to retrace his steps.
     The leaf was to all appearances alive.
     Its glistening surface rustled, contracted and expanded. It was covered
with thousands of  mouths, and  these were either chewing something or  else
waiting to seize Karik and Valya by their bare feet.
     "Well! what's worrying you?" the Professor was surprised.
     "This  can't be a leaf?" said Valya. "Look what it's doing. It's trying
to bite my feet. I don't like such leaves."
     "What nonsense! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  They are just the
very ordinary pores - the stomatac."
     "Pores?"
     "Of course! They are the windows of the leaf which ventilate the plant,
they are its lungs with which it breathes."
     "But can't they fasten on to our feet?"
     "Obviously  not.  Don't  worry! Just  follow  me!"  and  the  Professor
courageously started to walk over the leaf along the thick veins  which were
traversing the green meadow in all directions.
     The children followed him.
     The first to see the cows was Valya.
     "Oh, look!" she shouted.  "Can these be the  cows? They are not at  all
like cows. They are so green."
     On the edge of the leaf-meadow green  animals were wandering like giant
pears  perched on delicate  long legs. Some of them  were  sitting down with
their  whiskers resting  on the fleshy  surface of the leaf and their snouts
deeply thrust into it.
     "Here we  are,"  said the Professor, "let me introduce the grass  cows.
Don't be upset because they do not look like cows.
     In spite of  it you'll find their milk excellent. In no way inferior to
real milk."
     "But what  are  they  called?" asked  Valya.  "Do  you mean to say  you
haven't guessed it?  Why they're  plant lice. Very familiar  insects. If you
have ever read about ants  you must know about the plant lice - aphides - or
green-fly as they are often called."
     "Aha, I remember," said Karik, "the ants breed them."
     "Yes, yes, quite right, Karik," answered the Professor. "The ants often
collect the plant lice, feed them and tend them."
     "Just like they do in the State dairy farms."
     "Yes. Pretty well. The ants are very fond of plant lice and  treat them
just like people treat cows. They milk them  and feed on this milk. . . . Be
careful, please, don't step into the milk."
     The Professor had stopped at the  edge of a pool of some  sort of thick
liquid.
     "I  don't think it is worth milking the green cows," he continued. "The
milk appears to be flowing in rivers here. Help yourselves, my friends."
     He  lay down on  his stomach, buried his lips  in  the pool of  | green
plant-lice-milk and with his beard splashing in it took several gulps.
     "It tastes all right! Help yourselves!"
     The children followed the Professor's example and quickly  buried their
mouths in the sweet thick milk.
     "What about it?" said the Professor. "Do you like it? Nice, isn't it?"
     "It's better  than real  milk,"  said Karik, wiping his mouth with  his
hand, obviously well satisfied.
     Valya was lapping  it down noisily  and didn't  raise her head but just
grunted something no one could follow.
     At last they were all of them fully satisfied.
     The children  rolled  themselves away from the milk pool  and stretched
themselves out on the leaf, just as if it had been the beach at the seaside.
     Valya lay  stroking her tummy. Karik  flung his legs  and  arms  widely
apart.
     "Good enough," he said.
     "If you are now no longer hungry we must get going!"
     "Oh, no!" hastily interjected  Valya, "we must rest a little  to  begin
with."
     "Just half an hour," Karik supported his sister.
     Their legs  were  so  tired that it  seemed as if they didn't belong to
their owners,  and their arms lay on  the  fleshy surface  of  the leaf like
lead. A great laziness had wrapped itself around them.
     "All right!" agreed the Professor. "Take a proper rest."
     He lay down beside the children.
     After all the events of the day he was not at all loath to lie and rest
himself for half an hour. Yawning  lusciously, he  put  his hands behind his
head, and his eyes which it was now difficult to keep open gently closed.
     For some time the travellers lay silent with their eyes closed to avoid
the glare of the sun, turning now on one side, now on the other.
     Over their heads the wind blew noisily. The leaf swayed like a hammock.
     "Isn't  this grand?"  mumbled  the  Professor.  He  started  to  mutter
something as his  head sank on to his chest. He began to snore gently  as if
he was whistling through his nose.
     "Fast asleep," said Valya.
     "Let him sleep. Then we can rest."
     Valya was silent for a little and then sighing.
     "Mother will be crying probably."
     "Certainly she'll cry."
     Valya sighed more deeply as if she herself were about to cry,
     but at  this moment  something  buzzed through the air and hit the leaf
with a thud.
     The leaf shook.
     "Whatever is that?" squeaked Valya.
     The Professor opened his sleepy eyes slightly.
     A huge tortoise nearly as big as a tank was moving across the leaf. The
back of the tortoise glistened like scarlet lacquer.
     Black patterns on this background made it seem like a Japanese plate.
     The Professor yawned, closed his eyes and started snoring.
     The  children gazed at the  red  monster  in alarm  as, quite unlike  a
tortoise, it started to run lightly towards them.
     They clung to each other.
     The red tortoise ran up to the children, gazed down at  them as if from
the roof of a barn and angrily rustled its whiskers.
     Karik  and Valya jumped up and with  a scream and  shout took  to their
heels.
     They  dashed past the green cows which were  peacefully  grazing on the
leaf meadow and ran up to the very edge of the leaf.
     There was no further escape possible.


        CHAPTER IX


     A thirsty  journey - The cafe in the grass  jungle - The  assault on  a
forest  stronghold  -  The battle with the ants  - Under  the mushroom - The
flood

     KARIK AND VALYA STOOD ON THE VERY  EDGE OF THE LEAF. BELOW, under their
feet,  there swayed the tops  of  trees  and through the  chinks between the
leaves far below could be seen the ground.
     Jump down? They could hardly jump from such a height.
     Valya gripped Karik's hand firmly.
     The red tortoise had crawled quite close.  Another minute and it  would
hurl itself on the children, kill them, carry them off and eat them.
     "Don't be frightened! Don't be frightened!" the children suddenly heard
the  voice of the Professor,  "It  is a  lady-bird. It won't touch you. Come
over here."
     "It won't touch you!" whispered Valya, hiding behind Karik.
     Not for a moment taking his eyes off  the tortoise-monster, Karik moved
sideways past it.
     "Now, now! be brave!" encouraged the Professor.
     The children turned abruptly and dashed away at full speed to the green
cows.
     Hardly drawing breath they then darted towards the Professor, stumbling
now and then in their flight across the leaf. They finally  managed to  hide
behind his broad back.
     "It is quite harmless!" said the Professor. "No need to worry!"
     "May be  harmless but it's very alarming!" puffed Valya. "Oy! Look what
this  harmless creature is  up to!" The lady-bird had  reached the  herd  of
green  cows and stopping suddenly struck down one of the cows with  its paws
like a lion and trampling  on it, squeezing it with the weight  of its body,
proceeded  to  suck it. In a few seconds nothing of  the cow remained except
its skin.
     The lady-bird proceeded to knock down one after the other.
     It trampled on them, sucked them like grapes and threw away the skins.
     By the  time the children had recovered their senses  there was  not  a
single one of the plant lice left on the leaf.
     Having  devoured  the lice  the ladybird  wiped its  whiskers  with  an
enormous paw and kicking  the skins out of its way moved over to the edge of
the leaf.
     Here it raised its  armour and  pushed out from under  it a transparent
flinty-like tail and two heavy trough-shaped wings,  after  which the armour
fell back with a clacking noise. Then with a  creaking rustle two more wings
appeared this time, delicate and transparent. They started to beat violently
up  and down,  disappearing from view  with their speed,  like propellers. A
stream of air beat in  the  faces of the travellers. The  lady-bird was off,
away above the forest.
     "So  that's a  lady-bird!" said  Valya.  "Sucks them all  dry-in a most
lady-like manner and flies away!"
     "Yes,  most  excellent,"  said the  Professor.  "Just  what is  needed.
Couldn't be better."
     "Excellent?"
     "Of  course. It is  most important to  get rid  of these lice  in every
possible  way. But  probably  the best method  of  fighting  the lice is the
lady-bird beetle. In America they collect these lady-birds in baskets and in
spring-time release them wherever there are lice. The lady-bird hunters have
special  maps  provided for them  showing the places in which the  lady-bird
usually winters. They go to these places and collect them."
     "But  why is it  necessary to get rid of the lice?" asked Valya.  "They
have such nice milk."
     "The milk is all right," agreed the Professor, "but the lice themselves
are  very harmful creatures and what is more they  have so many children and
multiply so rapidly. But for the lady-birds the lice would be most difficult
to combat."
     "In what way are they harmful?"
     "They attack  the  leaves  of fruit  trees, flowers and  vegetables. In
fact, there is hardly a plant on which you might not find lice."
     "What do they actually do?"
     "The lice  suck the  sap out of the  plant,  but this is  only half the
evil. The green milk which you found so nice to taste, gums up the pores  of
the leaf so that it cannot breathe and grow. The leaf naturally dies. But if
the  leaves  perish it just  means  that  you can't  expect either fruit  or
vegetables. However, it is all very well to talk. We have had our rest, it's
high time to step out. Come on, my dears!"
     But before climbing  down  from the  tree  the  Professor  scanned  the
horizon for his beacon.
     Away in the west above the foliage of the grassy jungle there fluttered
in the wind an enormous red flag.
     "Aha," he muttered, turning to climb  down,  "we must go westward. Keep
going towards the sun."
     He jumped down on to the ground.
     "Forward!" he shouted, and stepping off through the glade began to sing
like the wind in a chimney.


     "Forward! the bugles blow,
     To battle most glorious.
     Forward! with eyes aglow,
     The children victorious."


     Valya frowned and stuck her fingers in  her ears. Karik waved his hand:
let the old  boy  sing, after  all  every  human being has some  sort  of  a
weakness.
     The Professor was only human.
     The travellers  were passing  through a forest. Tall trees, without any
branches or even knots, surrounded them like giant radio masts.
     The sun's rays falling from  above made golden streaks on the ground so
that their path seemed across a blanket striped with yellow.
     The  travellers now  clambered up steep, practically  vertical mountain
sides, now tobogganed downwards raising thick clouds of  dust  behind  them.
Deep valleys were succeeded by high peaks. The  forest followed  down to the
bottom of the ravines and up to the ridges of the mountains.
     The soil was all full of holes and terribly rough. The arms and legs of
the Professor and the children became covered with scratches and weals.
     Valya had  a  great blue bruise on her forehead.  Karik's nose was  all
swollen and he had a great scratch right across his chest.
     The children were puffing but the Professor would not slacken his pace.
     The  sun  started  to  burn  their  shoulders  and arms  painfully. The
Professor  had  to wipe his dripping face continually with the palm  of  his
hand. Valya became as scarlet as if she had been plunged in boiling water.
     "What ho for  Africa!" Karik tried to joke. "Another  day like this and
we shall start to moult our skins. We shall be all striped like Zebras."
     The Professor and Valya remained silent. They licked their cracked lips
and looked from side to side hoping for the glitter of water in some pond or
river.
     There was no sign of water.
     "You just can't imagine how I want a drink!" Valya at length  could not
contain herself any longer.
     "And you just can't imagine," croaked Karik, "how my tongue feels. Just
as if pepper had been shaken all over it."
     "Don't be  discouraged!"  the Professor  comforted the children. "There
must be water somewhere fairly close."
     Valya soon became quite exhausted.
     "Let's rest!" Every ten minutes or so she had to rest again.
     The travellers would stop and sit down. But sitting on the baking earth
was even worse than walking over it. After a minute or so they would have to
jump up and start off again.
     "My goodness," gruff-gruffed the Professor,  "it's just like travelling
in the Sahara desert."
     Valya staggered along.
     "A drink! a drink!" she whimpered.
     Karik moved as  if  in a dream, stumbling and  bumping up  against  the
trees.
     And suddenly through a  clearing in the  forest  there was a glimpse of
blue.
     "Water!" shouted Valya rushing ahead.
     The Professor  and Karik forgot their  tiredness.  One after the  other
they chased after Valya.
     The clearing in the forest widened.
     There amid the green vegetation hung a great blue flower but no sign of
water.
     Valya flung herself on the ground.
     "I - I can't go any further," she groaned.
     "Stick to it! stick to it!"  grunted  the  Professor, "in a very little
time we shall find water."
     He put his arms around Valya and pulled her up.
     "We must keep going! Come along, little Valya!"
     Cold refreshing water now taunted them  every step they took, for right
and left where ever they looked they saw the blue of the water they needed.
     But when the  exhausted travellers stumbled towards  it every  time the
blue turned into a flower.
     "A drink! I must drink!" groaned Valya.
     "Water," Karik whispered with dry lips.
     The  Professor  stumbled and fell  face  downwards on  the ground.  The
children threw themselves down beside him.
     They  could hear  the monsters of the grass jungle rustling past  them.
Backwards  and  forwards  the  insects  went so  that  it  seemed  that  the
travellers might have  been  resting at some busy crossroads. However,  they
were too tired to  pay  any attention  to the  passers-by.  One  caterpillar
passed so close that it trod on Valya's hand but they none of them stirred.
     "Water !"
     "Wa-ater!" groaned the children.
     Swaying from side to side the Professor stood up.
     They  must move  on. But  which way? In which direction would they find
water.
     He leant against a tree and with his head stuck forward upon his breast
he stared gloomily at the ground.
     Suddenly  right  beside him  an earthy hillock started to move.  Stones
fell from  its  top to  the ground  around. Then suddenly the  hillock split
open. Long feelers stuck up into the air  and from within the hillock a huge
head  appeared  and then  a dark body with  a yellow edge slid  out  of  the
ground.
     "Saved!" shouted the Professor.
     The children raised their heads from the ground.
     "Get up! Here's the water!" he continued.
     Having grasped the last word, the children both struggled up.
     "Give us a drink !"
     "In a minute or two you'll have a whole river but now we must accompany
a very good friend of mine who is going to the water."
     The  Professor waved  his hand to where  at one  side there  stood  the
monster with the yellow streak cleaning the dust and dirt from its  body. It
was  like  a  beetle  of  some sort,  only  this  beetle was the size  of  a
motor-bus.
     "What is this?" whispered Karik.
     "Dytiscus, the water  beetle!  It will lead us  to the water!" said the
Professor.
     The water beetle  stretched out its whiskers, turned  to the right  and
confidently went ahead crashing its way through the grassy trees.
     The travellers ran behind it.
     They had all become more cheerful. Karik's eyes were glistening.
     "But how does the water beetle know where the water is?" he croaked.
     "Very simple, considering it lives and hunts in water. It could  hardly
get on without knowing."
     "Where did it come from?"
     "Out of the earth."
     "But why?" marvelled Valya.
     "Well, it is such an amazing creature, is this water beetle."
     As they followed in the wake of the beetle the Professor went on:
     "They reproduce themselves by means of  eggs which  they stick to water
plants.
     "In a month or so the eggs hatch and larvae come out like caterpillars,
but with the temperaments of tigers. These courageous and greedy larvas will
attack pretty  well any  inhabitant of  the water even fish,  which are many
times their size. When the larvae are full grown they creep out of the water
and  finding a peaceful, comfortable spot they bury themselves in the earth.
Here they turn first of all into  a chrysalis and then into a large ordinary
beetle. The beetle comes out of the ground -  you yourselves saw this happen
- and sets out on a career of piracy in its proper realm - in water."
     "But how does it know where the water is?"
     "Well, how do birds know which is south when they fly  away from  us in
the Autumn to winter in a warm climate?"
     The Professor was talking without stopping. He knew well that a journey
seems much shorter to those who travel talking.
     "This beetle," he  continued,  "is perhaps one of  the most  remarkable
creatures in the world. You can  come  across it in any water butt. When you
next see one look at it closely.  Think, my dears, it charges over the water
like a speed boat, dives like a diving duck, is able to sit at the bottom of
a pond  longer than a human diver, travels under the  water as  well  as any
submarine, flies through  the air like  an aeroplane  and  walks on dry land
like a human. You do not meet a creature like that everyday. Once I was - "
     "Water!" screamed Valya.
     Without  waiting to hear  what the Professor had to  say both  children
rushed ahead.
     Amid  green foliage there was now mirrored a blue unruffled expanse  of
water.
     The beetle made for the steep bank of the lake, hurled itself down into
the water and vanished. Circles of waves spread across the mirror.
     "Water !"
     "Water!"
     On the bank of the lake there stood a tree with huge blue flowers. Dark
leaves cast a dense cool shadow on the ground beneath.
     Karik, not waiting, ran down a  slope,  jumped down  and stretching out
his arms flung himself in the water like the beetle had done.
     He splashed himself and, burying his face in the water,  drank. Then he
sat up spluttering and laughing.
     There was no more tiredness.
     "Quickly!"  he  shouted. "Come here quickly before I have  drunk it all
up."
     Limping and  stumbling,  the Professor and Valya  made their way to the
bank. They too jumped into the water,  raising a cloud  of spray and at once
started  to drink:  burying their poor lips,  cracked from the heat,  in the
cool water.
     "Oo! Good, isn't it." Valya raised her head. Her nose was wet and water
dripped from her cheeks and chin.
     "Let's  bathe! Bathe!" the Professor  ordered,  as  he squeezed his wet
beard.
     Having bathed to their hearts' content the travellers came up from  the
water's edge, dried themselves in  the sun and then betaking themselves into
the glade stretched out in the cool shadow of the tree with blue flowers.
     Thus  they lay motionless, silent, gazing  through the  openings in the
trees above them at the distant blue sky, lazily listening  to the noises of
the grassy jungle.
     Suddenly the Professor stood  up and  hitching up his clothes went over
to the tree and grasped a green branch with both hands.
     "Where   are  you  off  to?"  the  children  shouted.   "Don't  disturb
yourselves.  I'll be back in a minute." The  Professor  started to climb the
tree. The children looked  at each other. "We'll  climb  too  !" said Valya.
"We'll climb!"
     They jumped up and jostling each other darted to the tree, but they had
not succeeded in getting hold of the lowest branch when something above them
made  a tearing noise as if  someone  was ripping a  strong piece of  cloth.
"Catch it,  children !" Karik and Valya stretched out  their arms. Something
blue was coming down through the air. Lazily it circled  and swayed until it
seemed  about  to cover  the children  in what appeared  to  be a  huge blue
bedcover.
     The children skipped out of the way.
     The bedcover fell quite gently at their feet.
     "Whatever is it?" shouted Karik, bending over the blue bedcover.
     "A forget. me-not petal!" shouted the Professor from above.
     "What are we to do with it?" asked Valya.
     "Do with  it? We can make ourselves clothes and umbrellas. I don't know
about you, but my back is already covered with blisters from sunburn."
     The Professor threw down some more petals.
     The children collected them and laid them in a heap.
     Valya threw one of the petals up on to her head. The  petal was big and
broad. It drooped down over her shoulders and  covered her  hot back like  a
rubber cape.
     "Well, how about it?" asked the Professor, jumping down from the tree.
     "Thanks awfully!" replied Valya.
     The Professor  took  the petal, bent it in his hands  until  it was  in
halves, then he bent it over the  other way and bit the corner off  with his
teeth.
     "Oo-ough!  It's  tough  enough," he  said,  and carefully unfolded  the
petal.
     In  the middle  of  the petal there now  appeared  an  uneven hole with
ragged edges.
     "Now put your head through here!" commanded the Professor.
     The  petal  soon lay soft, cool  and  protecting, upon Valya's sunburnt
shoulders.
     It covered Valya from the shoulders to the knees.
     "Grand!" approved Karik. "Something like a shroud."
     "Not a shroud!" said the  Professor. "A floral cape. You must have  one
now.  These capes  will save  you from the sun by  day and from the cold  by
night."
     The  little party soon looked  as  if they belonged to  some travelling
circus. The  Professor  and the children garbed in blue  capes proceeded  on
their way in single file.
     In their hands they carried long sticks, to the  ends of which had been
fastened pieces of petal. These  blue  umbrellas  swayed above  their heads,
throwing a shadow on  their faces. They were a  splendid protection from the
scorching rays of the sun.
     The Professor tramped  on whistling a march. Karik and Valya hummed the
same tune where possible.
     The forest became thinner. The travellers came out on to a sunny field.
Overhead huge  winged creatures  as big as cows were droning. Flashing their
transparent wings they darted past  so near that  Karik and Valya had either
to duck or to stop in terror.
     "You  needn't  worry  about  these  insects,"  smiled  the   Professor.
"Remember each  one  has its  own regular habitual  food.  Dragon-flies, for
example, feed on flies  and butterflies, bees on the honey in  flowers. Many
of  the flying insects actually never eat anything. They come into the world
just to lay their eggs, after which they die. Quite a number of these do not
even have a mouth. As you  can see, it is just as safe here  as in a town. I
am quite certain that none of these insects would consider us as dainties to
be eaten. . . ."
     The Professor did not finish his sentence. He suddenly seized Karik and
Valya by the arms and pulled them to himself. The children fell sprawling on
the ground with the Professor stretched out beside them.
     "Ts-s," hissed  the Professor, pressing himself to  the earth.  At that
moment  something whistled  over  the heads  of  the travellers  and crashed
noisily into the undergrowth of the forest.
     The  travellers hastily covered  themselves with their umbrellas. "What
is it?" "What's that?"
     The Professor cautiously peeped out  from under  his  umbrella. Not far
away behind  a  dark hillock  there  could be seen the  green  back  of some
creature glistening  in the sun above  the tops of the trees.  This back was
now rising,  now falling, then the  creature slid  sideways, jumped  upwards
and, having in one flash spread its wings, disappeared.
     "A grasshopper!" said the Professor, standing up and dusting himself.
     Karik  quickly nudged Valya in the side. "Surely a grasshopper wouldn't
find us a dainty morsel?". he asked slyly.
     "Look here," gruff-gruffed  the Professor  in confusion. "A grasshopper
is a treacherous beast. How am I to know what might enter its head.  Caution
never did anybody any harm, my dears."
     The travellers moved on in no particular hurry.
     They  made  their way  forward, wading  across  rivers, swimming across
small ponds and making their way through the thick growth of the jungle.
     The Professor pointed  out first this, then that particular grassy tree
and told the children interesting  stories about  various plants. Apparently
there was not such  a  thing as a grass or  flower  that simply grew without
being of some use for mankind.
     Suddenly Valya seized the Professor by the arm.
     "Look! " she shouted. "Look! What's that?"
     They all stopped in front of some thick undergrowth.
     "Where? What are you looking at?"
     "Over there! There they are! Lying in wait for us."
     "I don't see anything!"  frowned the Professor. Putting his hand to his
eyes like  a peak of a cap, he  craned his neck, stood on tip-toe  and gazed
attentively at the undergrowth.
     "I see! I can see!" said Karik. "They are round and they are moving."
     "But where do you see them?" asked the Professor, in some alarm.
     He stepped forward and then suddenly burst out laughing.
     "Nothing to worry about there. You'll see yourselves when we get nearer
to  these  forest monsters. Come on." And with big strides he moved  towards
the lair of these fearsome creatures.
     The children followed behind him.
     They could now distinguish quite clearly brown balls  hanging  from the
grassy trees. At a distance they were  like footballs, but as one approached
they seemed to be balloons bigger  than the Professor. The  walls  of  these
brown balloons were made of twigs and pieces of earth.
     "Can you guess what these are?" asked the Professor, stopping.
     "Oy!" shouted Valya. "Round houses! Look at all the tenants.  This is a
forest hotel. The 'Insects' Hotel Metropole'."
     "Or  it may be a forest restaurant -  'Insects' Help-yourselves Cafe',"
grinned Karik.
     Yellow six-legged animals  were crawling  over the broad bulging walls.
They  staggered  out  of dark  entrances and  lazily  •  crawled in  various
directions then once  again  came  together,  felt  each  other  with  their
whiskers  and  waddling  in a  ridiculous  way, disappeared  into  the  dark
entrances of their round house.
     "But these are plant lice!" interjected Karik. "How is it that they are
yellow?"
     "Very  simple," answered the Professor, "this kind  of  lice takes  the
colour of their dwelling. In the far north all birds and beasts are white in
colour  to  match the snow,  but  in  the  south  animals  have  splashes of
different colours  to  match  the splashes  of sun  and  shadow seen  in the
southern forests and plains. Surely you know that?"
     "It  is  in order  to  enable them to hide  more  easily?"  Karik  said
questioningly.
     The Professor nodded his head.
     "Both  to  enable  them to  hide  more  easily  and  also  to creep  up
unobserved  by their prey. The markings on the  skin of a giraffe enables it
to hide more easily but the markings on a tiger's skin help it to come up to
its victims unobserved.
     He went up to one of the round brown houses, examined it from all sides
and even tapped it with the stick of his umbrella.
     "Beautiful work! Excellent! Conscientious workers!" he said.  "They are
great boys are ants!"
     "Ants? Surely they didn't build it?"
     "Certainly."
     "But why then are the plant lice living in it?"
     "Just because it  happens  to  be  an ants' dairy  farm." The Professor
waved his blue umbrella and said:
     "Just as mankind breeds cows, so ants herd plant lice. Not only do they
breed them but they protect them from enemies.
     And to  prevent the rain washing their cows away they build  them these
house farms."
     "And how do the ants carry the milk away?"
     "Why carry it? The ants come here and drink the milk."
     Karik grinned cheerfully.
     "It's not so much a farm as a cafeteria."
     "Some  types  of ants," continued the Professor,  "chase the plant lice
into their ant hills when winter starts and feed on fresh milk for the whole
winter without ever coming out of their ant hill."
     "Gunning!" whistled  Karik.  "But  I  read  somewhere that  ants  slept
through the winter and did not eat anything."
     "That is perfectly true, but not of  all the ants. In ant hills some of
the ants are always on watch. These are the ones that feed on the plant lice
milk."
     "These must be the white ants who feed  during the winter!" said Valya.
"I also read about them. They live in Africa and they are called termites."
     "Oh,  Valya, you have muddled it up. There are  no such things as white
ants.  And  termites  are not ants although they  resemble  ants  in  build.
Termites are nearer dragonflies than ants."
     "And are there no white ants?"
     "No!  There are black,  chestnut, red, blood-red and yellow ants. There
are  ant sculptors, ant miners, stone  quarriers, cowherds,  agriculturists,
honey ants, umbrella  ants and  solitary ants.  Then you have  by  no  means
exhausted their occupations."

     * * * * * *

     Still talking about ants, the travellers came to a precipice which fell
sharply away down to a green valley surrounded with low hills.
     Light clouds floated above the hills.

     The  tops of the hills were flooded with the orange tints of the  early
evening sun.
     ''Look  !'' exclaimed  Valya,  suddenly. "Egyptian  pyramids. Look ! Do
look!"
     In the middle of the valley there rose a queer-shaped hill.
     It  was made  of dark beams covered over  with earth. Hanging galleries
covered the sides of the pyramid and appeared to slope downwards in spirals.
     "Ants!" said the Professor. "Black ants. These are evidently the owners
of the farms we have just passed."
     Long-bodied  just  like greyhounds, the ants were fussing  around their
ant hill. They thrust backwards  and forwards, ran jostling each other along
the hanging  galleries.  Knocking  each  other  down, getting  up again, and
running, running, running. Apparently they had been frightened by something.
They were  carrying great white  cocoons  and dragging these in  through the
dark entrances of their ant  hill. The long white eggs seemed to float above
the heads of the black ants.
     "Why are they dragging these eggs about?" asked Valya.
     The Professor shrugged his shoulders.
     "  I suppose  it  is because  it's going  to rain," he  answered. "They
usually hide  their  cocoons  or eggs  as you call them  and close  all  the
entrances and exits  to their nests before rain comes. But we  mustn't waste
time, whilst the ants are busy with  their own affairs we  must  try and get
across the valley.  Also,  my dears, we  must seek some  comfortable  refuge
where we can shelter from the rain."
     The  travellers  started to climb down. But  they  had  hardly  taken a
couple of steps when they heard a sort of confused but increasing noise.
     The Professor stopped.
     "Is that the rain?"
     He looked at the sky.
     It  had grown  dark and  thundery clouds were covering it.  The  grassy
jungle was still as if it had been hushed. But there was no sign of rain.
     "What is it making the noise?"
     The travellers looked about themselves cautiously. The children watched
the Professor  uneasily  as he listened  attentively  to  the rising  noise,
stroking his grey beard.
     I "Strange, very strange!" he gruff-gruffed. "I don't like this  noise,
my dears."
     The Professor and the children hid themselves behind grass trees.
     "It's as if someone were running!" said Karik, cautiously looking  from
behind a thick trunk.
     The  noise came  nearer  and nearer.  They  could now  distinguish  the
trampling  of  rapidly moving feet. It  seemed  as if  a herd of  frightened
cattle was stampeding towards the children.
     The tops of the distant hills became wreathed in something like smoke.
     It was a cloud of dust engulfing them.
     "I see  them!" shouted  Valya.  "There! There  they are!  Look! They're
coming! Oy, however many are there?"
     On the distant ridges of the hill there had now appeared a host of dark
points.
     To begin with they spread along the ridges and then suddenly started to
spread down the sides of the hills.
     The hills became  darkened. Great hordes of some  sort  of animals were
sweeping downwards like an avalanche and soon the whole valley was moving as
if it  were alive. All the time from behind the hills there emerged more and
more new columns.
     "Red ants !" shouted the Professor.
     He had made no mistake.
     These were huge red ants.  Their strong bodies shone like  copper. They
were twice as big  as the black ants. And what a vicious war-like appearance
they had !
     Without  any pause  the stranger ants  flung themselves in assault upon
the ant  hill belonging  to the back ants. They grappled hold of  the  beams
with clutching feet and soon a living stream flowed along the galleries.
     The owners of the ant hill rushed to meet this vicious attack. A bitter
struggle ensued on the galleries.
     The  red  ants, like  a  band  of hungry  dogs, fell upon the  peaceful
cowherd ants, killed them and threw them down from the galleries.
     They attacked the ant  hill from all sides. The cowherd  ants  defended
themselves desperately.
     They  perished in  hundreds bravely defending  every  entrance to their
home. But the forces were too unequal.
     The red ants clambered over the  bodies of the mutilated black ants and
pushed forward step by step  until  at  last  having swept aside their small
opponents they hurled themselves noisily into the interior of the ant heap.
     All along the galleries dead ants were being thrown down.
     Below at the edge of the ant heap a small group of black ants was still
bravely battling with their red foes.
     But the battle was already won.
     The red  ants had  destroyed  the black ants  and  they  now started to
pillage the ant heap.
     The  victors dragged white cocoons out of the  tunnels and hastily  ran
down the galleries to where beneath there  jostled a disorderly noisy crowd.
They  were like bandits who after destroying a house were dragging the goods
away in sacks.
     "Whatever are they up to?" asked Karik, quite perplexed.
     "Don't  you see?" whispered the Professor in reply.  "The red ants have
captured the cocoons of  the  black  ants,  their children  in  other words.
They'll carry off these cocoons to their own ant  hill  and when  these ants
come out they'll make them their slaves."
     "What?"
     Karik jumped up as if he had been stung.
     "And  why  haven't you done  something about it? These slave owners are
busy robbing, and here we are sitting with our hands folded?"
     He  seized a  stone from the  ground and swinging  it  around  flung it
violently at a  group of the bandits, who were dragging white cocoons out of
the ant hill.
     "Hit them! Valya,  what are you looking at? Can't  you  pee? What awful
parasites!"
     Lumps of  earth and  stones  now flew  amongst the  red  ants.  Without
thinking of the danger the children darted from behind the trees.
     "Fire!"  ordered  Karik. And  two  stones  whistled into  the  crowd of
bandits.
     The Professor, becoming frightened, seized the children by the arms.
     "Stop! You lunatics! What are you doing? Do  you want  them  to  attack
us?"
     "Well, let them!"  frowned Valya. "Let them attack us ! We'll soon show
them what happens to people who make slaves."
     "We can't fight them!" scolded the Professor.
     "That  remains to be seen," answered Karik, pugnaciously, still  firing
stones at the ants.
     The  children  had worked themselves up to such a pitch that they could
not be restrained.
     "What  about you?" Valya shouted  at the Professor. "Aren't you ashamed
to stand there with your  hands folded? Come on, help us!" and she  shoved a
stone towards him.
     But the Professor waved his hand and stepped on one side.
     He sat down on the edge  of the precipice and swinging his legs  in the
air started to count the ants which had been hit by the children.
     At that moment one of the children deftly hit an ant plumb on the head.
The ant staggered and slowly, just as if it was thinking hard, it started to
fall forward. At that moment  a second stone  whistled at it, hitting it  on
the chest. The  ant  dropped and lay  still.  The cocoon  fell  out  of  its
clutches and rolled down the hill. Another of the bandits ran up to it.
     "See if you can hit one !" Valya shouted.
     The  Professor, quite  unexpectedly to himself,  bent his arm back  and
threw a stone at the ant.
     Just then the bandit ant was making for the cocoon. It was on the point
of seizing it  with its claws when  the stone thrown by the Professor hit it
on the claw. The  ant turned and fell on one side, spun around and made off"
limping.
     "Aha, you  don't  like that!"  grinned the Professor, and bent over for
more stones.
     A third ant had already reached  the  cocoon. Having seized  it the ant
quickly made off towards his gang.
     "Nonsense," roared the Professor. "I won't let you have it!" At that he
fired a stone so precisely that it knocked this ant out also.
     The cocoon  now  rolled away  off  to one side. "Mow them down!" yelled
Karik. "It is no use just hitting odd ones like that.  Oh, if only our scout
troop was here we'd  soon  show these slave-makers . . .  what  blackguards.
Come on, all together. Give them a volley!"
     Heavy stones crashed over amongst the ants.
     "Hurrah, they are running away !" cried Valya cheerfully.
     She bent over to pick up another stone and suddenly saw in front of her
a fearsome ant face. It had got up the cliff unnoticed and was upon her.
     She seized a lump of earth, swung it upwards and brought it down on the
ant's head, screaming as she did it.
     "Help, help! Come quickly!"
     The ant staggered but made on towards the brave girl.
     "They are here! Come on!" she screamed.
     The Professor and Karik dashed over to her.
     The Professor gave orders.
     "You attack at the side, I'll be in front! Hit it with stones!"
     "Ya-ya-ya-yah!" shouted  the children, and fearlessly hurled themselves
at the ant.
     The Professor hit it full force in the eye with a stone.
     The ant shuddered,  staggered and  helplessly started kicking its  feet
about. Karik struck it in the back and Valya jumping in closer hit it with a
stone on the head. The ant fell heavily to the ground.
     "Hurrah !" yelled Valya.
     With her stone  raised high above  her head she  stood there red in the
face with the exertion and beaming with pride at the Professor and Karik.
     It was, however, too early to celebrate.
     Down in the ravine a whole horde  of fierce ants were streaming over to
the help of the bandit. They were running along, agile and  muscular and the
sun  glinted on their  red shining  sides which  sparkled  like some sort of
copper armour.
     The grassy jungle shook with the heavy beat of ants' feet.
     "Valya, Valya! Lookout! Come back!" yelled Karik.
     Valya turned.
     "Oy! a hundred of them!" she cried  out. "No!  more than that  and they
are climbing up! They're coming up!"
     The hordes of ants were swarming up the sides of the ravine,
     "We must run for it!" barked the Professor.
     He  seized the  children  by  the hands, they  dashed  off together not
caring where they went, jumping over holes and stumbling against rocks.
     The wind sang in their ears: fe-e-ew!
     With  thunderous  tread the ants charged behind  them, gaining  all the
time on the unfortunate travellers.
     Now, now! another  minute  and they'll catch  up, seize  and  tear  the
Professor and the children in pieces.
     Panting  from  the pace at  which he had run, the Professor looked over
his shoulder at the ants, and  then at  the children. Would they  be able to
keep going?
     "We  cannot get  away!" the thought made the Professor  cold with fear.
"We cannot possibly escape them !"
     What could be done? Must he and the children all perish?
     No, it was unthinkable!
     Suppose he were to stop and hold the  ants. Maybe the children would be
able to hide somewhere whilst he fought the beasts.
     He pretended to stumble accidentally and stopped.
     Seeing this the children also stopped.
     "Run on! Run on!" he waved with his hands.
     Karik and Valya ran on, but after a few steps they stopped again.
     "For goodness sake why don't you run?" shouted the  Professor  angrily.
"Run on. What's stopping you?"
     "A river! Here is a river!"
     "Where?" .
     The Professor bounded towards the children. In front of them was a line
of low hillocks.
     Behind the hillocks a river showed blue shimmering in the sun.
     "Can  you  swim that?" the Professor panted  at the children, breathing
heavily.
     Karik and Valya looked at each other and both together answered.
     "Rather!"
     "Of course we can swim it!"
     "Come on! We're saved!"
     The Professor ran up to the  cliff edge of the  river.  "Dive  in!"  he
shouted, "and  swim across!"  and throwing up his  arms  he  plunged off the
cliff into the river, yelling.
     "Follow me."
     Not hesitating a moment, Karik and Valya both dived after him.
     The cold water took  their breath away. Karik bobbed up like a cork and
looked hastily around.
     Ahead, blowing and snorting like a seal, swam the Professor.
     His bald head shone in the sunshine like a polished billiard ball. With
speedy strokes  Karik and  Valya swam after him. But apparently he could not
see them. He twisted his head back and raised himself out of the water for a
second looking around.
     "Ahoy!" he shouted. "Where are you?"
     "Here!"
     "Here!"
     "Don't stop!"
     Karik and Valya threshed the water with their arms. Making every effort
they  tried to  overtake him, but he was quite clearly a master swimmer. The
distance between him and the children increased every minute. He reached the
other bank whilst the children were still in the middle.
     Valya cried out something. So  he  turned  back  and swam alongside the
children.
     "Well! how are things?"  he asked with some  anxiety. "You are not  too
tired! Can you make it?"
     "We'll make it!" Valya just managed to bubble back.
     Karik turned  his  head back; he was no longer afraid - the ants  could
not swim.
     There on the bank they were crowding, running down the side to the very
edge  of the river, bending down to the water's edge, feeling it  with their
feet, just as if they had decided to try and swim - then immediately drawing
back.
     Not one of them could make up its mind to plunge into the water.
     Worn and  weary  the travellers dragged themselves up the opposite bank
and staggering with tiredness made their way to some flat rocks.
     The children sank on to the rocks.
     "There's war  for you," said the  Professor, bending his head  down and
wringing the water out of his beard.
     Karik and Valya didn't reply.
     They  gazed at the opposite bank where the ants  were running backwards
and forwards.
     "And ants don't swim?" asked Valya, wiping her face with her hands.
     "No! These do not swim!" The Professor comforted the girl.
     "But,"  said Karik, taking a  deep breath, "but  I  read somewhere that
they  held  on to each other, made  a floating bridge  and got across rivers
like that."
     "True enough!" nodded  the Professor, "but there are not enough of them
here to make such a bridge. Generally speaking. . . ."
     He  broke  off  to gaze anxiously at the  heavy thundery clouds, and he
turned abruptly from the bank.
     "There is  another danger threatening us,  my dears. Very soon a pretty
drop of rain  will start to fall. Hoo-oo-. We must hide ourselves somewhere,
the sooner the better."
     Valya started grinning.
     "Surely we are so wet already we have nothing much to fear?"
     "You forget," barked the Professor, "that the first drop  of rain would
knock  us off our feet and the  next drops would beat us into the earth.  We
had jolly well better look  around for some hidey hole where  we can shelter
during the rain."
     The travellers had not got much further before the sky darkened, a cold
wind rustled the tops of the grassy jungle and  odd  drops of rain could  be
heard drumming on the leaves.
     These were just the first drops.
     "Quicker!" ordered the Professor, "follow me, my dears!"
     He rolled down a steep slope and jumping up ran on.
     The children plunged after him.
     Their  blue dresses  fluttered  in  the wind. Their umbrellas shook and
their long handles bent like bows.
     Suddenly the Professor turned abruptly to one side.
     "Here we are, children!" he shouted, running towards a high  grey cliff
which stood out of the valley like a skyscraper.
     On top of this cliff there lay an enormous dark brown mass, like a hat.
     In the distance it looked just like a giant peaked cap.
     The Professor ran up to the foot of this strange cliff and throwing his
head back started to examine it.
     "Well!  well! this is marvellous, isn't it?" he said, wiping  his  face
with his hand.
     Karik and Valya ran up to him and both started:
     "What is it?"
     "Don't you recognise it?" smiled the  Professor. "Take a  good  look at
this marvel!"
     The cliff  stretched  high into  the  sky and  the higher it  went  the
narrower it became.
     Right on top at the height of a two-storied house there hung a circular
spongy-looking roof. It projected like the brim of an immense hat protecting
them from the rain. The dark shadow of this roof covered the top half of the
pillar cliff.
     "A mushroom!" yelled Valya.
     "Of course it is - a mushroom!" laughed the Professor.
     "Which sort is it?" asked Karik. "A White mushroom, a Shaggy cap, a Fly
catcher or a Blewit?"
     The Professor opened his mouth to reply but  heavy rain started to beat
down. His voice was drowned in the roar of the torrent.
     Neither the Professor nor the children had ever seen such rain before.
     Huge  balls  of  water whistled  and  howled  through the air,  falling
crashingly upon the earth. Pieces of earth were thrown up just as if a shell
had exploded. Before the mud  had time to settle  hundreds more water shells
howling  and  crashing  buried themselves  in  the  earth,  throwing it  up,
scattering it, and splashing.
     Streams of  water  spread over the earth. Soon a turbid watery  curtain
shut the travellers off from the rest of the world.
     The air suddenly became much cooler.
     Shivering  and  resting  first  on  one  leg and  then on the other the
Professor and the children were like geese standing on ice.
     An icy blast of wind  came  from  the side  and drenched the travellers
with cold spray.
     "Go-oo-old!" Karik's teeth were chattering.
     "Nasty, my dear, nasty!" gruff-gruffed the Professor, and  wriggled his
shoulders  with the  cold. "We shall get quite numb like this.  We must find
the sheltered side of the mushroom. Now come on. You, Karik, go round to the
right and  you, Valya,  to  the left. Assembly point  is here. Try  and find
whether there is not a better place than this. Now quick march!"
     Their teeth chattering with the cold, the children  ran around the base
of the giant mushroom.
     Valya rounded a thick projection of the  cliff and the  wind shifted to
her back and then fell away.
     Behind the projection all was calm.
     Underfoot there were dry sticks and twigs. The earth was warm. Stamping
her frozen feet, Valya felt them at once getting warmer.
     It was  the very  driest and warmest place  under  the mushroom but was
somewhat dark. A little  way above the ground the thick skin of the mushroom
had split and a piece  of  it hung down like a canopy roof overshadowing the
ground.
     Valya got under the canopy.
     "Here we  are ! Come on  here  !"  she shouted.  "I have found  a tent!
Here's a tent! Come round to me!"
     The  Professor and  Karik soon  appeared  from  different  sides of the
mushroom.
     They were at once delighted by the roomy nook with its canopy.
     "Not at all bad!" said the Professor, looking round. In such a pavilion
they could clearly wait until the rain was over in tolerable comfort.
     He rolled some thick  short stems  of dried  grass under the canopy and
the travellers sat down and. made themselves comfortable.
     "I  propose,"  said  Karik,  brightening  up,  "that  this  refuge  for
travellers should be named 'Valya's Wonder Tent'!"
     "I  have no objection!" declared Valya, clearly most taken with Karik's
notion.
     "Well, well!" said the Professor. "All we need now is a nice cup of tea
and - "
     But he didn't  have a chance to say  what  he would like with his  tea.
Something  heavy fell on to the  roof of the wonder tent and rolled rumbling
over  their heads.  Then twisting  and curling itself in  loops a fat  white
snake with a  black head swung downwards in the air. It  fell heavily on the
ground, started to turn around and  wriggle towards the travellers'  feet as
if it were about to attack them.
     The children darted to the Professor and hid behind his back.
     But the Professor himself  was also retreating in alarm.  The snake was
about twice as big as he was and much fatter. It bent its black head down to
the ground and working it like a drill twisted and turned until at length it
had disappeared under the ground.
     "Ah, that's it!" muttered the Professor.
     The travellers  had  not  recovered from this shock  when  white snakes
started to rain down from above and bury themselves in the earth.
     The children began to run away.
     "Where  are you  going?  What's the  matter?"  shouted  the  Professor.
"Stop!"
     He grabbed them by the arms.
     "The snakes!" whispered Valya.
     "Snakes!  Rubbish!  Those  are  not  snakes,  my friend,  they're  just
ordinary larvae, midge larvae."
     "Midges?"
     "Certainly! Fungus midges. Do  you see?" the Professor pointed with his
hand  to the mushroom roof;  "do  you  see  how  they  have eaten  away  the
mushroom? Oh you need  not  be  afraid of them, my  friends! They don't even
notice you. They are much too full of their  own worries. Whilst the soil is
wet and soft they must hurry to work themselves as deep as possible into the
ground so as to turn into chrysalises.
     The children became calmer.
     The  party once again seated themselves  in the wonder tent and huddled
together.
     The storm raged around the mushroom.  The grass  forest bent  under the
force  of  the water. The rain drummed with such force on the mushroom